Review: Apple 24-inch iMac (2021)

So you want a new computer.

No, not a laptop.

Something everyone in the home can use.

Well, it's hard to beat the simplicity of Apple's

new 24 inch iMac.

[upbeat music]

This is Apple's first major redesign of the iMac

in years.

It's very playful with its color scheme,

a light hue on the font, a darker one at the back.

It's meant to be put on display.

This is obviously the purple version,

but it also comes in green, pink, orange, silver, and blue.

Now I thought the white bezels around the display

would be distracting, or that the chin housing

all the main components would look ugly,

but I'm actually really fond of this design.

It has a nostalgic yet a modern feel.

The best part of this entire system is how easy it is

to set up and to use.

Once you unbox it, just plug in the magnetic power cable

and that's it.

The keyboard and mouse are already paired to the machine,

so you just need to power them on.

Oh, and these accessories are all color matched

to the iMac color you picked, even down to the power cable.

But before diving into the iMac experience,

there's one main point you should know,

don't just buy the base model.

It omits a few things you'll want,

notably access to Touch ID and an ethernet port.

Touch ID, which is how you use your fingerprint

to log onto the machine and into your favorite apps

instead of typing in a password

is integrated into the keyboard.

But the base 24 inch iMac comes with a magic keyboard

without this fingerprint sensor.

Similarly, ethernet lets you plug in directly

to your router so your internet connection will be faster

and generally more reliable.

With the base model, you don't get this eithernet port.

It's really silly that these two basic features

aren't included in the base model.

I mean there's Touch ID on a $400 iPhone SE,

why isn't it here?

At the very least you can customize your order

to include these two features.

It's a $50 upgrade to the magic keyboard with Touch ID,

and a $30 extra price point to get the power adapter

with the ethernet port baked in.

One extra perk of Touch ID,

if this is intended to be a family computer,

each user can sign into their own profile

with just their fingerprint.

Oh, and unless you already have a mouse lying around,

I recommend going for the magic trackpad instead of relying

on the magic mouse Apple includes.

It's just not very comfortable to use,

and the charging design is still really, really dumb

when you can't use it while charging.

But with all those upgrades, your total comes out

to be $1,429, which is up from $1,299.

And at that price point, it might be worthwhile paying

for the $1,499 iMac, which gives you Touch ID,

ethernet, slightly better performance, because it has

an extra core in the graphics processing unit,

plus two extra USB-C ports for a total of four.

Base model just has two USB-C ports and the headphone jack.

The other two upgrades worth considering are storage

and RAM.

The base 256 gigabytes should be enough for most people,

but you can bump that up to two terabytes.

The eight gigs of RAM is totally sufficient too,

but if you often do creative work

or run performance intensive tasks,

then it may be worthwhile paying $200 for 16 gigs.

After all, you can't upgrade the RAM in the system later on,

so getting more at the start may be a good way

to future proof the iMac.

This machine runs the same M1 Apple-made chip

that's inside the recent MacBook Pro,

MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and even iPad Pro,

and performance is excellent.

Hasn't given me any trouble with games, editing photos

on Lightroom and running dozens of Safari tabs and apps.

Really it's more power than most people need.

The 4.5K LCD screen that you'll be staring at

most of the time is also pretty great.

It gets really bright, it's colorful, and it's plenty sharp.

It's not as impressive as the mini LED screen

in the new iPad Pro, it also doesn't have the option

for nano texture glass like in the 27 inch iMac

to get rid of glares,

which means if you place this near a window,

you might see some.

And as someone who usually uses a 34 inch

ultra wide monitor, 24 inches of screen real estate

kind of feels a little cramped.

But if you're coming from a 13 or 15 inch laptop,

you'll be quite happy.

One of the more annoying things this iMac has

is how you can't adjust its height.

You can just tilt this up and down,

but for proper ergonomics, you want the top end

of the monitor to be at eye level.

And while I am tall, I shouldn't have to use

a stack of books.

Now you can put it on an arm mount and then move it around

in whatever direction you want,

but VESA mount you need isn't included in the box.

In fact, you have to buy the iMac with the VESA mount,

and Apple doesn't include the stand then.

So you're kind of forced to make this decision at checkout,

which kind of sucks.

As for the rest of the hardware,

the six speaker system sounds good.

I wish bass was a little oomphier,

and I also wish it could get louder.

I usually have it at the max volume,

especially when there's some ambient noise in the room,

like the drone of an air conditioner.

And while the webcam does a pretty good job lighting me up

and keeping the colors well saturated,

even when I'm in a dimly lit room,

the image quality can look fuzzy at times.

Neither of these are so impressive

that they'll blow you away.

You don't even get a privacy shutter

to cover up the camera when it's not in use,

so just kind of a shame.

The microphones are a little more impressive.

They're good enough for even some podcasting.

I joined my colleagues on Wired's Gadget Lab podcast

recently to talk about Android 12.

So check out that episode if you want to hear

what the mics sound like.

Just be aware that out of the box,

there's going to be this plastic wrap around the edges

of the display.

It took me a while to figure out that that was there

and that's why I was sounding really muffled.

But that's the iMac.

Overall, it's a very reliable and powerful system

with some odd quirks.

Of course the magic is in the software,

especially with features like continuity,

lets you do things like copy texts from your iPhone

and paste it into your iMac

without having to do anything else.

Or you can load a Safari page on the iMac and open it

with just a tap on your iPad to keep reading on the couch.

It's an unrivaled seamless ecosystem.

There are cheaper computers out there, even from Apple,

if you just want to go with the Mac Mini

and pair it with your own peripherals,

but this is a well-built and very simple system

that's just great for, well, just about anyone.

It helps that the fun colors give it that extra [kisses].

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