iMac 24”

Design

The new iMac’s headlining feature is color. Available in seven tones, the 24-inch iMac in green, yellow, orange, pink, or blue, there’s even a purple option and if you’re leery of a vibrant exterior, then there is the classic silver. And there’s a ton of color to behold on the new iMac, no matter which hue you choose. The entire back of the device is clad in color-matched aluminum. The color extends to the prominent, oversized “lip,” “chin,” or whatever you want to call the portion of the front of the iMac below the screen. Oddly, there’s no Apple logo here (the logo is prominently embossed on the back of the device), so it’s just a vast expanse of color. The actual bezels of the 24-inch screen are white regardless of which color you choose.

Besides color, size is the iMac’s other main physical feature. This is a truly tiny AIO by the standards of previous iMacs. Even more impressive, it’s tiny by phone and laptop standards. Not including the stand’s depth, the screen portion of the iMac is an incredible 0.44 inch thick.

Including the stand, which offers tilt but not height adjustments, the 24-inch iMac measures 18.1 by 21.5 by 5.8 inches (HWD) and weighs 9.83 pounds.

Audio

Despite having less than half an inch of chassis thickness, the iMac still includes a robust sound system. Two pairs of woofers pony up plenty of bass, and they’re designed to be force-cancelling, so they don’t produce distracting vibrations even at maximum volume. Meanwhile, two tweeters handle the higher range. The end result is an impressive sound stage that easily fills a kitchen or living room.

Power

A key reason why Apple was able to fit a larger screen into a smaller and lighter chassis is the decision to jettison the iMac’s internal power supply. Debates rage on whether it’s better to have a smaller AIO with an external power brick or a larger one with a built-in power adapter and one less item cluttering up your desk. Whichever side of the debate you’re on, the laws of physics dictate you can’t have a razor thin AIO and a built-in power supply.

The new iMac’s power brick isn’t small, but at least it’s well-designed, and the color-matched part of the power cord is long enough that you’ll probably be able to fit the adapter under your desk and out of sight. As a consolation prize, you can upgrade to a power adapter with a gigabit Ethernet port built in. It’s a shame that feature doesn’t come standard, but if you spring for the option, that’s one less visible cord to have sticking out of your iMac’s back panel.

Display

It’s got a 4,480-by-2,520-pixel resolution, which means it’s slightly higher than 4K. (Apple calls it “4.5K.”) The pixel dimensions translate to 218 pixels per inch, which compares well with the density measurements of most other Retina Macs. With 500 nits of brightness, a glossy finish, and support for 1 billion colors (the entire P3 gamut), this screen is a joy. Onscreen elements appear crisp and brilliant, no matter what you’re viewing. Like the high-end 27-inch iMac, the new 24-inch version has True Tone technology, which automatically sets the white balance based on the room’s ambient light.

They’re definitely missing a touch screen, however. The macOS operating system isn’t designed for touch input, so the iMac doesn’t offer it.

Performance

Following in the footsteps of the Mac mini, the 24-inch iMac is the second Apple desktop to ditch Intel processors in favor of the Apple M1. There’s no Intel version of the 24-inch iMac, which uses Apple’s M1 chip exclusively. Since the M1 system-on-a-chip incorporates both memory and graphics processing. Storage capacities range from 256GB to 1TB, all amounts use speedy SSDs instead of the slower, spinning Fusion Drives that were previously available on the 21.5-inch iMac.

Keyboard & Camera

A Touch ID-equipped keyboard, available in either tenkeyless or full versions, is an optional extra on the 24-inch iMac.

Apple laptops have long featured Touch ID fingerprint readers that let you log in without typing your password. But the sensors have remained absent from the Magic Keyboards shipped with Apple desktops until now. The sensor sends encrypted fingerprint data to the M1, which uses it to process logins and other tasks.

The camera is the more impressive of the two. Like the camera on the 27-inch iMac, it captures 1080p video, which itself is an immediate advantage over the 720p resolution that most built-in webcams, with the happy result that the 24-inch iMac sports the highest-quality built-in webcam I’ve ever used on a computer.

Ports

The port selection on the 24-inch iMac is an unfortunate step backward. The base model includes just two USB-C ports and a magnetic power connector on the back, with a headphone jack more easily accessible on the left edge. The USB-C connectors support Thunderbolt 3 and USB4,but require adapters or special cables to connect to an external monitor or a USB Type-A peripheral.