I love it - Apple iMac (2021) Review
Mac Address
·Mac Address
·2022-05-05
·
1,448 words · ~7 min read
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(upbeat music)
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- New design matters, new design inspires,
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new design drives purchases. And now there's finally a new design
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in the flesh for the iMac. It's been a long time since we've seen something this new,
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fresh and exciting for the desk. Apple, a company famed for its industrial design,
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really did let its iMac languish. The very computer that blaze the trail
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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 $1,500.
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(upbeat music)
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I didn't think this is would happen. I didn't want it to happen, but I'm smitten.
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I've fallen in love with a computer. And what we have here is a personal computer
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that you can truly make personal right when you order it.
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Channeling the original colored iMac G3, it's available in a whole seven colors.
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And I think for the average person, it's the most interesting question worth asking.
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What color would you take? - Probably the purple.
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- Yellow. - Probably silver. - Purple or blue. - This is a big commitment.
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Purple. - The green. - You know what? I'm loving this green.
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- Blue. - It's amazing how you give people an option to express their personalities
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and they'll show you just how vibrant they are. Me, it was between the warm tones, orange and yellow.
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They really jumped out at me quite simply because they're not what you'd find on any PC these days.
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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 video
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don't quite capture how the iMac reflects the lighting conditions.
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This yellow one is just so cheerful yet golden.
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It literally and figuratively brightens my mood when I look at it.
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It's like the warm, rising sun. A lot of people have been also harping on
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about these white bezels and I don't get it.
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This is supposed to be a bright, friendly computer. The screen is supposed to be obvious.
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And if you think about how white the interfaces of big Sur are, it doesn't really strike me as odd
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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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(soft music) (upbeat music)
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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
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for a headphone Jack to go through. Too thin even for an old USB A port.
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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.
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And that thinness is really the story of the computer.
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It's why this chin remains for one.
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The logic board and most the things we think of as a computer are contained in this controversial section.
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I support the move as it maintains the look of previous iMacs
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while avoiding making the whole computer thicker, wasting space.
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And they clearly wanted to depart from the curved back of the outgoing iMac in favor of a symmetrical flat design.
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It also means that the power supply is external
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and under the desk, along with the Ethernet port. And since that means there's only one color match cable
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visible at the top of the desk, I don't mind that as much as I thought I would.
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The performance of the M1 chip contained in this iMac has been talked about for months
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since their debut in the fall. Benchmark wise, this mid-range model performs
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about the same as other fan cooled M1 models. Though, recent reports show that the best here
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is slightly less performance due to there being only one fan for cooling compared
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to the two in this model. That with the pricing leads to a strange choice.
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The mid range iMac is the one that gets you all the latest iMac innovations,
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touch ID on the keyboard, which is wonderful.
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All the color options and all four USB-C ports at $1,500.
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That doesn't sound so bad. Right.
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But a Mac book pro with the same M1 performance,
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a touch ID sensor, eight gigabytes of RAM, 256 gigabytes of SSD storage
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and 20 hours of battery life costs $1,300, $200 less.
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Now, I don't know about you, but I know a lot of people like laptops.
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So why would they buy that? If you're a laptop person,
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I'm gonna have difficulty explaining why, but there are a few things this IMAX still does better.
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One, the screen is just bigger and nicer.
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It's a 23.5 inch retina, sporting 4.5 K pixels
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across a 16 by 9 aspect ratio. At default scaling, your going to just fit so much more
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on the screen while maintaining big, easy to read interface elements.
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And that also means making things bigger for aging eyes is less of a compromise.
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Two, while the speakers on the MacBook Pro are good,
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these are better. They're downward firing and support spatial audio,
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but that's not what's impressive about them. Good speakers need air to move about
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and Apple has created these incredibly thin chambers, but then made them take up most
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of the area behind the screen. So it really punches above its weight.
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Three, this webcam is 1080P with some image signal processing added to the mix.
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It's much, much better than any Mac book webcam
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which is about as potatoes Apple dare let them get. It's perfect for what's left of this pandemic.
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And four, well, just look at it.
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(upbeat music)
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So if you're planning to put this on desk or the desk of a family member, which one should you get?
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The base, $1,300 model will probably find itself in schools and with seniors,
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though, I mean, if you're like user and a lot of people are,
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you're probably not gonna notice the performance differences between it and this double fanned model.
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So you can safely go for that. Just remember, it doesn't have touch ID, that's $50,
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Ethernet or all the colors available. Plus there's only two Thunderbolt ports.
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So if you wanna save money and get that, I recommend at least paying $30 for the Ethernet option.
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The next big upgrade worth considering is 16 gigabytes of RAM for $200,
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especially since you can upgrade memory later. This'll probably help your computer feel fast
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for a few extra years. And RAM is certainly more worthwhile than upgrading storage
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because it's $800 to have two terabytes inside the iMac.
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It's less than $100 for two terabytes
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in this yellow enclosure. Yes, a spinning drive is slower,
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but most people are storing documents, photos, videos and music for playback
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and a drive like this is fast enough. And since this computer isn't going anywhere,
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it's easy to just leave it plugged in so you have access to that data whenever you need it.
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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
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in orange and then calling it a decade. (upbeat music)
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I really like this computer. It hearkens back to a very brief time
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when computers were fun and flavorful pieces of design.
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I really hope inspires colorful peripheral designs that will match the iMac you've put on your desk.
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Remember the impact the original one had? This new iMac really does make a case for itself
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as a computer made for families and individuals in the home.
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If it were to be placed on that four quadrant model lineup of 1998,
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it would sit firmly in the consumer desktop space,
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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 like
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and if you wanna see more when they come out, feel free to subscribe.
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Now that we're done with this video, I am so excited to put this on my desk
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and replace that awful monitor that Riley ruined last week.
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It's gonna be good to have a splash of color up there.