M1 iMac Review: Ultra Thin Design Choice!

foreign [Music] my favorite [Music] [Music] night oh [Music] [Music] four to six days later hey what's up mkbhd here so the transition from all these intel chips to apple silicon has been happening throughout apple's lineup and now we've got the m1 chip in the macbook air and the mac mini and the macbook pro and there's also an ipad with m1 but also now the newest the most popular desktop apple makes actually the new imac so i've been using this computer and it's been fun but you know testing is a lot of hard work and everything but the more i do the more i'm realizing that the typical performance testing is actually not really as necessary with this i mean this new imac is clearly a far better computer than the baseline 21.5 inch imac it replaces like that machine was really starting to show its age and this m1 version runs circles around it in every performance metric imaginable from cpu to gpu storage capacity and speed it uses less power it's more efficient i mean it really is a surprisingly capable and impressive machine for something that's just a baseline model really the only thing that got worse is the port situation which i'll go over in a bit but i mean it's essentially the same computer as the other m1 max and so it'll perform just like them give or take a little bit because of thermals having a fan versus not having a fan but like if i took uh an m1 mac mini and glued it to the back of a really nice display it would perform just like this one so really what i'm showing you here is an m1 in a new outfit new colorful really thin outfit but this is basically going to be a design video what we think of the m1 inside this new design of the 2021 imac now y'all probably already saw my initial reactions to the unveiling on twitter i had plenty of thoughts and i still have a lot of those thoughts but i actually wanted to start with this this is clearly a retro throwback to those original colorful imacs when they came out in the 90s back in a time when most other computers were more of plastic and beige white towers so this represented a more approachable accessible new computer seems like a fun time right now this nostalgia didn't really hit me because i wasn't old enough back then to really be thinking very hard about computer design but that's what this again represents it's an even more friendly accessible computer design it's what it's supposed to be and actually even in the way apple presents it you can see it in their own materials they're trying to expand even more on that so this is like the family computer that's not just tucked away in an office somewhere but in a family room or a den or a living room or something and so to pull that off it's got to be friendly and accessible and most importantly to look like it would belong in any of those rooms so not just like a metal box but a friendly piece of tech it's the same challenge that things like the google home and the homepod have had now all that being said it's a mixed bag it's definitely a bit of a mixed bag for me i honestly just don't like the way it looks but it's also clearly not for me and so maybe it doesn't even really matter if i like the way it looks or not but let me just show you let me walk you through all the things that are new about this design and then you can decide for yourself if you're into it or not so first of all the screen the screen is bigger and it comes much closer to the edges than that old imac design so it's a 23.5 inch 4.5 k display here 500 nits lcd p3 color it is a very nice display and honestly if you just start with that like trying to price out something else like a mac mini instead with another nice 24 inch display to try to match this you're probably gonna lose on price like this is a great screen but you also notice pretty quickly this is a very glossy really reflective display there's no matte version and you've also got white bezels and a pretty huge glossy chin so if you want a computer that doesn't have those things maybe you're in a bright environment with a lot of window light or maybe you're just not into white bezels and big chins then you don't get this imac you should probably look at another monitor but the one thing i will say that i've come around on is at least understanding why they went with a white bezel specifically and it comes back again to that like friendly face thing so if you're trying to put this in houses and in people's rooms a lot of which are in rooms with white walls and this computer is going to sit in front of a white wall behind it theoretically the white bezels sort of melt away into the background actually more than black bezels would have right and like i see it i'm not saying i like it like i'd personally still take black bezels every single day of the week but at least we can see what they were thinking it's kind of the same as the nest hub or a nest thermostat even it's trying to be a piece of tech that can fit into any room and people would rather have something that looks friendlier than a metal box fine now the chin on the other hand this is this is probably where we're going to start to disagree i i get that it's iconic to the imac to have this chin even though they got rid of the actual icon the logo but i just think it would have looked so much better without the chin so most of the computer is down there in the bottom if you look at apple's videos you can see their basic setup which is the m1 and the logic board and all that most of the computer down in that chin then it's just mostly cooling and speakers throughout the rest so by shoving the computer down there it let them make this whole computer razor thin 11 and a half millimeters thin for the whole thing it's thinner than a macbook pro it's thinner than an apple watch this entire computer is actually thinner than the depth of a headphone jack so they had to put the headphone jack on the side of the computer otherwise it wouldn't fit at all it's stunningly razor thin and it's kind of amazing that the entire computer fits inside this sleek case thinner than pretty much every other 24 inch monitor and that's all amazing and it clearly took a lot of work to make it this thin but after i get it out the box and decide where i want to put it and lock it in place i don't care i don't