M3 iMac Reviews: Impressive Chip Performance but Lightning Accessories Disappoint

[Wahlstrm]

I really wonder what Apple does all year when virtually every product line is just minor updates, the entire iPad lineup is just languishing, and they can't even be bothered to update lightning accessories to go along with their Mac updates.

I guess the USB-C Apple pencil took up all their bandwidth.

Tbf, their catalog has grown a bit in the past two decades.

Long gone are the days when 99% of what Apple did could fit in Steve’s quadrant with two desktops and two laptops.

 

[picpicmac]

I want to see computer guts!

I thought Apple posted an image of the guts. That's how the cropped image of the chip with LpDDR came about. Yes?

 

[picpicmac]

You want more colours?

Well, I wanted Starlight.

But did not get it.

 

[Chuckeee]

I thought Apple posted an image of the guts. That's how the cropped image of the chip with LpDDR came about. Yes?

They showed the M3 dies and animation on the MacBook Pros interior. I want to see the new M3 iMac mother/logic board, and to see if the rest of the iMac is the same.

Just morbid curiosity, no real important need.

 

[Warped9]

Other than the improvements the new M3 chip brings, nothing else has changed. No reason to upgrade from M1 iMac.

If nothing was broken then there is nothing to change.

Yeah, I might have liked to see a few tweaks, but there was nothing screaming to be changed. The only other thing they could have changed was to switch to USB-C accessories, but thats not in the iMac itself so those could be quietly changed done the line just as they did with 9th Gen iPad (the 8th Gen had a Lightning to USB cord and the 9th has Lightning to USB-C). It’s not a big deal and more noise is being made over it simply because there is little else to talk about beside the chip upgrade.

But the M3 upgrade is big news for its performance gain. The M3 is essentially a Pro chip in comparison to the M1.

Sure, if you’re happy with your M1 iMac there’s no need to switch up. But if, like me, you have an older iMac or thinking of switching from PC the M3 iMac offers impressive performance.

 

[Pupi]

Imagine thinking lightning is a problem for charging desktop devices that come with an included cord and have multiple week battery lives and no need for any kind of high speed data transfer.

If that's a problem to anyone that you must reaaaaally suffer with the Apple Watch proprietary charging puck, which is more expensive, less available and more often needed.

Get real. Tech discourse is an absolute disgrace these days. Just memes and soundbytes.

 

[theluggage]

Imagine thinking lightning is a problem for charging desktop devices that come with an included cord and have multiple week battery lives and no need for any kind of high speed data transfer.

It's certainly ridiculous that such a minor quibble made up half the headline and I can't imagine it being a serious consideration when choosing a computer.

It is still a valid - if minor - criticism of Apple that newly purchased Mac accessories are still using Lightning in 2023 when Apple started seriously pushing USB-C as the standard do-it-all connector for Macs back in 2016 (arguably, several years too soon) and are now in the process of dropping Lightning even on the iPhone. In fact, the 12" MacBook with USB-C was released before the rechargeable Mk2 Magic accessories, so really these devices could have had USB-C from the get-go. Then there's the whole debacle of the Magic Mouse being unusable while charging (basically a legacy of Apple not bothering to do a proper re-design of the original AA-powered Magic Mouse).

Apple sell premium-priced computers and eat out on their reputation for good design and attention to detail. You can't really blame people for holding Apple to their own high standards.

 

[theluggage]

It's hard for me to tell how much RAM upgrades are worth on an SoC, I don't have any reference.

It's not hard - Apple have been charging the same $200 for an 8 to 16GB RAM upgrade since at least 2017 when iMac used bog standard DDR4 SODIMMs. In 2017, I paid £140 to add 2x8GB of 3rd party RAM (the self-same brand of Micron sticks that Apple used) c.f. the £200* that Apple wanted to supply 2x8GB instead of 2x4GB (at retail that would have been an added cost of about £70). Obviously those 3rd party prices are retail so they included a profit margin for the distributor.

(* UK tech prices tend - to a good first approximation - towards the US price with the $ sign replaced by a £, regardless of exchange rates)

Same goes for SSD - difference between the (then optional) 256GB SSD and 512GB has been $200 since at least 2017.

Essentially, these are strategic price points chosen by Apple based on what they think the market will bear and have very little to do with the actual bill-of-materials. If it was actually cost-plus-reasonable-markup driven I doubt that the extra logistics costs of making and distributing 8/256 models would be viable.

The fact that base RAM of the iMac has been 8GB since 2014 should be criticism enough. Apple are really pushing how long they can get away without improving their base specs and charging so much for upgrades.

 

[Gudi]

I thought Apple posted an image of the guts. That's how the cropped image of the chip with LpDDR came about. Yes?

We need to know if the base 2-ports iMac still comes with one fan less and without a heatpipe. And if the 256GB SSD config is now a single chip, effectively cutting data transfer speeds in half. There might be other unwelcome surprises only a teardown can reveal.

 

[BB8]

Tbf, their catalog has grown a bit in the past two decades.

Long gone are the days when 99% of what Apple did could fit in Steve’s quadrant with two desktops and two laptops.

sure, and their employee headcount has grown exponentially along side it

 

[kiensoy]

I’m not going to watch them but I’d be surprised if even one YouTuber has a single negative thing to say about the Lightning ports, the base configuration (8/256) or the number of ports.

I watched iJustine unboxing and she didn’t mention the lightning ports at all 😕

 

[Warped9]

Complaining about the Lightning accessories is complaining for the sake of complaining.

 

[Warped9]

There don’t yet appear to be tear down and/or hands-on reviews of the M3 iMac. They just cite Geekbench scores and complain about the Lightning accessories.

Anyway you can see hands-on reviews of the base M3 MacBook Pro which is the same chip only with 512 base SSD rather than 256. So it gives you some idea of what the iMac would be like with 512 SSD if you choose that option.

Essentially the M3 with 8GB RAM and 512 SSD is very similar to a base M2 Pro MacBook Pro in overall performance, which is pretty impressive in itself. Add the fact the iMac should have better cooling with two fans (beyond the base model) and the similarity would be even closer. Spec the M3 iMac with 16 or 24GB RAM and it should handily beat the M2 Pro MacBook Pro. Thats something.

I’d still like to see some real world tests rather than just regurgitating Geekbench scores.