Both work out to just over 100ppi, and if you get close to the screen you can definitely see individual pixels, but at normal using-a-computer distances, they look crisp and sharp. The smaller, cheaper iMac comes with a 21.5-inch, 1920 x 1080 display on the 27-inch behemoth, you get a 2560 x 1440 panel that's matched only by the Dell XPS 27. This is the first iMac in a while I’d recommend buying with a set of external speakers.Ĭompare this: Apple's new iMac vs. That makes everything sound a little tinny, and songs lose some punch. Mids and highs sound great, and the down-firing speakers are loud enough to fill a room, but there’s absolutely zero bass response. I’ve always loved the iMac’s speakers – you rarely get integrated speakers with decent bass response and clear sound, and the iMac used to offer both - but in the newer, slimmer model, they’re actually a step backward. Having every single port on the back is a little annoying, but the SD card slot is particularly bad since I pop cards in and out so often after taking pictures.
The SD card slot has also been moved to the back, joining the headphone jack in the row of other ports (four USB 3.0, two Thunderbolt, and one Gigabit Ethernet). The iMac's screen should make it a perfect device for watching movies, and its huge hard drive should make a perfect storage machine for your photos or movies, but without an optical drive, both my Blu-ray collection and the decade's worth of home movies sit untouched. That decision makes some sense on laptops, where every ounce and millimeter matters, but I miss it here. For starters, there’s no optical drive in the iMac anymore. Since a 5mm edge doesn’t leave room for much of anything, the iMac's other parts had to get shifted around a bit. That part was weird, but it just goes to show how good-looking this thing is. It’s incredibly sleek - almost every single person who saw it on my desk started stroking it absent-mindedly. It's not quite as light as the HDTV-like Vizio All-in-One PC, but it’s still thinner than most computer monitors you’ll find, and there’s, you know, a whole computer inside. It's almost an optical illusion, astonishingly thin if you look at it from the front but much fatter if you catch it at the wrong angle. Apple’s claim of it being 5mm thin is a bit misleading - the back bulges out from the razor-thin edges almost like an old CRT television, and in the center it’s about four times as thick. But it’s smaller, lighter, and thinner than ever. It’s still very much an iMac, with a big black bezel surrounding a big screen, an aluminum chin below with a glossy Apple logo in its center, and a tilting aluminum stand sticking out of the back.
MAC MINI REVIEW VIDEO MAC
The higher-end Mac mini is still £100 ($157) cheaper than the entry-level 21.5-inch iMac, which comes with a 1.4GHz Intel Core-i5 CPU (Turbo Boost to 2.7GHz), 8GB of RAM, a 500GB HDD and Intel's integrated HD Graphics 5000.This year's iMac appears to have undergone the computer version of elective cosmetic surgery – it doesn’t look different, just better. For extra cost, it is also configurable with a dual-core Intel Core-i7 CPU clocked at 3.0GHz (Turbo Boost to 3.5GHz) for maximum horsepower.
MAC MINI REVIEW VIDEO PRO
Those seeking more computing power short of having to buy an iMac or a MacBook Pro should consider the top-end Mac mini, the machine featured in our review, which costs £799 ($999) and comes with a 2.8GHz Intel Core-i5 CPU (Turbo Boost to 3.3GHz), a 1TB Fusion Drive and Intel Iris Graphics. Next along, the mid-range model comes in at £569 ($699) and houses a 2.6GHz Core-i5 CPU (Turbo Boost to 3.5GHz) backed up by 8GB of RAM.
It comes with an Intel Core-i5 CPU clocked to 1.4GHz (Turbo Boost to 2.7GHz), 4GB of RAM and a 500GB HDD. The entry-level Mac mini now costs £399 ($499), making it one of the company's most affordable computing devices ever. There are three new Mac mini systems in Apple's refreshed line-up.