care how thin it is so i'm confident that nearly a hundred percent of the people buying this machine would have been totally cool with it being like 20 millimeters thick and being able to fit a lot of that computer stuff behind the display so that it doesn't have a chin and it would have looked way better and it still would have been impressively thin so then that would have also given them more room for more impressive speakers now it's got some pretty great speakers already so they're downward firing just like they were in previous imacs and they're really much louder than you'd expect from this small of a frame it can crank loud enough to fill a room it's got dolby atmos support and this nice pretty wide stereo image when you're sitting right in front of it but there is a distinct lack of deep bass which makes perfect sense it's just built-in speakers and an all-in-one but it's it's so thin i bet if it was thicker you would have had some more space for maybe some more basic speakers they also probably could have fit the power adapter inside the computer like with all the rest of their desktops but they really leaned into the external power brick situation with the imac here there's an external power brick here that's pretty beefy but they've made the most of it they've got color matching cables and there's magnetic pins into the back and they've also built in an ethernet port into the brick in the higher end models which is super convenient since it saves you yet another cable sticking out of the computer itself all that being said the way i feel is they should have made it a little thicker and nixed the chin but that's just me maybe let me know what you think in the comments below but they went with the chin so it's here keep using it for your your post-it notes keep keep using it as a as a little handle for your not height adjustable stance just for pivoting but it is what it is it's here now as an all-in-one the imac is pretty much the gold standard for built-in accessories and components so i was looking forward to the webcam and mic for this one and they're pretty good actually better than i was expecting it is 1080p finally which is awesome but more than that the colors and the contrast are way better actually better than i feel like they were in the m1 laptops and the studio quality microphones as you can hear best mics ever in a mac are pretty good they're pretty useful they they focus on your voice so if you're further away from the mac it can still hear you like this all right but let's talk about the port situation real quick so this is probably the only little red flag or downside of this new generation so the baseline imac starts at 12.99 and that's that's the baseline so it's the cheapest one but that particular one has almost no ports that desktop has a headphone jack and two thunderbolt usb c ports no ethernet on the power brick no sd card slot like that is it that's a wired mouse and a keyboard and you're already out of ports but if you upgrade to the higher spec models that start at 14.99 then you have two more usbc ports for a total of four but yeah no hdmi no usba just usb-c here no matter which model you get it's just it's worth noting so if you're if you know you're going to be plugging in external storage or one or two things right off the bat a card reader you're going to be running out of ports pretty quick but then again let's be real most of the people getting these machines are going to use apple's nice beautiful colorful new uh accessories that are all bluetooth and it was funny during the unboxing seeing matching piece after matching piece it just kind of struck me how well thought out all this stuff is so with the blue imac the power cable is blue the lightning cable for charging anything lightning is blue there's a new track pad and magic mouse neither of which are redesigned at all just blue now instead of silver and there's also even dual tone blue stickers in here to match that computer and then there's a new magic keyboard with touch id which is super dope very useful especially if you're used to other laptops they've made i'm pretty sure it's literally just an old iphone's touch id button like cut out into the center of a keyboard key because that's exactly what it looks and feels like but hey it works as advertised for logging in switching between users authorizing payments all that one thing i've noticed is it is a little bit slow and i figure maybe that's because it's sending information encrypted over bluetooth to the imac and back but that's a fine sacrifice for me but also this new keyboard with the base model doesn't have touch id so that's another cut for the base model imac along with one gpu core an ethernet port and two usb-c ports but overall even though i am someone who's obviously not in the target demographic of this baseline imac i actually think it's a great computer it is a really good computer i just think you should be wary of the baseline situation because that's almost guaranteed less ports than the computer you're currently using um so check that out just make sure you have the right port situation if you upgrade you get ethernet you get two more ports you get another gpu core you can get more storage but just as far as the computer that this is replacing it's miles ahead of that old 21.5 inch imac honestly the only reason you might go with a mac mini and another monitor is if you really don't like the design at all or if you just hate a glossy display or if you want some sort of a different style if you can't stand white bezels if there's something else to it then you can shop around but again you're probably gonna have a hard time finding a monitor this good in a package like this so that's the appeal of the imac but now i get to get even more excited about the next steps in the apple silicon transition m1 has been amazing so far but i am so curious about what they're gonna do with the big macbook pro with the imac pro maybe it won't have a chin maybe they'll go crazy with an apple silicon mac pro i'm just i'm ready to see the rest of that lineup but until then m1 stuff is out let me know what you think of this design in the comments section below i'm super curious to hear what you think but until the next one thanks for watching catch you guys later peace you

