My BASE blue M1 iMac is on it's way !!!
Delivery: 5/21
Will report back on how it does in my world!
Delivery: 5/21
Will report back on how it does in my world!
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Did Anyone Order the 2-port/7 GPU Core version of 2021 M1 24" iMac? If so, why?
- Thread starter Yebubbleman
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Seeing that you got a base model for those apps you bought, give me hope my base model will be more than enough for watching plex , 4k streaming 😁
True, but keep in mind that you're comparing a heavily discounted product to a brand-new product at full RRP. If the iMac were similarly discounted, it's a whole different ball game.
Regardless, if you were to compare the £699 RRP of the Mac mini to the £1,249 of the iMac, then that extra £550 would get you a best-in-class 4.5K P3 display, incredible speakers, camera, microphone, Magic Keyboard and Mouse, all in one light package. I can't speak for everyone else, but to me that's an excellent deal - if you're after those extras and convenience. At the end of the day, it all comes down to what you need. If all you need is the computer itself, then the Mac mini is an absolute steal, barring upgrade costs.
I was a tricky position because, as someone who runs a small business, I needed a versatile machine that could be used for productivity/admin and creative content. Therefore 16gb of RAM was essential, and that meant that I couldn't just purchase a base product like the the said Mac mini. But with my business discount through Apple, I got the base iMac upgraded to 16/256gb with ethernet for £1,320. Not bad at all!
Here's another reason why I get the base model:
Here's why I always buy base model Macs, and why you should too!
You can add the wired ethernet to the base model for $30. The Touch ID is only useful if want to use an Apple Keyboard (some people might prefer something better). $170 for an extra two USB ports and an extra GPU core seems expensive. That money would be better spent on RAM or storage.
some people don't need any of those extra features and that's why they wouldn't get the base model.
wifi and no ethernet ports is good enough for macbook airs and that's what Apple sells the most of.
the base MBA only has 7 gpu cores and is good enough to make it Apple's best seller.
mbas don't have regular usb ports.
And touchid on a Mac isn't needed like on a phone. I found it fairly useless on a Mac. You can use a short Mac password and tie it to your AppleID. 3 wrong guesses and you have to enter your AppleID password so it seems pretty secure to me. And passwords for websites are all saved in Safari and it's just as easy to click confirm as it is to touch the touch id key. Matter of fact I think you have to touch touch id and then still click confirm.
I'd probably rather spend the $200 to move up to 16gb ram given the nice monitor attached.
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I may be wrong , but does extra ram run that big monitor smoother ?
wish they had made the monitor run at 120 hz refresh rate, having for few days MacBook Pro m1 and scrolling text and such is a big downgrade from my iPad Pro . Also noticed when zoom in and out ( pinch with 2 fingers) is much smoother on iPad Pro, on MacBook Pro takes 2-3 seconds to clear the text
16gb would make the nice monitor last longer.
Maybe it's weird but for a mac Mini I am fine with the 8gb base model. If I ever really needed 16gb I would step up to the better model in the future.
But with this iMac I feel a strong desire to get 16gb. I would probably keep it longer because of the nice monitor. And it doesn't seem as easy to resell as a Mini either. It's bulkier. The pricepoint is higher so the market wouldn't as big and easy to sell into. You take a bigger depreciation loss on the iMac even thought the monitor would still be perfectly good. Meanwhile a Mini in a few years will be sub $500 and easy and cheap to pack up and ship.
On the other hand, one can just upgrade to the latest iMac too if they wanted more RAM. There is nothing stopping one from doing so in a few years if they needed more ram. I've resold my iMacs in the past.
btw, I have a 144hz monitor and had my M1 Mini hooked up to it. It's a little smoother but ...and maybe the Mac isn't made for it as well as it could be or something, but it's not that big of a deal in MacOS to have 120hz.
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Does anyone know where the reviewers are getting their info that the base iMac 7-core GPU model has 1 fan and the 8-core GPU model has 2 fans? Seems odd to me. I can't find anything from Apple. Engadget is one of the video reviews that mention this.
I am ordering that model. It has enough speed and memory for me-- I don't make videos. I do email, FaceBook, Instagram, Twitter, I edit photos I have taken, I read my Feedly RSS feed. I cannot justify the expense for what I do not need. I am ordering the keyboard with touch ID however. Our modem is not in the room with my desk so the ethernet port would not be used. If it were, that would be a reason.
Desktop computers should have more than 2 ports.
I don't care what kind of ports they are.
There should be plenty of them...
I don't care what kind of ports they are.
There should be plenty of them...
Considering that USB-C Docks often come with the entire I/O lineup of the 21.5" iMac (albeit with the Thunderbolt 3 ports being regular USB-C instead), that logic doesn't follow as I can expand a 4-port iMac to have double the I/O of a 2-port iMac should I so desire. Certainly one dock/hub is probably sufficient for most, but considering that the two ports are Thunderbolt, I might prioritize them for higher-bandwidth connections rather than conversion to ports that are standard on most other desktops (including Apple's still-sold Intel Mac desktops)
This is the first I've seen of this! I'd be very curious to know more though! Will try to do digging on this and report back, assuming someone doesn't beat me to the punch here.
Personally, I agree. I REALLY don't mean to knock those that are cool with only having two ports nor those that bought the two-port M1 24" iMac. But I am definitely of that opinion as well. It's not a MacBook Air and the only thing separating a $1000 13" notebook and a $1300 24" all-in-one seems to be a larger display at the cost of portability, which for $300 extra seems counter to how computers have been marketed since the mid-90's.
The whole point of this thread was to explore the personal preferences that led people to justify buying this particular M1 Mac over the others (MacBook Air, 2-port 13" MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and 4-port 24" iMac). Not to lambast those that aren't bothered by its shortcomings.
The teardown revealed a reason why the 4 ports model might be preferable. Heat pipe instead of an heat sink, and two fans instead of one. To me this means that under heavy load the 4 port model will be able to dissipate more heat, thus being more silent than the 2 port model
Luke Miani found that the better cooling scheme in the four port iMac also allows it to run faster under load than the 2 port model:
(Though he misattributes the difference to the processor itself.)
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Yes, and interestingly he ran tests & actual software that found the M1 iMac runs pretty much the same (base 7 core GPU and mid 8 core GPU), but the M1 Mini still beats both of them out.