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New design matters. New design inspires. New design drives purchases. And now there's

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finally a new design in the flesh for the iMac. It's been a long time since we've

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seen something this new, fresh, and exciting for the desk. Apple, a company famed for

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its industrial design, really did let its iMac languish. The very computer that blazed

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the trail from the company's brush with death. So let's really take a look at this new one

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and find out if it's been worth the wait, and if it's worth the $1500.

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I didn't think this would happen. I didn't want it to happen, but I'm smitten. I've

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fallen in love with the computer, and what we have here is a personal computer that you

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can truly make personal right when you order it. Channeling the original colored iMac G3,

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it's available in a whole seven colors. And I think for the average person, it's the most

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interesting question worth asking. What color would you take? Probably the purple, yellow,

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probably silver. Purple or blue. This is a big commitment. Purple. The green. You know what?

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I'm loving this green. Blue. It's amazing how you give people an option to express their

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personalities, and they'll show you just how vibrant they are. Me? It was between the warm tones,

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orange and yellow. They really jumped out at me quite simply because they're not what you'd

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find on any PC these days. And after going with the yellow, I don't regret it at all,

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but I'm sure I'd feel the same way with orange too. The pictures online, and perhaps even this

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video, don't quite capture how the iMac reflects the lighting conditions. This yellow one is just

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so cheerful yet golden. It literally and figuratively brightens my mood when I look at it. It's like

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the warm rising sun. A lot of people have been also harping on about these white bezels, and I

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don't get it. This is supposed to be a bright, friendly computer. The screen is supposed to be

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obvious. And if you think about how white the interfaces of Big Sur are, it doesn't really

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strike me as odd that the bezels are white too. Other computers look like black mirrors,

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but this actually looks like a computer that's being designed.

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As this is Apple's first ARM-based all-in-one, I think it's important to analyze just how much

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that dictated the design of this computer. It's impossibly thin. Too thin for a headphone jack

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too thin even for an old USB-A port. It's so thin that it doesn't really have a side profile.

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It's a case of, now you see it, now you don't. And that thinness is really the story of the

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computer. It's why this chin remains for one. The logic board, and most of the things we think of

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as a computer, are contained in this controversial section. I support the move as it maintains

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the look of previous iMacs while avoiding making the whole computer thicker, wasting space. And

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they clearly wanted to depart from the curved back of the outgoing iMac in favor of a symmetrical,

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flat design. It also means that the power supply is external and under the desk, along with the

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Ethernet port. And since that means there's only one color-matched cable visible at the top of the

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desk, I don't mind that as much as I thought I would. The performance of the M1 chip contained

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in this iMac has been talked about for months since their debut in the fall. Benchmark-wise,

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this mid-range model performs about the same as other fan-cooled M1 models. Though recent reports

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show that the base tier is slightly less performant due to there being only one fan for cooling,

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compared to the two in this model. That, with the pricing, leads to a strange choice. The mid-range

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iMac is the one that gets you all the latest iMac innovations. Touch ID on the keyboard,

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which is wonderful, all the color options, and all four USB-C ports at $1,500. That doesn't sound so

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bad. Right. But a MacBook Pro with the same M1 performance, a touch ID sensor, 8 gigabytes of

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RAM, 256 gigabytes of SSD storage, and 20 hours of battery life costs $1,300. $200 less. Now,

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I don't know about you, but I know a lot of people like laptops. So why would they buy that?

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If you're a laptop person, I'm going to have difficulty explaining why. But there are a few

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things this iMac still does better. One, the screen is just bigger and nicer. It's a 23.5 inch retina,

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sporting 4.5K pixels across a 16 by 9 aspect ratio. At default scaling, you're going to just fit

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so much more on the screen while maintaining big, easy to read interface elements. And that also

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means making things bigger for aging eyes is less of a compromise. Two, while the speakers on the

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MacBook Pro are good, these are better. They're downward firing and support spatial audio, but

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that's not what's impressive about them. Good speakers need air to move about, and Apple has

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created these incredibly thin chambers, but then made them take up most of the area behind the

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screen. So it really punches above its weight. Three, this webcam is 1080p with some image signal

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processing added to the mix. It's much, much better than any MacBook webcam, which is about

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as potatoes Apple dare let them get. It's perfect for what's left of this pandemic. And four, well,

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just look at it. So if you're pining to put this on your desk, or the desk of a family member,

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which one should you get? The base $1,300 model will probably find itself in schools and with

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seniors. Though, I mean, if you're a light user and a lot of people are, you're probably not

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going to notice the performance differences between it and this double fan model. So you can safely

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go for that. Just remember, it doesn't have touch ID, that's $50, Ethernet, or all the colors

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available. Plus, there's only two Thunderbolt ports. So if you want to save money and get that,

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I recommend at least paying $30 for the Ethernet option. The next big upgrade worth considering

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is 16 gigabytes of RAM for $200, especially since you can't upgrade memory later. This will probably

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help your computer feel fast for a few extra years. And RAM is certainly more worthwhile

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than upgrading storage because it's $800 to have two terabytes inside the iMac. It's less than $100

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for two terabytes in this yellow enclosure. Yes, a spinning drive is slower, but most people are

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storing documents, photos, videos, and music for playback. And a drive like this is fast enough.

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And since this computer isn't going anywhere, it's easy to just leave it plugged in so you have

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access to that data whenever you need it. Knowing how I use my desktop computer these days,

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I think I'd be fine just getting a $1,500 mid-tier model in orange and then calling it a decade.

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I really like this computer. It harkens back to a very brief time when computers were fun and

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flavorful pieces of design. I really hope it inspires colorful peripheral designs that will

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match the iMac you've put on your desk. Remember the impact the original one had?

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This new iMac really does make a case for itself as a computer made for families and individuals

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in the home. If it were to be placed on that four-quadrant model lineup of 1998, it would

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sit firmly in the consumer desktop space. A space I'm happy to see clearly defined again.

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Thanks for checking in on this Mac Address. If you thought this was a good video, give it a

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like and if you want to see more when they come out, feel free to subscribe. Now, that

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we're done with this video. I am so excited to put this on my desk and replace that awful monitor

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that Riley ruined last week. It's going to be good to have a splash of color up there.