The first and last time I used an iMac was back in 2013, in the sly office building that housed my college newspaper. As an all-in-one computer, it did not take up much space – crucial because the room was often packed like a can of sardines with student journalists. Its simplicity was striking compared to the large, budget Windows PC I built for my dorm. It was skilled at handling Adobe InDesign (which we used to lay out the news pages) and the dozens of Chrome tabs and Word documents I had open at any given time. All this while looking more stylish than any other piece of tech in the room.
The new iMac looks and feels no different. Literally. I’ve been using the new 27-inch model in the small bedroom of my New York apartment for almost a month, and unpacking brought a wave of memories to the many hours I spent in that old editorial office. It looks the same, and is still just as elegant.
If you are hoping for a modern iPad Pro-like makeup, you should wait a little longer. And if you’re hoping for Apple’s own silicon to power the iMac, that might take some time as well. However, if you need a desktop that does not take up much space, and has enough power to perform almost all the tasks you throw at it, this 2020 iMac will not disappoint.
You come to know me
It’s easy to like the iMac. The (recyclable) aluminum chassis is sleek and the swooping stand is graceful. Put it next to a Microsoft Surface Studio 2 or this Dell Inspiron and it will not look so modern – the thick frame and port edges (edges around the screen) do not help – but this is still an attractive machine.
Apple’s bigger mistake does not improve the situation. You can not adjust the height of the iMac of $ 1,799 yet, just tilt the screen up and down. I used my test unit on a standing desk so I could get around the limitation.
The screen also cannot rotate side-by-side, making it difficult to reach the ports on the back, especially if you have the iMac against a wall. There are also a few ports! Compared to what you get on a MacBook Pro, the iMac feels like a Swiss Army knife. You get a headphone jack, Ethernet jack (upgradable to 10-gigabit), SD card slot, four USB-A ports, and two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports. I liked at least one HDMI and two more USB-C ports (see: the cheaper Mac Mini), but this is still a solid and versatile selection.
Apple has not even changed the 27-inch display panel itself – you still get a 5K resolution (5,120 x 2,880 pixels), which is incredibly sharp, and the colors look beautiful just right. I prefer to edit photos in Adobe Lightroom above the monitor I use with my personal PC. Movies like Project power also looks great on the iMac.
Once upon a time, Apple was still bundling in its terrible Magic Mouse 2, which is not ergonomic and impossible to use when charging. (Pro tip: Pay the extra $ 50 for the Magic Trackpad 2. It’s worth it.) The Magic Keyboard is included too, but it’s nothing special.
You will use that keyboard to type in your passwords each time you log in to the iMac. You heard that right. The $ 700 iPhone 11 and $ 800 iPad Pro can magically unlock the screen by looking at your face with their respective selfie cameras, but that’s too much for this expensive all-in-one. It’s not just about logging in to the Mac – you can not use biometric authentication to quickly access Apple’s iCloud Keychain to log in to all your favorite websites and apps as well. It’s a frustrating omission.
Apple’s answer? Use an Apple Watch to sign in. You can use that $ 200 to $ 400 iPhone accessory if you have it.
Improvements that are important
There are some changes in the hardware. First, the iMac comes with Apple’s T2 security chip, which does much more than encrypt your data.
The image signal processor (ISP) in the T2 improves the image quality of the built-in webcam. The camera itself can now record at 1080p (up to 720p), giving you a sharper image. But the ISP can recognize your face to better expose it to video calls, and adjusts colors and lighting to deal with high-contrast scenes (like sitting in front of a window). It’s easily better than that most webcams integrated into all-in-ones like laptops, though a privacy shutter for when you are not using it would have been useful. Fortunately, they are cheap to buy.
The T2 chip also improves the speakers a bit, although the hardware has not changed. They get really loud and sounds pretty good, though the low bass performance is disappointing; it is not spicy and feels very flat.
Apple swapped the old microphones for the same ones you find in the 16-inch MacBook Pro – which is a good thing. These microphones do an excellent job of cutting out ambient sounds, and they have been incredibly helpful when I joined my colleagues at the Gadget Lab podcast. My voice comes through very clearly. You can even listen if you want to hear how the microphones sound.
The biggest improvement is one that you have to pay extra for: nano-textured glass. It covers the display and is the same as what is on Apple’s Mac Pro Display XDR. It is much better than a matte finish because it does not disturb the colors of the screen but effectively eliminates any glare. I used the iMac right next to a window, and the sunlight that flashed in was never removed from my viewing experience. It’s an expensive $ 500 upgrade, but if you know your iMac is near a window, hook it up. Your eyes will thank you.
The screen now also supports True Tone. Like on the iPhone, this shifts the colors of the screen to match the ambient light around you. I’ve never noticed a big difference with or on or off, but it can help your eyes adjust more easily to the screen.
More power
Apple sent me the top-of-the-line iMac with a Core i9, the most powerful graphics card (the AMD Radeon 5700XT), and nano-textured glass, which cost a bank draining $ 4,500. It’s too much for most people.
There are four main configurations that you can get with the iMac. You should be fine with the base 10th gen Intel Core i5 processor, but if you are doing 4K video editing or other CPU-intensive tasks, then go for the Core i7 or Core i9 model. What is more important is to increase the amount of RAM. The basic 8-gigabyte is too bad for such an expensive machine – 16 GB is the way to go, or 32 GB if you include the higher rate versions.
Apple’s biggest improvement in performance is its pivot to solid state drive (SSD) storage. The Fusion Drives have gone for the faster read and write speeds that come with SSDs, which are also more energy efficient and reliable because they have no moving parts. You see super-fast loading times with booting up your Mac and launching apps – loading screens in video games are also faster. The base model offers 256 gigabytes, but if you need more, you should go for the mid- or top-tier CPU options. You can totally go up to 8 terabytes, which is more space than I would know what to do with.
This machine handles 4K video rendering and photo editing tasks with ease. Macs are not known for their gaming skills, but I could play titles like that Mad Max en Tomb Raider at a smooth 60 frames per second at maximum graphics settings. I just had to drop the screen resolution to 2,560 x 1,440 or lower. I mostly wish the gaming library on Macs was stronger – I have a large library of games on Steam for my Windows PC, but the number of titles I can play on the Mac (without using Boot Camp) is pathetic.
The future of Apple Processors
Earlier this summer, Apple announced that it would move to ARM-based processors, just like the ones inside the iPhone and iPad. This is a tectonic shift for the Mac. Apple software will theoretically have some sort of synergy across all Apple devices like we’ve never seen before.
Your iPhone apps will work easily on a Mac, and Apple will be able to do much more with its own custom-made chips, improve energy efficiency, reduce heat, and build artificial intelligence on board. The first ARM-based Mac will arrive later this year, and the transition from the full lineup is expected to take two years (also expect a few more Intel-powered Macs in that time). Probably we will not see the real benefits of the transition to ARM for almost a full decade.
It can be a bumpy road. Developers need to make sure their apps work on ARM as well as on Intel’s processors – not every app you have will transition quickly or smoothly. There is also a question about how powerful these machines are compared to their Intel counterparts, specifically in the higher end. Fortunately, Apple says it will support and release MacOS updates on Intel-based Macs “in the coming years.”
The ARM transition is happening soon, but the lasting effects may not be immediate. We believe this 27-inch iMac is a safe bet, and by the time you upgrade it, the ARM-based iMac setup may look a lot rosier.
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