2020 iMac Still Worth It?

[sifpilsen]

That is the first interesting argument I have heard yet, but really the studio display are not better than the one in a 2015 iMac.

Not really. The 2020 27' iMac had the same resolution, but still the brightness was 600 on the Studio Display vs 500 on the iMac. No earlier iMacs I have seen had brighter displays either.

It’s also 1.5 times more expensive than a 2020 iMac in itself.

The price is high, yes. But in my experience, they tend to last a long time too. Many times have I seen Apple displays in use 10-15 years later, adapters allowing.

 

[Heliotropen]

Not really. The 2020 27' iMac had the same resolution, but still the brightness was 600 on the Studio Display vs 500 on the iMac. No earlier iMacs I have seen had brighter displays either.

The price is high, yes. But in my experience, they tend to last a long time too. Many times have I seen Apple displays in use 10-15 years later, adapters allowing.

Well if you use it above 500 nits brightness, I have had both a place I worked at and much prefered the iMac monitor, might just be that I like the formfactor more and tp be honest don’t like the feeling of a normal monitor. In practise I havn’t been able to see a diffence and I’m a professionel designer working with Pantone, Cmyk and Web as well (been doing that for 20 years by now) …

Well the studio display is allot more expensive than the 2020 iMac these days, almost twice as expensive refurbished.
And I could se myself doing some DIY monitor work when my software stops working: because again, I truly like the form factor better... it's trendy with no bezels and such ... but it's not as immersive.

 

[pshufd]

2020 iMac 27 showed up locally (about 35 miles away) for sale. i7, 8 GB GPU, 32 GB RAM, Apple keyboard and mouse for $1,099 which is a fair price. I saw it and thought about it and it was gone in a few hours. These are about $1,200 - $1,300 on certified refurbished sites so it was quite reasonably priced and was gone right away.

I mainly see stuff that's overpriced but, when it is priced properly, it sells quickly.

 

[Heliotropen]

I was just lucky, here in Denmark the Machines usually cost 50% more +25% vat … but I’ve seen alot in “as new, refurbished” condition lately, in fact I just jumped on one of those myself: 10 gen i7 with 8 cores, 500:gb flash, 5500 XT, and for 100 usd I got 64 gb of rams off eBay to it… I wanted to find a Silicon machine that I could live with so badly, but there is NO form factor I enjoyed sitting in front of (as a brand designer myself)… even had a studio display and a Mac studio Max, but had to return it; the feeling of sitting in front of it just felt ******…

 

[pshufd]

Best Buy and OWC are still doing a nice business in refurbished 2020 iMacs and prices are holding up. Best Buy has the i7 model for $1,250 on and off and OWC has i5-i9 models for $800 - $1,650. For whatever reasons, there's still quite a healthy customer base out there for this model. I am still waiting for local models on Craigslist as these prices are higher than I would pay for equipment this old.

 

[Heliotropen]

Well I returned my Apple display and bought one (im in Denmark though, so no best buy or OWC) … very happy with it.

 

[alexgrodmx]

Hello, I'm new here. I've had a Mac mini late 2012 i7 with 16 GB of RAM for a while and I bought an used iMac 27" 5K 2020 with i5 3.1 GHZ for 8,800 mexican pesos (430 USD more or less), I'm not sure if I did a good decision. I use it for graphic design, just vectors, and photography. I know I could buy a newer mac mini M4, but is not in my possibilities right now, first I wanted to have a 27 monitor of QHD resolution at least but this monitor is awesome. I forgot to tell the iMac comes with a Apple magic keyboard with numeric pad and touch ID (although I can't use this feature in an Intel Mac) What is your opinion about it? Thanks.

 

[pshufd]

Hello, I'm new here. I've had a Mac mini late 2012 i7 with 16 GB of RAM for a while and I bought an used iMac 27" 5K 2020 with i5 3.1 GHZ for 8,800 mexican pesos (430 USD more or less), I'm not sure if I did a good decision. I use it for graphic design, just vectors, and photography. I know I could buy a newer mac mini M4, but is not in my possibilities right now, first I wanted to have a 27 monitor of QHD resolution at least but this monitor is awesome. I forgot to tell the iMac comes with a Apple magic keyboard with numeric pad and touch ID (although I can't use this feature in an Intel Mac) What is your opinion about it? Thanks.

There are a number of these for sale in the Northeast US and the asking prices range from $650 to $1,500. So a reasonable price is probably around $500 - $600. These should get two more years of macOS feature support and three more years of security updates.

As you've said, the main reason to buy one of these is the screen. The problem is that it can be difficult going to a lesser screen in the future.

 

[Heliotropen]

Hello, I'm new here. I've had a Mac mini late 2012 i7 with 16 GB of RAM for a while and I bought an used iMac 27" 5K 2020 with i5 3.1 GHZ for 8,800 mexican pesos (430 USD more or less), I'm not sure if I did a good decision. I use it for graphic design, just vectors, and photography. I know I could buy a newer mac mini M4, but is not in my possibilities right now, first I wanted to have a 27 monitor of QHD resolution at least but this monitor is awesome. I forgot to tell the iMac comes with a Apple magic keyboard with numeric pad and touch ID (although I can't use this feature in an Intel Mac) What is your opinion about it? Thanks.

