It is only less than an hour before preorders for the new 24 inch M1 iMac start. Have you decided if you are going to buy one?
First things first. Uninformed outlets (including the idiots whom MacWorld UK pay to write their trashy articles) think that Apple shrunk the 27 inch iMac to 24 inches and gave it a low end processor, making it a “down grade” in their eyes.
That is not the case.
The new 24 inch iMac is a replacement for the 21.5 inch iMac, which was always a low end computer filled with low end parts to meet a price point. If you are a current 27 inch iMac user (like myself) you should wait for now.
If you were already thinking of buying a desktop Mac and price is more important than more performance and the absolutely biggest screen size, then the 24 inch iMac is a no brainer (unless of course, you prefer to use your current monitor to save some money or you hate all-in-ones).
The 24 inch is an absolute steal. You get power that’s better than the majority of intel Macs being sold until today, all at a starting price that is only 50 USD more than the 12.9 inch M1 iPad Pro (which comes with no accessories).
Of course you should really buy at least the mid range model to enjoy the benefits of the new system, like the TouchID keyboard and the power adapter with built in Ethernet. But if you prefer to save some money the entry model is definitely as powerful as the other two models. You just will not have the choice of purple, yellow or orange colours if one of those is what you wanted to go for.
If you are a first time Mac desktop user and wonder if the iMac will last you long enough to make your investment worth it, here is an example – my first iMac is the 2007 model, and it is still being used today. Macs are built to last, and the massive performance overhead of all the M1 Macs ensure that you will have them at a usable performance level for probably way longer than the latest Intel Macs (or any x86 machine, for that matter).
The final question is, of course, what colour will you pick? (I pick purple, because while I cannot decide between blue and purple, purple is limited to online sales and only reserved for the higher grade models).
