Apple has resurrected its 1998 colorful iMac G3 concept with the 2021 M1 iMacs. This one is not just about the colors; this iMac is very important for Apple because it brings its own M1 chip to this Mac.

Technically speaking, the 2021 M1 iMac’s performance is almost similar to the other M1 chip computers like the MacMini and MacBook Pro. Apple wants to make the iMacs stand out from its Mac lineup and give people a reason to buy it other than its beautiful Retina screen. That’s why Apple has taken its old 1998 strategy, adding colors to the computer.

If you have the old iMacs like the 2018 iMacs or 2020 iMacs, do you need to upgrade to Apple’s M1 chip 2021 iMac? That’s what we are going to see in this post.

Design

With just 11.5mm thickness, the 2021 M1 iMac is the thinnest iMac ever. It is not only thin, but it is also light — very light(more than two pounds lesser than 21-inch iMac); it can easily fall if you push the screen hard. 

The main reason for this razor-sharp 11.5mm thin design is the M1 chip. As we all know, the M1 chip packs all the GPU, CPU, and other processing parts in it, making the logic board smaller. What Apple did is pushed all the computing elements to the bottom of the screen and made the iMac screen thinner.

The large thermal systems we used to see in the older iMac have been replaced with two small fans. Apple claims that the fan noise will be less than 10 decibels under normal working conditions. 

Display

The 24-inch iMac is slightly smaller than the older 21.5-inch iMac. Because of the smaller components and slimmer bezels, Apple managed to put the large 24-inch display in a smaller form factor. 

You get a 4.5K retina IPS display with 11.3 million pixels in the 24-inch iMac. In a word, the picture quality is stunning. It is the display that makes your heart want the new M1 iMac.

Other than the display, another huge improvement is the webcam. A 1080p HD camera with larger sensors is given in this iMac, which makes even low-light video calls look crisp. I wish this iMac had the intelligent pan and zoom feature in the new iPad pro. Since the iMacs will sit at a corner, the smart pan feature will be helpful for us to easily move during the video call. Maybe, we can expect this in the next update. 

Oh! And one more thing — the speakers are fantastic. The six-speaker setup with two pairs of force canceling woofers with increased power produces clear sound and also helps you fully experience the spatial audio.

Apple is launching lossless audio and spatial audio Apple music. If you listen to music on iMac, you will enjoy the spatial audio for sure. 

Performance

Apple claims that M1 iMacs are 81% faster than the old iMacs and have 2X faster graphics. 

The biggest advantage of M1 chips was power efficiency and optimal performance. Since the iMac runs on the direct power source, I expected that the M1 chip on iMac will perform better than the M1 MacBook Pro, but it isn’t the case. You get the same performance.

The 27-inch iMacs have dedicated AMD graphics, so the graphic performance on it was far better than the M1 iMacs for now. If you use graphic hungry software, you might feel the M1 iMacs to be a little slow. 

27-inch iMac VS the 24-inch M1 iMac

Apart from the M1 chip’s buttery smooth performance, the 27-inch iMac is better in every other aspect. For instance, the 27-inch iMac has more ports, better graphics, and more importantly, you can expand the RAM up to 128GB manually by yourself. The table below will help you easily compare the 27-inch and 24-inch iMac features.

Features	24-inch M1 iMac	27-inch regular iMac
Display	4.5K	5K
Processor	M1	10th generationIntel processors
Graphics	Inbuilt graphics	AMD graphics configurable upto 16gb
RAM/Memory	8GB, configurable upto 16GB	8GB, configurable upto 128gb
Ports	2 Thunderbolt / USB 4 in base model and 4 ports(2 USB 3 & 2 thunderbolt) in higher-end. One headphone jack.	One SD-card slot Two thunderbolts 3 port 2USB A port One Ethernet port
Storage	Starts at 256Gb and Configurable upto 1TB or 2TB	Starts at 256Gb and Configurable up to 8TB

Apart from all the ports, one thing that makes the M1iMacs special is the support for magic keyboards with a fingerprint reader. Since it is Apple’s own M1 chip, the magic keyboard can securely transfer the data to the iMac. The fingerprint sensor response is a little slow because it needs to send the data wirelessly, but the time lag is very minimal that you won’t recognize it most of the time. 

Who should buy 24-inch M1 iMac

People who use iMacs for regular work and want it to last for the next 5 to 10 years can definitely go for this 24-inch M1 iMac. The 16-core M16 chip can give you. 

Regular office workers and light users like students can also choose this one for its beautiful 4.5K retina screen and spatial audio. Plus, the iMac’s cool color schemes will make your space even more elegant.