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higher quality knock off?
Well.. Apple's Cables are usually not known for their "high quality". Especially the Lightning and USB-C cables.

Other manufacturers sell better quality cables at a cheaper price. I also hate how Apples USB-C "Charging" (WTF?) cables are effectively just USB-2 but cost about twice of what a non-Apple, and better quality USB-C cable costs, which can be used for both charging and data transfer at full speeds.
 
A $45 liquid cooling setup removes the need for fans at all. Fan noise isn’t a reason to prefer low-power CPUs in a desktop machine that will be plugged in 100% of the time and has no portable/battery operation at all.
You actually do need fans in a liquid cooling setup, they just don't need to run as hard, because liquid cooling is far more efficient at heat transfer.
 
Really liked looking at these in person. I've concluded, and had to make up reasons to not buy one lol.

Here are my reasons that I have to keep repeating to myself.
  1. cost for ram upgrade
  2. ram upgrade limit
  3. 27" or 32" with proper 1440p or 2160p respectively
  4. 120Hz screen
Those are the reasons I'm keeping in my list of reasons lol. Maybe doesn't sound logical or whatever to others, but that's what I'd want.
 
Then again all m1 macs are faster than 21” iMac. That bit of info is kinda pointless.
 
  1. cost for ram upgrade
  2. ram upgrade limit
  3. 27" or 32" with proper 1440p or 2160p respectively
  4. 120Hz screen
1. will never change
2. will change in the Future
3. will be more like 5K at 27“ and 6K at 32“ with apples measurement for retina. At the obvious price though.
4. unlikely. High res and high refresh rate is theoretically possible, but insanely expensive. And there are just the Interfaxes released that would support that high res and such high refresh rate.
 
1. will never change
2. will change in the Future
3. will be more like 5K at 27“ and 6K at 32“ with apples measurement for retina. At the obvious price though.
4. unlikely. High res and high refresh rate is theoretically possible, but insanely expensive. And there are just the Interfaxes released that would support that high res and such high refresh rate.
That's all unfortunate. :( My late 2012 will have to stretch his legs.
 
While the M1 is groundbreaking in a portable device, Apple underwhelmed with the iMac. Design is half baked - the chin vs what other options (more hardware in base with ports?) and the lack of progress in performance given the packaging options (cooling, for instance).

Laptop with a monitor is way more compelling.
 
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While the M1 is groundbreaking in a portable device, Apple underwhelmed with the iMac. Design is half baked - the chin vs what other options (more hardware in base with ports?) and the lack of progress in performance given the packaging options (cooling, for instance).

Laptop with a monitor is way more compelling.
Well, that's your opinion and you are certainly entitled to it. The new iMac will be faster with sustained workloads, faster than the M1 laptops out there. Will it be a big difference? Of course not. Do most users need more performance than what the M1 has to offer? No.
The M1 is faster than the i5 and the i7. This should be more than enough for years to come. People that need more power should wait for the M1X. No reason to bash this iMac.
 
Well, that's your opinion and you are certainly entitled to it. The new iMac will be faster with sustained workloads, faster than the M1 laptops out there. Will it be a big difference? Of course not. Do most users need more performance than what the M1 has to offer? No.
The M1 is faster than the i5 and the i7. This should be more than enough for years to come. People that need more power should wait for the M1X. No reason to bash this iMac.

I agree. I didn’t bash the 21” iMac. It was never a consideration or worthwhile enough to criticize it. The same basically applies here. No interest in the smaller iMac. I’m sure it’ll be great for those that are or like the colors.
 
The other reason is that users simply don’t (and shouldn’t) care about whether the Apple CPU is low power or not (assuming thermal design was done and battery life isn’t involved). They simply want the speed.
You seem to be unfamiliar with small form factor systems, which are completely different than big liquid cooled desktops. For whatever reason apple has developed a fetish for ultra thin devices, and in those devices intel couldn't compete. There was at times severe throttling, fan noise and excessive heat. That's what low power cpus prevent. apple got tired of waiting for intel to advance to the next stage of manufacturing, so they went on their own.

The people on youtube reviewing m1 apples vs intel apples are talking about power consumption, heat and fan noise. You're not familiar with that world but it does exist, especially with laptops.
 