What is it that you want to know exactly?
I have a 16 gb ram 512gb ssd m3 MacBook, and the 2020 iMac as well, and the iMac is still my favourite machine in the world for those things you mentioned: in practise it still kicks my MacBooks ass when it comes to really heavy ram og graphic depending stuff. Just buy some more rams for it perhaps (I have added 64 gb to mine for a dime). I can't see myself replacing mine for the next 5-10 years... but who knows what happens.

I said the same thing about my 2015 13" MacBook Pro, and I am happy for the m3 upgrade ... still ... with open legacy patcher and macOS 15.x I could have stayed on the 2015 model that run 2022 versions of illustrator and photoshop without any problems at all ... I just got a bit more speed... and the reason why I bought it: more porability ... but when it comes to my iMac and the screen on the iMac is just golden.

You have to realise that apple constantly tries to make ppl feel their machines are old dated; but usually its really little things that happens when you upgrade. Most in here will tell you diffrently, because they are brainwashed with specs and stuff: its like car entusiasts that say 500 horsepowers is not enough in your car; because what if xyzzy (insert own mystical task, that they will never do in real life anyways).

The finger print reader and apple intelligence on my MacBook is nice enough, but it's nothing ground breaking (far, far .....far... from it).

What would you want from a newer machine? unless it's to be more mobile?
The Imac + the MacBook silicon combo is a killer for me btw, could not imagine a better setup.
I tried the Mac Studio and Studio display for 9 days btw, and I could not work with it, the physical thing with all the cables and the form factor, it felt distracting coming from the 2013 iMac ... so I turned it in and bought the 2020, and haven't regretted it at all ... I also paid allot more than you did for it (and its just a base model) ... added a few samsung external drives and its more than great enough for the professional tasks I do ALL day, every day.

Hope that helps.

 

[alexgrodmx]

What is it that you want to know exactly?
I have a 16 gb ram 512gb ssd m3 MacBook, and the 2020 iMac as well, and the iMac is still my favourite machine in the world for those things you mentioned: in practise it still kicks my MacBooks ass when it comes to really heavy ram og graphic depending stuff. Just buy some more rams for it perhaps (I have added 64 gb to mine for a dime). I can't see myself replacing mine for the next 5-10 years... but who knows what happens.

I said the same thing about my 2015 13" MacBook Pro, and I am happy for the m3 upgrade ... still ... with open legacy patcher and macOS 15.x I could have stayed on the 2015 model that run 2022 versions of illustrator and photoshop without any problems at all ... I just got a bit more speed... and the reason why I bought it: more porability ... but when it comes to my iMac and the screen on the iMac is just golden.

You have to realise that apple constantly tries to make ppl feel their machines are old dated; but usually its really little things that happens when you upgrade. Most in here will tell you diffrently, because they are brainwashed with specs and stuff: its like car entusiasts that say 500 horsepowers is not enough in your car; because what if xyzzy (insert own mystical task, that they will never do in real life anyways).

The finger print reader and apple intelligence on my MacBook is nice enough, but it's nothing ground breaking (far, far .....far... from it).

What would you want from a newer machine? unless it's to be more mobile?
The Imac + the MacBook silicon combo is a killer for me btw, could not imagine a better setup.
I tried the Mac Studio and Studio display for 9 days btw, and I could not work with it, the physical thing with all the cables and the form factor, it felt distracting coming from the 2013 iMac ... so I turned it in and bought the 2020, and haven't regretted it at all ... I also paid allot more than you did for it (and its just a base model) ... added a few samsung external drives and its more than great enough for the professional tasks I do ALL day, every day.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for your comment Heliotropen I really appreciate it, It's true, I have my Mac mini with OCLP and it works good yet, I believe just I want to have a bigger screen to work more comfortably and better specs, and it's the thing I have with the iMac, I will upgrade the RAM at least to 32GB, for my needs it is more than enough. In my job I use a iMac M3 and I love it, everything works almost perfect, runs fast (except because it's the 8GB RAM version and I can notice with some apps), but I can't buy one of this by now. A friend mine offer to me his MacBook Air M2, may be I can buy it later to make the combo.

 

[alexgrodmx]

There are a number of these for sale in the Northeast US and the asking prices range from $650 to $1,500. So a reasonable price is probably around $500 - $600. These should get two more years of macOS feature support and three more years of security updates.

As you've said, the main reason to buy one of these is the screen. The problem is that it can be difficult going to a lesser screen in the future.

It's true, though may be in 4 or 5 years the 4K and 5K monitors will be more cheap, I hope.

 

[ignatius345]

It's true, though may be in 4 or 5 years the 4K and 5K monitors will be more cheap, I hope.

4K monitors are getting pretty damn cheap these days! 5K monitors are still a niche item unfortunately, without much competition so they're rather pricey still.

 

[alexgrodmx]

I'm happy with my purchase, it works great, except because I need more than 8GB of RAM, and hard disk space, I believe it won't have the latest Mac OS in the 2025 because it has been released about 5 years ago but I hope the Adobe stuff work at least for 2 years. I love the screen, the best I have, and work with photography is wonderful.