The older iMac is easy to dismiss because it’s not exactly packed with the best hardware anymore, but it has a couple of aces up its sleeve, such as useful additional ports and more storage.
The 24-Inch iMac’s Design Is Like a Breath of Fresh Air
It’s always good to have various color variants for your computers, and the 24-inch iMac offers some wonderful options. The white bezels are a bit polarizing, but it’s unlikely to bother you. In comparison, the 21.5-inch iMac’s design is a bit boring.
The 24-inch iMac is thinner and a couple of pounds lighter than the 21.5-inch model, and while that is good to have, it’s not like you’re going to be carrying the iMac around everywhere you go. Even though the new iMac’s design is great, it’s not a good enough reason to upgrade on its own.
The New iMac Has an (Almost) 5K Display
If you have a 21.5-inch non-Retina iMac, you will see a phenomenal difference if you decide to upgrade to the 24-inch iMac. Interface elements such as desktop icons and menu items will look a lot crisper on the newer machine. You’ll also get a larger screen, which is always nice to have.
The new iMac has a 4.5K display with a resolution of 4480x2520 pixels, which supports a higher maximum brightness level. This will be useful if you want to watch 4K movies on streaming services such as Netflix. The increased brightness and support for P3 wide color gamut will also help in professional use cases such as photo editing.
An underrated feature of the 24-inch iMac’s display is True Tone, which adjusts the color tone of the display based on ambient lighting conditions. To sum it up, the display on the newer iMac is much better in every way.
Apple’s M1 Processor Offers a Massive Performance Boost
Now this one area where the 24-inch iMac is far ahead of the 21.5-inch iMac. If your old iMac has become slow or is unable to handle performance-intensive tasks, such as video editing, then an upgrade makes a lot of sense.
Apple’s M1 chip has proven its worth as a capable desktop processor in the Mac mini. And the seventh-generation dual-core Intel Core i5 processor on the old iMac cannot perform anywhere near as well as Apple’s M1.
When it comes to graphics, the M1 chip has an integrated 8-core GPU capable of handling some seriously demanding workloads. It’s far ahead of the Intel Iris graphics chip that you get on the 21.5-inch iMac.
Having said that, you should check if the apps you use regularly have been optimized for the M1 processor. Most apps will easily run on an M1 iMac, but especially for tasks such as video editing, you won’t be satisfied if the app you use hasn’t been optimized for an M1 processor.
The new iMac ships with 256GB of SSD storage on the base variant, and you may find this limiting if you’re used to the older iMac with a 1TB Fusion Drive. You can configure the new iMac to get up to 2TB storage, but the upgrade price is astronomically high.
In general, the new iMac frowns upon hardware upgrades, so you’ll be forced to spend more up front to purchase a spec you’re happy with.
On the new iMac, you cannot upgrade the RAM or storage after purchase. Once the new iMac goes up for order, you’ll quickly realize that the cost of upgrading to 16GB RAM and 2TB storage is probably prohibitively expensive.
Most people won’t need more than 8GB of RAM on the new iMac, but for intensive workloads, it helps to have a bit of headroom. Finally, the 24-inch also supports faster and more power-efficient networking performance via Wi-Fi 6. If you have a Wi-Fi 6 router, you’ll be happy to hear this.
At Last, a Mac Without a Potato-Quality Webcam
Considering that the Mac lineup comprises premium machines designed for professionals, we’ve had to live with some seriously disappointing webcams for far too long. The new iMac finally fixes that problem with 1080p front cameras that benefit from Apple’s image signal processor.
The new iMac also gets a three-mic array that promises far better audio quality.
This should make you look and sound much better during video calls, and it’s a significant upgrade over the mediocre FaceTime HD camera and microphone combo that shipped with the 21.5-inch iMac.
Another small thing to note here is that you can use the Hey Siri command to activate Siri on the new iMacs. This is useful for hands-free operation for tasks such as playing music.
The New iMac Ships With Much Better Speakers
If you enjoy listening to music or watching movies on your iMac, the 24-inch model has a lot to offer. It has a much improved six-speaker system that also supports Spatial Audio when you’re playing videos that support the Dolby Atmos technology. This will ensure much better sound quality when compared with the speaker setup on the 21.5-inch iMac.
The newer iMac also gets a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is important to mention because other Apple devices have slowly been losing this useful port.
The Older iMac Wins the Battle of the Ports
If you are looking for wired connectivity options, the 21.5-inch iMac is definitely ahead of its successor. Apple keeps eliminating useful ports on various products, and in this case, the SD card slot has been removed on the new machine. You also get fewer USB ports on the newer iMac, and on the two-port, 24-inch iMac, you will have to pay extra for a Gigabit Ethernet port.
The 24-inch iMac supports the newer Thunderbolt/USB 4 standard, but otherwise, it lags behind its predecessor in terms of connectivity options.
You Get a Better Keyboard With the New iMac
The higher-priced variants of the new iMac ship with a Magic Keyboard that also supports Touch ID. You can unlock the iMac with the press of a button and even authorize purchases with your fingerprint.
It’s a shame that this keyboard is an optional accessory for the base variant of the 24-inch iMac. We feel that Apple should’ve bundled it with all variants of the new iMac to avoid confusion.
The 24-Inch iMac Offers Good Value for Money
As long as your apps are well-optimized for the M1 processor, the 24-inch iMac is a worthy upgrade. With a starting price of $1299 for the two-port variant and $1499 for the four-port model, the 24-inch iMac is pricey, but it’s the kind of machine that’ll give you years of trouble-free service handling pretty much any task you throw at it.
For most people who have a 21.5-inch iMac, the upgrade will be well worth the asking price. Sure, it’s going to be expensive to get the right configuration, but the new iMac will justify that price in the long run. Be sure to get AppleCare+ warranty coverage that guarantees three years (and then some) of support from Apple.
