M1 iMac Review - Better and Worse

all right so this is the 24 inch m1 imac and this machine is just different it's different from any other computer i've ever used it's different from not just windows based devices and other all-in-ones but is different from even imacs of the past and it's different in some ways that are really cool and in other ways less cool but let's just get in so even the unboxing i normally don't unbox things on this channel but on this device it's worth it so i get this thing in and it comes in a color matched box so you can see the color of the device on the packaging even the handle is matched to the color of the device like right off the bat you can tell that color is going to play a very important role in the whole product experience of this new imac so i tried opening it like the previous imacs box upright handle on the top and i don't think it opens like that anymore i popped it open i was like this doesn't seem right so i think the method is to lie it down flat and open it up like a like a toy box or a shoe box so you get inside and on the top you see that imac but i wanted to see the accessories like the accoutrements what do you get in there that is all color matched as well so you have the color match magic keyboard you have the color match lightning cable this has got a fabric weave around the cable looks really nice you also have the color match trackpad color match magic mouse and the power supply also has a woven fabric cable that's colored but all of this pales in comparison to the real star of the show the color matched apple stickers right those are very important so the device i have here is the green color and depending on the lighting that you have it in and kind of the angle that it's sitting in that light it's going to look slightly different the back of the device has the most prominent coloring it's a very bold and vibrant color this is kind of like a dark green in certain lighting but other times it looks more like a more vibrant teal color but the logo up here is very big this is bigger than it has been in the past with imax and it's like a glass covered apple logo it's pretty pretty loud if you ask me but up front is a more kind of relaxed chilled vibe this is the area they'd be working in and it's got a more pastel aqua green color to it now in terms of the bezel it's a white bezel and personally i like it i think it's the right decision for them in terms of memorability but i also think it's just a better look for the type of device that this was meant to be so i'm probably the wrong person to ask because i'm the guy that has like a white gaming laptop and i swapped out the bezel on my iphone sc so it's like a fully white iphone i'm a dude that likes white bezels i'm clearly biased but when i moved into my house there's this area in my kitchen slash living area that had this nook that was built for a workspace like there's a very small area that's clearly meant for someone to do work in right and i always wanted to put some kind of pc in there and i tried everything including the older imac with the black bezel basically every item that i put in there that was tech it was like it can't stay this is too ugly so i just left it empty for years it's just been an empty space and then just out of curiosity i brought this thing back and i'd say it looks good now i think the yellow would have worked better than the green in that particular environment but the presence of these white bezels makes it easier to fit into home environments than black bezels the argument has been brought up that if you have black bezels if you're a professional colorist you can match colors a little bit better and they've done studies where if you have black bezels you work like 1.3 more efficiently it ain't that kind of device that's really not what the bezel color was meant to do not to improve work efficiency but to make it look good in certain environments and depending on what you're looking at this imac for that's either a good thing or potentially a bad thing okay so white bezel's up front and it's covered in glass and that glass extends all the way down to the bottom of the device even right over the chin there's no seam or break as it goes over that colored component and it's got an anti-reflective coating to it this chin is very imac it's very iconic but having used this for a little while i don't like it i feel like in the future this should disappear or maybe more professional versions or variants of the imac we'll remove it but it's there for now the power supply has a few interesting things going on on the higher spec ones it's got an ethernet port right on the power supply itself to kind of keep the back area as cable free as possible and that color matched cable comes out of the power supply and terminates to this brightly colored magnetic connector and this has some pretty strong magnets you can have it in the wrong orientation but when you bring it up close it'll actually rotate it so it's in the proper orientation and it'll snap in it's kind of neat now this device is very light it's 4.5 kilos a little bit less than that so less than 10 pounds and the bottom of this stand here is slick plastic it's not like a grippy material so it's nice to slide it around a little bit if you want to tilt the screen to show something to someone or tilt away from the sun it's good for that but because it's a light machine and there's no grip on this if that cable in the back gets yanked i think there's a very real possibility that this thing goes right over the edge of your table even with that magnetic connection because it's a strong magnet like if you yank it maybe it'll save you in some cases but it's not like magsafe at all it's like a pretty strong connection just putting it out there okay so it's a very thin device 11.5 millimeters it's actually kind of strange to see a device this thin that has this kind of computational power but 11.5 millimeters is it's weirdly thin uh the screen 23.5 across