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00:00Hey, what's up, MKBHD here.
00:05So let's talk Macs for a minute.
00:08So next to me here is the brand new 27 inch iMac.
00:11You may have seen that announcement and this guy is essentially a spec bump, a refresh
00:16of a lot of really important pieces inside of the same design iMac we've always known.
00:22And first of all, I've already said like in previous videos that I love that Apple is
00:25doing more consistent updates to products, at least lately, because in my ideal world,
00:31the tech just keeps getting updated over and over, regardless of whatever cycle we're on.
00:35Whenever you buy a new piece of tech, it's just the latest version available.
00:38Kind of like what Tesla does, but computers don't all work that way.
00:40So this is about as good as we'll get.
00:42Thank you for keeping the iMac updated, Apple.
00:46That being said, because of the inevitable iMac refresh, the updated design we're expecting
00:53and the Apple Silicon transition for Macs looming on the horizon, it's not such a straightforward
00:59answer to just recommend getting this or not.
01:03But let me just show you what's new with this iMac because it's actually a really nice update,
01:06all things considered.
01:07So it's mostly the 27 inch iMac getting the good stuff.
01:10And first of all, it's updated to the latest 10th gen Intel chips and Radeon graphics.
01:16So this one I have here is actually spec'd pretty nicely with the highest end 10 core
01:20i9.
01:21And you can get it with up to 128 gigs of RAM that is thankfully still user replaceable
01:26by this little door here on the back of the 27 inch.
01:29And you have the new Radeon 5000 series GPUs minus spec'd, as you can see.
01:35And I've only had it for a limited time, about two days, but I have obviously had no performance
01:39issues on this brand new machine.
01:42And benchmarks show that it is a solid performance upgrade.
01:45There's a reason for this new chip.
01:46But I think the biggest change is actually that the hard drives are now gone from this
01:50lineup.
01:51Those fusion drives are also now gone.
01:54It is all SSDs all the way through the line, up to eight terabytes, which is sick.
01:59Now, honestly, this is kind of long overdue.
02:02Hard drives instead of SSDs in premium machines in 2020 should basically be a niche thing
02:08at this point.
02:09The prices come down so much for fast SSDs, which these are, that it's a no brainer.
02:13So I'm glad to see SSDs.
02:15The one weird thing is if you go spec out a 21 and a half inch iMac right now, you can
02:19still find a one terabyte fusion drive.
02:23I think that is the last hard drive shipping in an Apple product right now, at least default.
02:31Kill that Apple.
02:32But you know what makes me really happy to be able to say?
02:36They've improved the quality of the webcams.
02:39This is now the look of the new 1080p webcam in the iMac 27 inch.
02:45It's much better.
02:46Again, it's not like some amazing thing, but it's not just the resolution 1080p.
02:50It's a physically better sensor.
02:52And of course you can see the image quality here.
02:55There's also the microphone quality, which you're hearing, which now is these new studio
03:00quality mics, which again is a bit of an exaggeration, but there is one additional microphone around
03:05the back of the Mac for better echo and noise cancellation.
03:08I guess it makes sense that they could upgrade the physical size of the webcam inside the
03:13iMac because there's more room inside this bigger machine.
03:18I'm still going to keep asking for a better webcam in their laptops, but again, when you
03:22put it in this, this all in one, it makes it that much better of a media machine in
03:28these times where we're doing a lot more video conferencing and virtual work.
03:32They've also improved the speakers at the bottom of the iMac here.
03:35So there's now a dedicated audio controller on the T2 chip.
03:39And personally, while I can't really hear much of a max volume difference, I mean, it's
03:42already been pretty loud.
03:44I can attest for an improvement in the fidelity and just overall quality at most of the existing
03:49volume levels, which is always great because a lot of people who use iMacs use these built-in
03:54speakers.
03:55But the feature I was most interested in when we saw this announcement the other day is
03:58the new nanotexture matte glass, which conveniently enough, this Mac behind me actually has.
04:06It's hard to tell because there's almost no reflections, but I think this is an option.
04:10First of all, that I love, and that I think a lot of people buying iMacs will also love.
04:14So a lot of you probably remember the nanotexture option first appearing in the $5,000 pro display
04:20XDR from last year.
04:22It was a thousand dollar option, but generally it dramatically reduced glare.
04:26And now these things are an order of magnitude easier to work with in this well-lit studio
04:31environment.
04:32So having this same finish without having to change the color or anything about the
04:37bezels is great.
04:38It massively cuts down on reflections as you can tell, and now you can use the iMac in
04:43rooms with windows behind you or lamps across the room or just any other types of uncontrollable
04:49light that you just don't have to worry about anymore.