I agree. I didn’t bash the 21” iMac. It was never a consideration or worthwhile enough to criticize it. The same basically applies here. No interest in the smaller iMac. I’m sure it’ll be great for those that are or like the colors.
I'm replacing my late 2013 21" imac with an m1 23" imac, so for me it's great. People just need more patience and knowledge. Making chips is a big deal for apple and they're better of rolling products out cautiously then trying to please all those with unrealistic expectations. I suspect a good portion of this M1 rollout is just checking chip thermodynamics in the real world. The more knowledge they have the better they'll be able to expand.
 
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For desktops I couldn’t care less about performance per watt. This sounds like the Japanese car fans making excuses for their tiny low-power engines by discussing how their engines have more HP-per-liter. In the end what matters is your total power (or CPU speed) not how little electricity (or liters) you used to get it. Especially in the case of the CPU since you’re largely stuck with they give you (you can’t slap a turbocharger on your CPU - I don’t think Apple motherboards and CPUs are overcloc-friendly). Desktop computing users don’t care whether a CPU uses 25 watts or 250 watts. They want performance, not excuses.
You're stuck on the idea of desktops that are not AIOs. AIOs need low wattage cpus because an AIO is basically a laptop on a stand. They experience all the thermo problems that laptops experience and have to come up with quiet solutions to solve the heat cast off from medium and high wattage cpus. Apple solved the problem not by installing more fans, but by developing a low wattage cpu. If you can get the big beige box idea of a PC out of your head it's all very easy to understand.
 
That's all unfortunate. :( My late 2012 will have to stretch his legs.
The ram isn't as important as it used to be in the intel models, so I'd recommend dumping those from the list of concerns. The others I can't help you with.

I am expecting my mid range imac to be delivered from Best Buy sometime today to replace my late 2013 imac that is sooo slow. So i can identify with some of your pain.
 
I'm an outsider so to speak, 1 old imac soon to be replaced, but almost all my experience is with windows pcs, mostly amd. I'm amazed at the negativity here expressed by many. This m1 chip to me is absolutely amazing, partly because of its performance, but mostly because it's apple's first attempt, and they now are legitimately in the same league as 30 and 40 year veterans amd and intel! Intel has been doing igp for ten years and apple beat them by a factor of 5 according to MacWorld's review! This is stunning. Best of all there are now three pc cpu manufacturers and that means more choices for consumers. How can any pc/apple enthusiast not be brimming with joy and excitement over this? Literally joy and excitement.

For those upset that there's not an m1+ in the imac, consider the complexity in small form factors and the number of people ready to whoop at any failure on apple's part. I'd recommend listening to a Full Nerd podcast by Gordon Mah Ung and Dell thermal engineer Travis North. They spent 100 minutes talking in engineer about heat, conductivity, fans, spreaders, fins, etc. Believe it or not thermal design is actually a science, and a very complicated one. (/s) The last thing apple wants is to start boosting clock speeds and have a mass of failures and recalls. Intel would be very happy to advertise to their stockholders that they aren't the only one who make mistakes. There's a whole field of science apple needs to learn as they roll out their new cpus. Be patient, apple is clearly good at what they've done so far.

The last time there were 3 major pc cpu manufacturers was when cyrix existed 25 years ago. And cyrix really wasn't all that big. These are amazing times. Rejoice!
 
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The ram isn't as important as it used to be in the intel models, so I'd recommend dumping those from the list of concerns. The others I can't help you with.

I am expecting my mid range imac to be delivered from Best Buy sometime today to replace my late 2013 imac that is sooo slow. So i can identify with some of your pain.
I mean, I want 16GB at least, but I'm never happy with the cost when you can't do it yourself on a computer.
 
I mean, I want 16GB at least, but I'm never happy with the cost when you can't do it yourself on a computer.
Yes to the DIY. We've got a Dell pc and a Cybertek from when DIY prices were too high. The Cybertek is very easy to upgrade as it's made from common parts. The Dell is more difficult and tighter with some proprietary parts, so it requires more research to get a match and a physical fit.

And apple is in a league of their own with You Can't Touch This.
 
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Yes to the DIY. We've got a Dell pc and a Cybertek from when DIY prices were too high. The Cybertek is very easy to upgrade as it's made from common parts. The Dell is more difficult and tighter with some proprietary parts, so it requires more research to get a match and a physical fit.

