The M1 iMac arrived in the second wave of first generation Apple Silicon Macs, and is the first Mac to receive a redesign alongside the new chip. Gone are the 21.5″ and 27″ screen options of the Intel era, and none to replace the larger option. November 2020 saw the announcement of the M1 Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro, which had all retained their original design and resembled their predecessors, unlike this iMac. In a throwback to the PowerPC era, you can choose between 7 colors. The colors here are two-tone, all have a white bezel with the screen, and no Apple logo is present in front. Silver, Purple, Green, Yellow, Pink, Blue, and Orange are all options, and the iMac looks stunningly thin.

At entry level, there’s 4 choices of color: Silver/Green/Blue/Pink, no ethernet, a 7-core GPU, and just Two USB-C ports. Ethernet is a $30 option. By default, a color-matching mouse and keyboard are included with the iMac, and Touch ID is a $50 option. The new iMac features 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5, Thunderbolt 3 with USB 4/3.1 Gen 2 support, a brand new 16-core neural engine, and an 8-core GPU as an option. This model also completely does away with any sort of internal upgradeability, any changes would need to be done at time of purchase. Despite the caveats, the M1 iMac introduces a 5nm 3.2 Ghz 8-core ARM-based CPU combined with a 4.5K retina screen, complete with peripherals, at $1299.

Speakers / Mics

There are six speakers in total, and two pairs force-cancelling sub-woofers. Each pair of subwoofers have a high-performance tweeter, and this is managed within an 11mm case. Apple touts this creates “deep, rich bass without unwanted vibrations”. Apple also touts a studio-quality 3-mic array designed to reduce feedback. Beamfoamig technology is also used to help ignore background noise. The focus is to make someone heard in an audio/video/FaceTime call, and channel out the background noise. There is support for Spatial Audio when playing music or video with Dolby Atmos.

FaceTime Camera

An updated, 1080p FaceTime HD camera is used in this new iMac, with a larger light capturing sensor. Image quality in stream and pictures are improved as a result of the M1 Image Signal Processor.

What You Need to Know

• If you’re someone who’s transitioning over from an Intel Mac, or will be using Intel Mac apps, Apple has an app called Rosetta 2 for Apple Silicon Macs. Once installed, this isn’t something you directly interact with. Rather, you may simply open an Intel app, and it’ll open. Rosetta 2 does an Intel to Arm “ahead of time” translation, using an instruction set in the M1 chip. The first time the Intel app launches it’ll be noticeably slow, as Rosetta caches and stores code. Once this process is done, the App should work just as normal.
• These iMacs shipped with 8 GB of RAM which is fine for basic tasks, but is increasingly impractical these days. For a serious speed boost, opt for 16 GB of RAM, and more storage.
• Multiple NANDs allow for parallel processing/RAID, increasing Read/Write speeds. The base 256GB model consists of 2x 128GB NANDs. This contributes to the M1 iMac’s increased performance, in addition to the M1 chip. The storage is very, very fast!

Details

• Announced 2021.04.20
• Shipping 2021.05.21
• Model Identifier: iMac21,2 (7-core GPU)
  • iMac 21,1 (8-core GPU)
• Model: A2439 (EMC 3664) 7-core GPU
  • A2438 (EMC 3663) 8-core GPU
• Order Number: MJV93LL/A* (7-GPU)
  • MGPK3LL/A* (8-GPU)

Mac OS

• Requires macOS Big Sur 11.3 (Build 20E232) or later

Core System

• The 2021 M1 iMac bucks the trend of having user-upgradeable RAM or CPU, opting instead for a soldiered Apple Silicon “chip” at time of purchase, which cannot be removed or replaced except potentially by soldiering.
• CPU: 8 Cores, 4x 3.2 GHz “Firestorm” High Performance Cores: 768K L1i, 512K L1d, 48MB L2, 8MB System Level Cache
  • 4x 2.0 GHz “Icestorm” energy efficient cores: 512K L1, 16MB L2, 8 MB SLC
• 16-Core Neural Engine
• 8/16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR4X-4266 SDRAM (68.25 GB/s)

Video

• Integrated Apple M1 with 7/8-Core Metal 3 Hardware Accelerated GPU
• 23.5″ 4480 x 2520 (218ppi) Retina display, 500 nits, P3 Wide Color, True Tone
  • Support for 1 Billion colors
  • Simultaneous support for internal display and one 6K 60 Hz Display
• Thunderbolt 3 “digital video output” native displayport utput over USB-C.
  • All other connections including TB2 requires adapters.

Drives

• Drive Bus: 256GB PCIe SSD ~2.8 GB/s, 2x 128GB NANDs in Parallel
• Configurable to: 512GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB

Expansion

• 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6
• Bluetooth 5.0
• Two USB-C style Thunderbolt 3 Ports
  • Support for: USB 4 (up to 40 Gb/s), USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)
  • Two extra USB-C style USB 3.0 ports (Up to 10 Gb/s) on $1499 option
• Ethernet Optional ($30)
• 3.5mm headphone jack

Included Peripherals

• iMac
• Power Cord (Power cord with Gigabit Ethernet optional)
• Magic Keyboard (Touch ID Optional)
• Magic Mouse
• Magic Trackpad Optional