Speaking of the power brick, in order to keep the iMac as thin as possible Apple has removed the power supply from inside the iMac's chassis and stuck it inside of an external brick, just like a laptop. The higher-end configurations of the M1 iMac come with four USB-C ports, but only two of them are proper USB 4 ports.īecause the new iMac is so thin, Apple was forced to put the headphone jack on the side of the computer. Even on the high end, that's not a lot of connectivity. If you upgrade to the higher-end configuration, you get an additional two USB Type-C ports on the back (not Thunderbolt, meaning 10Gb/s max transfer speeds compared to 40Gb/s, and no display output) and a Gigabit ethernet port that's built into the power brick. If you go with the entry-level model, you're stuck with just two USB 4 Type-C ports and a headphone jack. In terms of ports, there is a significant difference between the lower and higher-end configuration. Trying it out for the first time the other day, the quality of the video output genuinely surprised me. Thanks to the relatively large bezels, Apple was able to squeeze in a high-quality 1080p FaceTime HD webcam that takes advantage of the M1's Neural Engine to apply some AI magic to your feed in real time. At full volume, it can compete with some high-quality Bluetooth speakers. This helps the iMac produce more and better-quality sound than you would expect given its size. Thanks to the huge chin, the entire space behind the screen was reserved for large air chambers that fill out the sound coming from the iMac's five speakers. The new iMac's 1080p webcam takes advantage of the "Neural Engine" built into the M1 chip to improve image quality on the fly.įortunately, there are benefits to some of these design elements. I may not love it, but I'm not surprised that Apple has chosen to keep it.Īlmost the entire computer is housed inside the controversial "chin" of the iMac. The bezels, especially when placed against a white wall, simply fade into the background as you focus on the content at hand.Īs for the chin, it has been an integral part of the iMac's design language from the very start. Maybe it's just me, but the idea that white bezels somehow disqualify this computer from being used for photo and video editing seems ridiculous on the face of it. While the 24-inch screen size continued to bother me long after day one, the bezels and chin faded from consciousness almost immediately. The second and third things I noticed were the white bezels and the classic iMac chin, two characteristics that prompted much mockery on announcement day. I can't remember the last time I used a display that was smaller than 27 inches, opting for 32 whenever I can, and the downgrade to 24 inches was jarring. Not just thin and lightweight – it genuinely looks like a huge iPad Pro on an aluminum stand – but the screen size itself. The first thing I noticed when I unboxed and set the redesigned 24-inch iMac on my desk was just how small it is. The iMac's 24-inch 4.5K Retina display might seem a bit small if you're used to editing on a 27- or 32-inch monitor. Given the quality and resolution of the iMac's display, $800 seems like a reasonable price to pay if you're happy with a 24-inch display. That configuration will cost you $2,100, or approximately $800 more than an identical M1 Mac mini. The entry-level price point includes the 8-core CPU/7-core GPU variant of the M1, only 8GB of RAM, a measly 256GB of built-in storage, no ethernet port on the power brick, one cooling fan instead of two and only two ports on the whole machine.įor creative work, we'd recommend stepping up to at least 512GB of storage and 16GB of RAM, like our review unit, or possibly going a step further by upgrading the storage to 1TB. You can get the 24-inch iMac for as little as $1,300, but this involves a lot of sacrifices. It features the 8-core CPU/8-core GPU variant of the M1, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage and all of the extra ports and cooling that come along with the higher-end configs. The M1 iMac we received for review sits near the top of the configuration spectrum.
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