(box thuds)
- So the 2020 iMac finally arrived,
and we need to get this thing unboxed to see what's new.
(tone chimes) Hey, I'm Jerry,
and I recently purchased a 2019 iMac refurbished
from the Apple Store because I was tired of waiting
for a refresh, and you know what?
A day after my return period expired,
the 2020 iMac was announced.
Lesson learned.
Nah, I'll never change.
So let's get this thing unboxed,
and then we can compare it against the 2019 iMac.
Keyboard and mouse.
So the Apple Keyboard and Mouse are fantastic devices.
I love the Magic Mouse.
I know a lot of people hate it.
They don't think it's ergonomic, it's not tall enough,
but I just liked the ability to be able
to scroll left, right, up, down, whatever,
and have the inertial scrolling,
so I like it.
All right, Apple Magic Keyboard.
One of my favorite keyboards.
And again, I'm not a keyboard snob.
I've talked about this in a previous video,
but I really enjoy the feel of the Magic Keyboards.
While I have our environmental information,
some stickers and a cleaning cloth for the display.
And a lightning cable for charging.
We'll get all this crap out of here
so we can get to the main event.
This is actually the third iMac
that I've unboxed in the last month or so.
Because the first refurb I bought actually died
and I had to send it back and get another refurb,
and that one I've had for about two weeks.
It just got past the return period and bam,
this one arrived.
Lucky for me, I called Apple and they said
that they would take the other one back, no problem.
So they created me a return label
and it will be going back in a couple of days.
All right, getting closer.
Okay, so we are literally five and a half hours later
from the unboxing.
I ran into a number of problems
with the Time Machine restore,
had to go into Restore mode.
None of that worked.
I had to disable secure boot
and try and boot up by a USB drive.
None of that worked.
Eventually, the thing just started working
and was able to log in and here we go.
But, ugh.
So as you can see,
this thing is not the redesign that everyone was hoping for
and that the leaks suggested.
So I guess the new iMac design will be waiting
for Apple Silicon,
which probably makes this the last Intel iMac,
and maybe even the last Intel Mac.
On the front, we still have the industry-leading 5K,
big, beautiful display that's bright but now with True Tone.
True Tone changes the white balance of the display,
depending on the ambient light.
This is awesome in Apple's portable devices
when moving between rooms,
but I'm not sure how useful that will be on a desktop,
but at least it's something new.
Apple also added the option
for a $500 upgrade to add nano-coating to the display,
but I don't think many people are going to get that,
so we'll just move on.
On the bottom, we still have speakers and vents,
just like on every previous generation, back to 2012.
And around back, the 27-inch still has user-accessible RAM
which is awesome because no one,
no one should pay Apple RAM prices for this iMac.
Side note: with Apple Silicon,
I don't know if there's going to be third party RAM options
if Apple builds RAM into the chips,
like they do with the iPhone and iPad.
So something to consider
if you're on the fence about buying an iMac now
or waiting for Apple Silicon.
Also on the back is the same port configuration
with four USB-A ports, two Thunderbolt 3 ports,
an SD card reader, headphone jack, and ethernet.
Inside, we now have 10th gen Intel processors,
which offer moderate improvements
over the previous generation,
and now the i5s come with hyper-threading,
which allows for better performance
on multi-threaded applications.
So this mid-tier iMac with the six-core i5
now has 12 threads compared to last year's six.
I don't wanna go into a whole lot of specs and benchmarks
because others will do a better job at that.
So Luke Miani has done some basic benchmarking already.
I'll put a link to it up here.
Also, inside is all-flash storage options for the first time
from 256 gigs up to 8 terabytes of super fast NVMe storage.
There's also new graphics cards on the new iMacs
starting with the 5300 series on both the low
and the mid-tier iMac.
I was a little worried going from the 5 AVX
with eight gigabytes of RAM
down to the 5300 with four gigabytes.
But in my basic testing with Premiere Pro,
I'm not seeing any performance issues.
In fact, I can play full resolution playback
inside Premiere Pro and I have no issues.
For the work from home crowd, i.e., many people,
there's been a much needed improvement
on the FaceTime camera,
as well as the speakers and microphones.
Now with full HD and better low-light performance,
you can look like you're actually in the new millennium,
which is almost 20 years old at this point,
a welcome improvement.
As you can see, or hear, here,
the three-mic array on the new 2020 iMac
can actually hold its own.
It should be producing a usable audio sound
that could be used in a pinch
if you don't have another microphone,
and I'm not gonna touch this up
except maybe change the DB level.
So let me know what you think below.
The better speaker sound actually comes
from the addition of the T2 chip,
which controls sound, disc encryption,
the camera, and HEVC encoding.
Apple says that the T2 gives the speakers variable EQ
and enhanced the bass response,
so all your content can have big,
balanced high-fidelity sound.
Sure.
Let's see if I can tell the difference.
(gentle music)
(upbeat music)
So it's kind of hard to hear with my microphone
that I used to record this, but to my ears,
the 2020 iMac actually did have a higher fidelity sound.
I could hear more to it.
It sounded more rich.
I had both computers set to the max volume
and I listened to the same music on each one,
and neither of them were distorted
with the volume at full volume,
but the 2020 iMac had a clear, distinct, different sound,
and I think I prefer it.
The T2 should also give us much better speed on the SSDs.
Well, or I thought so.
On the 2019 iMac using Blackmagic Speed Test,
I was getting about 1,900 read
and about 2,400 or 2,700 write.
On the 2020 iMac with the T2 chip,
I was getting about 2,400 megabytes per second
read and write.
So a little bit faster read and a little bit slower write,
which is a little disappointing.
I was expecting much better speeds,
but you win some, you lose some.
Overall, I would say that this is a nice upgrade
from the 2019 iMac.
For the same money, you get a lot more
than you did a few weeks ago,
including faster storage, mostly, throughout the whole line,
faster chips with hyper-threading, a usable 1080p camera,
better audio and microphones,
and it's all wrapped around the industry-leading 5K display.
This may be the last or one of the last Intel Macs
to be announced, but I have no doubt
that this will be a long-lasting
and long-supported device with great performance.
But with a paltry eight gigabytes of memory,
you will definitely want to get some more
and you can see how to upgrade the RAM
and the 27-inch iMac right over here.
So subscribe, like, and let me know what you think.
I'll see you next time.
(light music)