I don't know why I'm posting this, other than we're a year into the M1 transition and I still feel this way - so consider it a love letter to an old friend 
As background, I have a 2021 14" M1 Macbook Pro. So does my daughter. I think the 14" M1 mbp is absolutely fantastic. I also have a 2015 macbook pro 15" with the AMD graphics, a 2012 macbook pro with amd graphics, as well as a 2018 mac mini.
Finally, I have TWO 2019 iMacs.
Both of my 2019 iMacs are top end 8-core machines with the Vega48 graphics. On both, I swapped out the spinning portion of the fusion drive with a 4TB samsung 870 Evo ssd.
So, why do I say the iMacs are still my favorite despite the fact I very much like and appreciate the M1 MBP?
1) Upgradability: As mentioned, on both iMacs I was able to upgrade the drives to huge SSD's which come in incredibly handy, and this is something that became impossible on even the 2020 intel iMac. Down the road, who knows, I may upgrade them to 8tb ssds. It's just great to have that option.
I also upgraded the base 8gb ram to 64gb on both. I love that I could vastly improve the specs of these machines on my own without having to pay the insane Apple premiums.
2) Flexibility (this is the big one!): These machines can run partitions with Mojave, and any other mac OS up to Monterey, which means I can still use all my 32-bit apps. I also run windows 10 in bootcamp. Then also can run older windows OS's, as well as linux, and older mac os's in Parallels. The 2019 model is literally a swiss army knife of flexibility
3) The performance of the 27" iMacs is great, and because of the large case, there is good enough thermals that I rarely hear the fans and it stays cool, even while editing videos, etc. True, the cpu performance of even my low end 14" M1 pro macbook pro is somewhat higher, but not by a ton, and the iMacs' vega 48 graphics are clearly superior to the lower end M1 pros.
In the end, while I'm very very happy with the M1 pro macbook pro, when I come back to my 2019 iMac it feels like coming home. I'm quite sure I'll have these iMacs for a very long time and never regret purchasing them.
Long live the 2019 iMac!!!
As background, I have a 2021 14" M1 Macbook Pro. So does my daughter. I think the 14" M1 mbp is absolutely fantastic. I also have a 2015 macbook pro 15" with the AMD graphics, a 2012 macbook pro with amd graphics, as well as a 2018 mac mini.
Finally, I have TWO 2019 iMacs.
Both of my 2019 iMacs are top end 8-core machines with the Vega48 graphics. On both, I swapped out the spinning portion of the fusion drive with a 4TB samsung 870 Evo ssd.
So, why do I say the iMacs are still my favorite despite the fact I very much like and appreciate the M1 MBP?
1) Upgradability: As mentioned, on both iMacs I was able to upgrade the drives to huge SSD's which come in incredibly handy, and this is something that became impossible on even the 2020 intel iMac. Down the road, who knows, I may upgrade them to 8tb ssds. It's just great to have that option.
I also upgraded the base 8gb ram to 64gb on both. I love that I could vastly improve the specs of these machines on my own without having to pay the insane Apple premiums.
2) Flexibility (this is the big one!): These machines can run partitions with Mojave, and any other mac OS up to Monterey, which means I can still use all my 32-bit apps. I also run windows 10 in bootcamp. Then also can run older windows OS's, as well as linux, and older mac os's in Parallels. The 2019 model is literally a swiss army knife of flexibility
3) The performance of the 27" iMacs is great, and because of the large case, there is good enough thermals that I rarely hear the fans and it stays cool, even while editing videos, etc. True, the cpu performance of even my low end 14" M1 pro macbook pro is somewhat higher, but not by a ton, and the iMacs' vega 48 graphics are clearly superior to the lower end M1 pros.
In the end, while I'm very very happy with the M1 pro macbook pro, when I come back to my 2019 iMac it feels like coming home. I'm quite sure I'll have these iMacs for a very long time and never regret purchasing them.
Long live the 2019 iMac!!!
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