The iMac has been completely redesigned to give customers an M1 chip, a thin, 11.5mm 4.5K Retina display, and a 1080p FaceTime HD camera.
2021 iMac Features
- This new 24-inch iMac is available to order April 30 and starts shipping in the second half of May
- It starts at US$1,299 for a 7-core GPU and US$1,499 for an 8-core GPU with four extra colors
- The new iMac includes a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, studio-quality mics, and a six-speaker sound system
- With the accompanying Magic Keyboard, iMac users get Touch ID for the first time
- iMac features softer colors and thinner borders on the front and comes in green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue, and silver
- It brings a new type of magnetic connector with a woven, color-matched cable
Every iMac features two Thunderbolt ports for superfast data transfers, giving customers high-performance options to connect to more devices, including support for up to a 6K display, like Apple Pro Display XDR, and Wi-Fi 6 delivers faster wireless performance. The 8-core iMac configuration offers two additional USB-C ports and also features a 1Gbps Ethernet port in the power adapter.
It’s a lovely update dragged down by stingy specs. $1300 for a desktop computer that only has two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, 256GB of storage, no Gigabit Ethernet and no Touch ID on the keyboard. To get the ports, Gigabit Ethernet and Touch ID keyboard you have to drop $1500. To get 512GB on the SSD, you’re at $1700.
I’m sorry, at some point, someone at Apple needs to deliver more than just half the bag for the money people spend. I’m not expecting bargain basement prices but that entry level iMac looks like a stripped down education version that should go for $1000. The consumer versions should start at 512GB on the SSD and that top end one should have at least 1TB. Ridiculous.
And I think that the RAM is not user upgradable so you would have to spend the money to max that out when making the purchase.