Intel-powered Macs are disappearing from Apple’s product lineup. Cupertino is, slowly but surely, making good on its promise to switch to its own Apple Silicon chips. The latest casualty is the budget-friendly 21.5-inch iMac, which Apple quietly discontinued recently.
No More Entry-Level iMac
The cost-friendly iMac was already hard to find. Apple’s introduction of its M1-powered 24-inch iMac came along with shuffling the smaller sibling to its own web page. You had to choose the 21.5-inch toggle the top of the iMac page just to get there.
Through the archives of Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, we can confirm the toggle for a 21.5-inch iMac was still active on October 28, 2021. By October 31, though, the option disappeared.
The Unspoken Death of the 21.5-Inch iMac
Apple made no announcement of the discontinuation. Previously, the 21.5-inch iMac was the least expensive option for an all-in-one desktop Mac, starting at $1099. It was a very popular model with education consumers. Now, while supplies last, the only option for that model is a refurbished iMac.
At only $200 more, the iMac 24-inch – Apple iMac still won’t break the bank, though. For quite some time, the entry-level 21.5-inch iMac has faced heavy criticism. The 7th-generation Intel Core i5 processor lagged performance-wise, the design was outdated, and it was still priced over a thousand dollars (without an education discount).
By way of comparison, the new 24-inch iMac starts at just $1299 and offers much better performance. It’s remarkably thinner and lighter, and offers a 4.5K Retina display. Out with the old, in with the new, as they say. With that said, if you truly want an Intel-powered iMac, the 27-inch model with up to a 10-core Intel Core i9 processor remains in production.
For now, at least.