Channel: Marques Brownlee

Views: 5,401,050

Keywords: M1 iMac, iMac, iMac review, Apple iMac, 2021 iMac, new iMac, iMac unboxing, MKBHD, Apple silicon, 24, iMac, 24 iMac, iMac 24

Id: vSAa_ls9grQ

Length: 13min 21sec (801 seconds)

Published: Tue May 18 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/WalnutSoap]

He's absolutely on the mark about the price being right, though. I was hoping to buy one of these, but I needed it now and can't wait til the middle of July when they seem to be shipping.

So I've bought an LG 5K Ultrafine, which seems to be the only really comparable screen with the iMac M1's, plus a Mac Mini, and it's cost me £200 more than getting just the iMac.

[u/pasenast]

I guess the review embargo lifts today..

[u/quitethewaysaway]

Out of all the reviews so far, this was the most shittiest review of the iMac. He barely talked about the new tech that will be replacing the 21 inch iMac. Barely went into detail with the sound.

[u/burneraccount1of42]

Are all of these reviews timed?

[u/rafibomb_explosion]

“I don’t like the way it looks. It’s just not for me” is exactly the way I see it too. It’s a lovely lovely machine objectively, but I am very much turned off by how it looks. I hope the rumored 32” has better and more stoic color options and a better port situation. It makes me miss Jonny Ive a lot.

[u/stonevil]

Useless review as usual

[u/Koulie]

Felt like his criticism were too harsh and off-the-mark. Complaining that the iMac is too-thin and the chin is ugly kind of misses the point of Apple’s industry leading engineering and marketing approach.

[u/furiusfu]

good review, the only one i watched, that’s mildly critical. all those people complaining about the chin and that it should look like pro display xdr have no idea about brand-building and marketing:

1. all-in-on-pc without chin: is it HP, samsung, acer, dell??? is it a monitor? is it a tv? oh, it’s a computer! —> all-in-one-pc with chin : on the first look with maximum 5 sec of reflection “it’s the new imac!”

2. this is the base-model-imac thst replaces the base-model 21.5” intel imac - it IS a redesign, no matter how you dislike the chin, the white bezels or the colors. it’s what people recognize, talk about and causes feelings like “but, its pink/ green/ blue/ gold… it’s so pretty/ posh/ cute” etc

3. the M1 is plenty capable for 85-90% of workloads, even professional ones. people will and ALREADY do notice, not just influencers. even linus sebastian gave it a fairly positive review. you can say what you want about the other reviewers. if he says it, it’s legit. besides, like 99% of all tech-youtubers like the M1. not all are promotional influencers.

what i’m pissed about is, a) the dumbass limitations of the M1 (just 2/ 4 ports), b) base storage is still a joke (you pay 500$ extra and get 256gb extra storage, not even 16gb RAM), c) the mid and top tier 24” imac should be more (before you got a better GPU, more cores, 4K display, fusion drive)

apple didn’t just change the design, it essentially neutered the principle “pay more, get more” for the base configs. and NO, i don’t count 2 extra usb-c ports, touch id or ethernet as sufficient extras. these are IO options THAT EVERY FKING PC ON THE MARKET HAS. even the crappiest macbook air or macmini had those. apple thinks that those are somehow now worthy of upgraded-costs. its ridiculous.

[u/Gasifiedgap]

The one point I was a little surprised he didn't make is, if you get the Mac Mini, you get all the ports.

So in many ways the Mac Mini is more comparable to the second tier iMac that has ethernet, more ports. The Mac Mini also has USB-A.

And when you're not comparing against the 'base' iMac, it gives you more budget headroom to get say, a nice 34" 1440P display.