Apple’s got a summer surprise for you.
It’s a brand new twenty seven inch iMac.
Is it worth investing in right now when arm based Mac’s are just down the road?
Let’s find out
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There are a lot of interesting new features in In the new 2020 version of the 2017 iMac, Apple just announced it earlier this week.
But the one that’s probably most practical for anybody living in the nightmare world, or 2020 is this one I’m looking at right here and that’s the new webcam that’s built in.
The new iMac finally has a 1080 resolution webcam that’s better than most other Macs have that’s better than most laptops have and using it right now, so hopefully you can see the difference.
And it’s also got this studio mics that they first put into the 16 inch MacBook Pro last year.
Those have been imported here as well.
So hopefully this looks and sounds a bit better than your average workplace Skype or zoom call.
I’m gonna go over a couple of the highlights of things that make this new 27 inch iMac frankly seem as good or better than the iMac Pro.
Now you can get 10th generation Intel Core i 9 processors up to 10 Core processors.
You can get up to 128 gigs of RAM although frankly you’re gonna probably get 16 or 32 for graphics and this is one of the only things other than the Mac Pro, the iMac pro and the 16 inch MacBook Pro where you can get discrete graphics In a Mac, while they’ve got the new 5000 series AMD Radeon cards, this one’s got the Radeon pro 5700 XT.
Now that’s the highest end version you can add on.
If you get the base model new iMacs are going to have lower end new 5000 series AMD Radeon cards now why do you need high end power like this?
Well, you probably don’t, but.
If you’re somebody who let’s say you’re working from home now let’s say you’re shooting and maybe even occasionally editing your own video something I never really used to do but now I seem to be doing a lot of well then maybe you do need some higher end hardware, especially combined with a big really nice screen like this.
If you’re doing high end photography, shooting an 8k, which I don’t but I do shoot in 4k.
If you’re doing any kind of CAD or 3D work, which is sometimes do or if you’re working in development, anything game wise anything in 3D, well these are all good use cases for a high end very pro level machine like this.
Another new feature is the T2 chip that Apple has added to this device.
It’s in several others, and that does a lot of security software also helps with things like video encoding.
Apple, for example, says that.
With the new webcam on here, the T two chip can help figure out when there’s a face in the frame and what that faces versus the background and adjust the exposure in order to really emphasize the people rather than the backgrounds and other things in the frame.
Now it’s not going to do facial recognition login, which frankly, we would all like to see since we happen on our phones and it doesn’t do the sort of face tracking or let’s say the camera would cut in a bit and follow me around while I do this.
But, you know, looking at it just with the changing lighting conditions in here, it seems to be maintaining a pretty decent look on my video.
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There’s one more really high end feature that’s bled down into this new 27 inch iMac.
It’s something that previously we had on the apple pro display again as an option and I hear it’s also an option, And that is the nano texture screen.
This is a very non glossy non reflective screen.
I’ve got a lot of natural light coming in here next to me and a lot of other screens in this room are very hard to see because of all the glare.
I’ve got no glare on this screen right here and that is because there’s a little pattern etched into the screen that’s the nano texture and that really helps give it a nice matte look without having That’s sort of almost foggy matte finish that non glossy screens usually have.
The nano texture is an extra option that adds $500 but it’s really great especially for brightly lit rooms.
I think that if anyone has seen it on the Mac Pro display, it’s the kind of thing you want everywhere.
So now we’re starting to see other places starting with this 27 inch iMac.
Now you may be saying to yourself, wow, this sounds great, why don’t I run out and buy one of these right now?
What’s the catch?
Well the catch is this new iMac looks the same as the last 27 inch iMac which looked the same as the one before and so on.
The design of these systems has not changed.
In many, many years, the MacBook Air fell into the same trap or had the same design for a long time.
Other systems evolve past it in terms of look and feel.
And eventually they had to give the MacBook Air a major refresh.
This still has a minimalist modern look.
There’s a lot of nice touches to it, but the big screen bezels around it really feel dated right now.
There’s that single piece foot to it, and you can tilt it up and down like this.
But what you really like to see frankly, is the ability to raise the screen up and lower it.
And if you’re working with a very high end professional to like this, that’s something you may want.
Now I just got my hands on this new 27 inch iMac, I’m just starting to bench market.
Try a few things.
Maybe I’ll even play some games don’t tell anybody.
And we’ll report back with more in depth testing scores benchmark scores impressions later on, but at least very Initially, I really like the new webcam.
I’ve used it for a couple of zoom meetings and a TV appearance already.
I like the nano texture screen I can really tell the difference.
And I like that even with all the new options.
The starting prices on to this iMac are the same as the previous model, that standard Apple operating procedure.
They update the components they add new stuff, But they keep the starting price the same to give you a you know a feel like you’re getting some value out of it.
Do you have to run out and get a new 27 inch iMac today.
If you’re stuck working at home and you really need a high end professional workstation for especially for photo and video.
Then maybe you do if you’ve been saying, I’m gonna wait to see what Apple does with their own Apple silicon, those arm chips that will eventually come to every Mac over the next couple of years.
Well, no, this is an Intel model.
It may be the very last Intel one we see.
But it certainly throws in a lot of the bells and whistles.
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