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2020 27-Inch iMac Reviews: A Great Machine for Working From Home With Upgraded Camera, Speakers, Microphone and More
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You may not care, and that's fine, but lots of people do. For many, it's inherently interesting to know what kind of progress Intel and other manufacturers are making with their processors from generation to generation. Not sure why I even need to explain this to someone who posts on MacRumors!
By your argument, for instance, no one should have cared about Moore's Law.
And generational differences are not just of theoretical interest. Suppose you have an older iMac and are thinking of upgrading because it no longer meets your needs. It's useful to know how much faster the new machine would be than your old one (though there you'd ideally want to compare them with the actual applications you use rather than GB).
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I know you intended this post as a criticism of the 2020 iMac, but watching that eight-year-old introduction again reminded me of some of the things I still love about my 2015 and 2019 iMacs:
- I love the design and am not bothered by the bezels.
- I love the 3TB Fusion Drive, which gives me superb performance and large storage at low cost. (To get the same amount of storage on the 2020 iMac, I would have to add US$1,200 to the base price!)
I wouldn’t at all mind being able to play with the Radeon 5700 XT, but the Vega 48 in my 2019 iMac can handle most new games at 1440p Ultra as it is.
The T2 chip, on the other hand, would allow me to stream video from Netflix and the Apple TV app at 2160p HDR, which is the one thing I’m missing out on right now (though I’m skeptical of HDR - the HDR photos I’ve seen remind me of people who used to turn the color knob on their analogue TVs all the way up).
On the other hand, my 2019 iMac with Vega 48 is and will remain the most powerful iMac that can run 32-bit Intel macOS games (not counting the 2017 iMac Pro with Vega 56 or 64), so I have no regrets whatsoever about my purchase last year.
[clutches pearls] Oh no! Borders! How will I ever fit this into my pocket??
I'm using a 2014 iMac 5K and even at its relatively advanced age it's a very capable machine and the screen is just gorgeous to look at. This new one looks like a real treat and I'd upgrade if I could justify it, but frankly mine is totally sufficient for the work I do with it.
People are just going to buy it and are happy to accept things as they are. So that’s nice for them.
Also Apple will not unfortunately ever make the computer you want - they make for the average consumer who does average things on their computer, and makes it easy for them to do so.
If you want power, features, flexibility etc best not get a mac.
Personally I love the mac laptops, ipads and phones. It is the desktops I have an big issue with these days as they don’t meet my needs, so it is PC for desktop for my windows use, and mac for laptops with Remote Desktop login [ween myself off bootcamp as this is going to happen eventually anyway].
Capable for what exactly - yes the work you do with it. You probably could do it all with an iPad Pro and a 4K monitor too.
You know, on any free sticky notes app or the one that comes with macOS. Or if you still wanna be wasting paper while having a 1500 bucks machine in front of you cappable of taking notes, then stick them on the table.
I liked the Fusion Drive too, for the same reason you're laying out. In concept it's a great middle ground between fast SSDs and spacious HDDs.
BUT mine totally started degrading after a few years. Turns out that the comparatively small SSD gets absolutely hammered with wear (great explanation of this here). I'd had mine about 4 years and according to DriveDX and another utility I tried, the SSD was more than 90% worn out. And I could definitely tell because of the beachballs and general slowdowns. I finally bit the bullet, bought a repair kit from iFixit and replaced the HDD with a 2TB SATA SSD. You can apparently replace the blade SSD (and there's a great thread on here about it), but it's a more involved process and frankly the SATA one is quite fast enough for me. I don't know if I got a "bad" one or what, but I think my usage was fairly normal, and by the end that 128 GB blade SSD was toast.
As someone who dropped $5K AUD on one, LOL. This is exactly what people were saying with the last G5s
Hard pass. I prefer to work on MacOS with actual multitasking, thanks, and the ability to run software from wherever I please.
And what is your point exactly, friend? Are you asking me what kind of work I do, or just generally pissing on the idea of working on a Mac that isn't brand new?
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I wonder what the Apple trade-in value will be in 3 years for this iMac? Will it be typical, or 50-75% less because in 2023, the market for refurbished Intel iMacs will be less?
