If the iMac's credit-card-melting cost is too much to bear, we'd recommend considering the Mac mini instead. Still, this is a gorgeous machine that offers great performance, a slick user interface, and a screen so big and beautiful that we'd kiss it if we weren't so afraid of getting face grease everywhere.Īll this quality comes at a hefty price, though.

You'll have to make up your own mind up as to whether these issues are likely to get on your nerves. The keyboard is impressively small, but, if you're doing much typing, you might want to upgrade to something more spacious.Īs with previous versions, we have our gripes about the port line-up on the new Apple iMac. We think that might be a smart move - the Magic Mouse can become uncomfortable with extended use, and it's not a very ergonomic shape. There's a wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse in the box, although you can choose to have a Magic Trackpad instead of the mouse if you wish. The new processor seems to be pulling its weight. This machine will chew through high-definition movies, and gaming is certainly on the cards as well. In Cinebench OpenGL, it racked up 60.65 frames per second. It scored 267.42 in Xbench, compared with the 202.71 scored by last year's Core i3 iMac. With a 2.7GHz Core i5 chip, it flew through our benchmark tests. Upgrade options include a 2TB hard drive (£120) and 256GB solid-state drive (£400). You can upgrade the 4GB of DDR3 RAM to 8GB (£160) or 16GB (£480). AMD Radeon chips provide the graphical grunt, with our iMac sporting the HD 6770M GPU.įinally, a 1TB, 7,200rpm hard drive is included as standard on all but the cheapest iMac. If you have a spare £160, you can upgrade to a 2.8GHz Core i7 chip in the case of the 21.5-inch machine, and a 3.4GHz Core i7 processor in the case of the 27-inch model. The 21.5-inch version has 2.5GHz or 2.7GHz options, while the 27-inch model has 2.7GHz or 3.1GHz options. With the 27-inch model, this arrangement could have you grappling awkwardly with the iMac like a monkey trying to pick up a surfboard.Īpple's seen fit to cram Intel's new quad-core Core i5 processors into the refreshed iMacs. Having to reach around the back every time you want to plug something into a USB port is pretty inconvenient.

Secondly, the placement of the ports feels rather awkward.

Perhaps Apple doesn't want to encourage competition with Thunderbolt but, whatever the reason, it's a serious omission. Most new laptops and computers come with one or more of these faster USB sockets, so having USB 2.0 speeds on a brand-new machine feels rather underwhelming. Firstly, it's a kick in the pants not to have any USB 3.0 ports. We have a couple of issues with these connectivity options.

Apple mac 27 screen inces