T3 - UK (2021-07)

JULY 2021 T3 71

Apple iMac M 1

on the glass. e keyboard, mouse
and trackpad come in the same
aluminium colour as the stand of the
iMac, plus whiteto match the bezel.
e keyboard is great – the short
travel won’t satisfy those who can
only love mechanical keyboards, but
for everyone elseit’s a great mix of
requiring only a little pressure,
offering clearfeedback when pressed,
and having acomfortable amount of
travel. e size is good, too. Also,
having the Touch ID button inthe
top-right of the keyboard is
something we’ve wanted for a long
time,and itworksperfectly. Users of
pre-Intel Macs will be right at home.
It’salso a reallysatisfying thing to
unpack, and feels like an event as you
reveal its secrets – it’s niceto have a
little playfulness inthe Apple
unboxing experience.

Performance art
e storywith Apple’s M1 processor is
that it’smore than powerful enough
for most people. ere’sno choice of
speed or number of cores because
there doesn’t need to be: it’s more
powerful than the highest-end chip
in the Intel-powered 16-inch
MacBook Pro, and that’s more than
enough for the vast majorityof

people.You just don’t need to worry

about it.

In Geekbench 5, the iMac scores

1745 in the single-core benchmark,

and 7660 in the multi-core

benchmark– compare that with the

eight-core Intel Corei9 16-inch

MacBook Pro, which earns around

110 0 and 6900 in those tests,

respectively, and wehavea winner.

It’sa similar storyto the processor

specs when it comes to RAM. e 8GB

it comes withas standard is miserly in

cost terms, but will be enough for a

home user.Being able to upgrade to

16GB gives solid headroom for people

with more advanced ambitions,but

32GB would be reallynicefor pros.

Graphics is the area inwhich the

iMac could maybedo with some

improvement out of the box. eM1’s

graphical chops are veryimpressive

inside the MacBook Air, but ina

desktopthey look relatively weak. If

you don’t care about games and

won’tdo anygraphical editing

beyondsome standardphoto/video

tweaking,then againthere’s no

questionthatit offers plenty of

power,but the GPU is definitely the

potential weakpoint.

Overall, though, it’s a really great

package, with itsonly potential

irritations being the lack of port

variation, its limited GPU power,and

Apple’scheap approach to RAM.

Again, though, none of these will

actually affect people just using it for

standard home computing tasks,

with the exception ofthe ports.

It’snot cheap,but the iMac has

always offered surprisinglygood

value when you consider the screen

• a displaythis good would cost well
  over half the price on its own. And it
  wouldn’t come insuch a fetching
  rangeof colours.

WE’RE IMPRESSED Fantastic 4.5K screen;

beautifuldesign and colours; ultra fast CPU.

WE’D IMPROVE Cheapest one missingsome

features; only hasUSB-C; max RAM is limiting.

THE LAST WORD A great homeor work

machine, with the power for pro work as well.

VERDICT

Find the best deals on the Apple iMac M1

at: bit.ly/t3imacm1

Having the Touch

ID button in the

top-right is

something we like

LIGHT TOUCH

While it’s only included in the

more expensive models, the

packaged Magic Keyboard

with Touch ID makes

unlocking your iMac as easy

as on a MacBook.