04:51This is implemented super well.
04:52My only question is, it's a $500 option here on the iMac.
04:56It still is a thousand dollar option on the pro display XDR.
05:00Why is this not available on the iMac pro?
05:03If you know pros will use it because it's on the pro display and you know regular people
05:07love it because matte displays are everywhere and you put it on the iMac, why not put it
05:11on the machine both pros and some regular people get.
05:15So I wouldn't be surprised if we saw this eventually get added to iMac pro.
05:19So anyway, all that great stuff being said, you should still think very carefully about
05:24whether you should buy, whether you should spend starting at $1799, whether you should
05:29spend that much money on a new machine right now at this point in 2020, because there are
05:34some things looming on the horizon, which are the inevitable iMac redesign and the Apple
05:41Silicon transition.
05:42See the iMac is long overdue for redesign.
05:47And I'm not just saying that because people like to just change for the sake of change.
05:51They've been using essentially this same design for about eight years now since 2012.
05:57And it's just dated now, like look at the size of these bezels.
06:01Where else in anywhere in Apple's lineup do you see bezels this big?
06:04The chin being this big, even the port layout around the back.
06:09This is generally a machine that could use a refresh.
06:12And so the rumor is Apple's been working on this, a sort of iMac redesign that looks something
06:16like the pro display XDR or the iPad pro with generally more squared off edges, thinner
06:22bezels and all of that same great performance.
06:26That would feel a lot more worth the money whenever that happens.
06:31But even if let's say you are fine with this design, there is also now the already announced
06:35transition of all Macs to Apple Silicon that they announced at WWDC.
06:39And that's when we saw Apple get on stage and talk about the planned two year transition
06:43period to start moving all of their Macs from Intel's x86 architecture to Apple Silicon.
06:49And there are some seriously impressive performance and efficiency and thermal promises that come
06:55from all of the potential of moving to Apple Silicon.
06:58And we're all hoping this transition goes as smoothly as possible.
07:02But importantly, if you are a shopper considering getting an iMac, there are a lot of unanswered
07:08questions just in general about what will happen to Intel Macs once this transition
07:15period is over.
07:17And how long will it take before Intel Macs slowly start to get treated like second class
07:23Macs and start to get less updates and just generally start to fade into the past.
07:28So in the case of this new iMac update and every single Intel Mac update between now
07:36and that transition, consider two things.
07:40One, how immediately do you actually need to get a new computer?
07:44And two, how long do you plan on keeping that Mac?
07:48Like sometimes it can be kind of hard to know, but if you know generally you're a pretty
07:51quick updater in like three or four years, you know you'll probably upgrade again.
07:57Or if you need a computer now, or let's say you just like this design, then get it because
08:03this is a pretty great Mac in general.
08:05A lot of things that are great about it, like I talked about in the first half of this video.
08:08But because this is such a solid, easy to recommend all-in-one, there's a lot of buyers
08:14of iMacs that have their computer for, that they want it to be good for seven, eight,
08:19nine, 10 years, which is an incredibly long time to use a computer.
08:25But people keep their computers for a very long time when they buy iMacs and not a lot
08:28of people watching this channel fall into that demographic, but those people should
08:34probably wait another year or two for the inevitable transition to Apple Silicon or
08:42that iMac redesign, or maybe they both happen at the same time, but that will make it feel
08:46much more worth the money.
08:49Then again, a lot of those people probably don't care about Apple Silicon or designs
08:54of iMacs, so maybe I'm just preaching to no one here.
08:57There's something called the Osborne effect, which I'm sure a lot of Apple users have considered,
09:01which is a social phenomenon of customers canceling or deferring orders for a current,
09:06soon to be obsolete product as an unexpected drawback of a company's announcing a future
09:11product prematurely.
09:13You can imagine applying that to this current situation, which is people deciding not to
09:17buy this pretty great iMac that would probably be fine for them because of the Intel to Apple
09:23Silicon transition expected in about a year.
09:26Maybe that'll be a better one.
09:27I think Apple's thought a lot about this, and at the end of the day, this iMac was still
09:32going to come out anyway because Apple's relationship with Intel is a long time coming, and these
09:37products have just been roadmapped for years now, so it was going to happen anyway.
09:42I think if you're a potential customer, just take that extra beat to think about whether
09:46you need a computer now or if you can wait a year or two for what will probably be a
09:52bit more future-proof anyway.
09:55That's my two cents.
09:56That's been the video.
09:57Thanks for watching.
09:58Catch you guys in the next one.
10:00Peace.