I was in the market for one, so I bought it as soon as I could. It's nice to have something to read and watch and get excited about while I wait for delivery.
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I just sold mine for 60% of what I paid for it six years ago. I demoed it to the buyer running 4K YouTube in Safari whilst playing a 128 channel Logic Pro X project chock full of plugins and loading up multi layer PSDs in Photoshop, and having three servers running in Docker. She was blown away. I had 6 potential buyers for it, so I think I lowballed myself on the price, but oh well.
All I was suggesting is that as you say is suitable for your use, and based on a 2014 iMac, your usage cannot require a high powered computer, hence an iPad Pro would suffice.
nobody pissing on anything, and I don’t care what you do. But the point is yes, what you do is fine for your computer and why bother wasting money on something you dont need, but others like myself are basically screwed by Apple on so many levels when it comes to desktops. Basically the only computer I could buy right now from Apple is the Mac Pro but that is overkill really and to get it to the level I need would be 3 times the price of the PC desktop I am now getting built.
I wish I could do my work on a 2014 iMac........... would save a small fortune and not have to go to PC’s for my work.
So sick of that stupid meme. Oh, wait - it’s definitely hilarious. Isn’t it? Maybe this reviewer does type like an animal. Now, is it a monkey on crack or a cat (that obviously couldn’t care less)?
I simply answered to the previous guy who wondered what else can be improved on the iMac. The things I suggested were no brainer. We've already seen the Mac Pro's stand (and iMac G4 for that matter), FaceID is nothing new anymore, the target display mode was from old iMac and the edge-to-edge display is what Apple lusts about so much that they created a notch for it. I only take from Apple and sell them back to Apple.
I didn't ask for more power. I didn't cry a river to have ports on Mac. I don't care if they don't make a computer for me. I just say they certainly can make all of these. I personally use laptop 100% (no need for a desktop) and I use both MacBook and ThinkPad. So you don't need to suggest me to not get a mac. Whatever serves me best in a certain situation, I use it.
Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
I still think the current iMac is a beautiful computer, bezels and all.
While an overhaul is long overdue, this is it folks...you can get ~10 years use out of this thing, and it'll run Windows in the event this becomes necessary.
I have a 2011 27" and even though I've had to repair it several times, and one at my expense (~$700 due to graphics issues), it was worth it.
I don't have the 5K screen, but it still slaps the taste out of my current work setup's mouth.
Sadly (and happily), I don't need such a workhorse anymore.
My Personal Computing is soon to be relegated to the next-gen iPad Pro 12.9".
But for you that need the flexibility of dual-boot, X86 support, and a workhorse Mac, this machine is a banging deal and probably the best value Apple offers (warts and all).
While an overhaul is long overdue, this is it folks...you can get ~10 years use out of this thing, and it'll run Windows in the event this becomes necessary.
I have a 2011 27" and even though I've had to repair it several times, and one at my expense (~$700 due to graphics issues), it was worth it.
I don't have the 5K screen, but it still slaps the taste out of my current work setup's mouth.
Sadly (and happily), I don't need such a workhorse anymore.
My Personal Computing is soon to be relegated to the next-gen iPad Pro 12.9".
But for you that need the flexibility of dual-boot, X86 support, and a workhorse Mac, this machine is a banging deal and probably the best value Apple offers (warts and all).
Absolutely. And being the last of the Intel Macs (and the last to run BootCamp) this will retain its value extremely well for the next decade.
Sorry to hear about your bad experience. Perhaps I’ve been lucky (or perhaps you were unlucky), but no problems so far here after five years with the 3TB Fusion Drives in my five-year-old 2015 iMac and my one-year-old 2019.
(In any event, I don’t think I could ever recommend the 1TB Fusion Drive in the 21.5-inch 2020 iMac, since it has only a 32GB SSD, unlike the 2TB and 3TB Fusion Drives that Apple used to offer, which as you know had 128GB SSDs - and of course a Fusion Drive is no longer an option at all in the 27-inch model.)
Normally yes. But this time, by the time AS has trickled up to the high end iMacs, my current purchase will still have retained its value.I am guessing you are not an early adopter
They can make it iPad-like without switching to ARM, and they can switch to ARM without making it iPad-like. Those are independent.