And apple is in a league of their own with You Can't Touch This.
DIY in respect to being able to add ram, or storage, on your own. Apple prices are basically double for each. If they would just design the dang thing to have a panel on the back to allow access to both, I'd be in line to get one immediately. I know I'm just one person and in the grand scheme of it all, Apple doesn't really care what I have to say, or whether I buy one or not.
 
You seem to be unfamiliar with small form factor systems, which are completely different than big liquid cooled desktops. For whatever reason apple has developed a fetish for ultra thin devices, and in those devices intel couldn't compete. There was at times severe throttling, fan noise and excessive heat. That's what low power cpus prevent. apple got tired of waiting for intel to advance to the next stage of manufacturing, so they went on their own.

The people on youtube reviewing m1 apples vs intel apples are talking about power consumption, heat and fan noise. You're not familiar with that world but it does exist, especially with laptops.
You obviously misunderstood my point. It’s all fine and well to fetishize power-efficiency in portable, battery-operated systems. It’s quite another to compromise speed by using those same chips in desktop-class systems where heat and battery aren’t issues.
 
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You're stuck on the idea of desktops that are not AIOs. AIOs need low wattage cpus because an AIO is basically a laptop on a stand. They experience all the thermo problems that laptops experience and have to come up with quiet solutions to solve the heat cast off from medium and high wattage cpus. Apple solved the problem not by installing more fans, but by developing a low wattage cpu. If you can get the big beige box idea of a PC out of your head it's all very easy to understand.
Even a AIO like an iMac can do things laptops can’t; they could literally put a 1 pound brick/heat sink of aluminum inside that would make it far better than any laptop, for just one silly example.
 
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You obviously misunderstood my point. It’s all fine and well to fetishize power-efficiency in portable, battery-operated systems. It’s quite another to compromise speed by using those same chips in desktop-class systems where heat and battery aren’t issues.

The machines they've used so far have been the entry level machines that even in the Intel space are dominated by their i3 and i5 chips which the M1 easily competes with (even being comparable against i7 chips) and which historically have been used by the earlier Intel SKUs from Apple. There is a balance in providing a product that is competitive in the marketplace without necessarily needing to exceed it either. If you can build a competitive product with a cheaper components then why wouldn't you ship it? It'll be interesting to see the sales data for the new iMac, I'm expecting that they'll mention it during WWDC.
 
M1 already dominates i3s, i5s and i7s. To beat it you need a high end i9 which you won't be seeing in an AIO because those CPUs have massive TDPs. Also M1 is a SOC not a CPU. It has blocks for CPU, GPU, ML and other functions plus the RAM is on package to increase speed even more. You need to catch up on where this thing is - it is a beast.

As to these iMacs it is pretty obvious Apple is going to have more than one line of iMac. The next line will have the upscaled SOC expected to debut in a week at WWDC. Even still these iMacs are very fast with excellent build quality and seem well thought out. They have a target audience which is people not looking to have a spiderweb of wires everywhere or rafts of monitors. They get a powerful and easy to setup AIO.
 
You obviously misunderstood my point. It’s all fine and well to fetishize power-efficiency in portable, battery-operated systems. It’s quite another to compromise speed by using those same chips in desktop-class systems where heat and battery aren’t issues.
Well, the counter-argument is that the M1 is what (possibly) allows the iMac to be as thin as it is. I suppose we can argue until the cows come home about whether the iMac really needs to be that slim, but the point is that this is a form factor you will not likely see with existing Intel or AMD chips.

Apple evidently believes that the M1 is more than enough performance for the entry level iMac (considering its target audience) and are electing to either not put in a more powerful chip (or that it just isn't ready at this point). And Apple is probably right.

Which does raise a valid point. When you know that performance suffices for your user base, and additional specs is not going to have a meaningful improvement on the user experience, do you continue cramming in the specs regardless (at the expense of over-serving your market), or go to work on improving other aspects of the iMac, even if they are wholly aesthetic?

What exactly am I losing by having the iMac be as thin as it currently is? We have a thin form factor iMac, without the thermal throttling issues of the past, while still enjoying performance that beats the majority of processors out there in the market? And because Apple is able to optimise the OS for the hardware, you still get a snappier experience (eg: everything feels smoother) even when going up against more powerful i9 chips which should spank it in performance.

Shouldn't people finally be happy that we are now able to have both our cake and eat it too?
 
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