it's four and a half k it's bright it's color accurate it's what you would expect from a imac screen these are always good and it does not disappoint if i had to complain about something it would be the viewing angle like it's an ips panel not an oled panel so viewing angles are limited when it comes to ips stuff but you can see that when you shift it to a steep enough angle you start to lose color and brightness but that's just ips technology for you but otherwise the screen is just it's on point the keyboards look really nice this year the color match chassis obviously go really nicely with the imax the rounded corners i don't love it i feel like it's something i just have to get used to over time but it is a little bit strange to me the touch id works perfectly but i would rather seen face id to get into the imac instead of a fingerprint based sensor i'm just lazier like that the button is actually smartly designed to have a different kind of actuation force required to press it because if you press it by accident if you're like typing if you press by accident it'll log you out which would be annoying but they've made it so that it it needs a bit more force than a regular key to press it the bottom of the keyboard is a plastic material but it makes the whole thing very light yet very sturdy to type on and i think most people will enjoy that keyboard the trackpad performs exactly how you would expect a apple trackpad to perform it's big it's reliable and it's got great haptics the mouse however i can't say the same thing i've never liked the magic mouse it comes in colors this time around if you're into that but i've just never liked the the tracking or clicking experience on magic mouse but there you have it those are the three input devices and they all charge via lightning cable in terms of ports you have your headphone jack on the left and you have four usbc's on the back at least on the premium model and two of those are thunderbolt 4. if you get the kind of base model you only get two usb-c on the back and those are both thunderbolt 4. but the port selection is decent i guess on an imac like this that's super thin and focused on aesthetics it's to be expected but a couple more would have been nice the webcam is decent but it does not do the facial tracking thing that the new ipads can do and i feel like on a device like this it's a bit of a miss obviously the camera hardware is completely different this is using an older generation of camera hardware but that feature would have been wonderful on a device that's sitting in a home in environments like living rooms where there's multiple people interacting and sometimes you're far away from your imac right because if this is in your kitchen and you weren't always close to your screen the ability to kind of track your face as you moved around would have been nice the speakers sound awesome there's six of them and they're just loud and clear they're very imac they're very good the mics are solid as well there's three of them there's two up front one in the back and they do a decent job at cancelling out like ambient noise that's not supposed to be there but yeah the audio system on the imax can't complain now when it comes to performance this is running apple's m1 chip and it's an amazing chip when it comes to laptops and even the mac mini because energy efficiency is a big part of that product type but when it comes to the imac energy efficiency isn't as big of a deal right if this thing ran 150 watts or even 300 watts on the power supply the experience for the user it's not vastly different because there's no battery supplying this thing right so there's a part of me that likes the fact that it's an m1 and it's great in terms of that but i was hoping for there to be more but there isn't this is the exact same kind of performance as you would get from like a m1 macbook pro or the m1 mac mini so just good performance great cpu performance but kind of okay gpu performance and i use the word okay because last year's model the 2020 imac with intel chips could have been equipped with a radeon pro 5700 xt a very capable gpu and in comparison to what m1 can do in terms of raw graphics capabilities that was more powerful than what m1 is that being said this is just a different type of computer than what the imac was last year right the imacs in the past have always been a step up above their laptops more powerful and different chips more graphics capabilities they were just a noticeable and substantial step up from what their laptop line was right but now with this new m1 imac it's it's good it's really good but it's not that extra step that we've seen in imax of the past so when it comes to a purchase decision if you're looking at this and you're watching this video chances are you are enthusiastic about tech right you're not just drawn to the pretty colors like you care about the performance and you care about stuff i think for the average person you'll be plenty pleased with this just the performance is fantastic but this is built for that kind of common workflow right i sound like a snooty like this is for the plebs no it's good but it's not it's not going to be able to kick that extra step like if your workflow is very dependent on graphics or very depend on computational strength this is not going to be the best that apple puts out this year i don't think i think that they put out something just more powerful for the professional workflow in the future okay hope you guys enjoyed this video thumbs if you liked it subs if you loved it see you guys next [Music] you

Channel: Dave2D

Views: 1,200,666

Rating: 4.9076276 out of 5

Keywords: Dave2d, review, dave lee, imac, apple imac, m1 imac, apple m1 imac, imac review, apple imac review, imac unboxing, apple imac unboxing, imac 2021 unboxing, apple imac 2021, apple imac 2021 unboxing, imac m1, imac 24 inch unboxing, imac 24 inch, apple imac m1 2021

Id: E59xZyDFiJ8

Length: 10min 38sec (638 seconds)

Published: Tue May 18 2021