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Is the M1 MacBook Pro a Better Desktop than the iMac?

11:08 video

The M1 MacBooks are all the rage, with unlimited benchmarks showing how much better they are than other Intel Macs and PCs. But is the M1 MacBook Pro a better desktop than the 2020 iMac? Hope Mattress sponsored this video.

My 2020 iMac, bought this past summer, is amazing: a bright 5K display and a sleek all-in-one design, with a bunch of things plugged in all the time. It has a 10th-gen 6-core i5, 40 GB of RAM, and room to stack as many hard drives off the back as I need. When the M1 MacBooks came out, I was under the hype spell and wanted the new MacBook Pro to be my everything computer. In my day-to-day, apps open fast and run smooth, and everything is cool and quiet; in many cases it runs as well or better than my 27-inch iMac, which costs twice as much.

Performance

The M1 is right up there with the i5 iMac and even beats it on some tests: in Geekbench, the M1 Pro beat the 2020 iMac in both single and multi-core CPU tests. The new SSDs are really fast too. The iMac wins in multi-core Cinebench, and in the Geekbench Metal test the base iMac’s Radeon 5300 nearly doubles the M1’s graphics performance, making my Final Cut Pro exports slightly faster on the iMac. In daily use (browsing, email, Twitter, Citrix to work servers), there’s no perceptible difference.

The display

The main thing you need to make a laptop a desktop is a display. The best I’ve found that looks as good as the iMac’s is the BenQ PD3220U, with HDR10 and P3 wide color like the iMac; there are others, like the Samsung UR55 28-inch, but the BenQ’s design, color and solid aluminum base make it a worthy contender. The 5K iMac display is in a class of its own: a couple of 5K displays are on the market, but none come close to its quality and color. Many external displays max out at 300 to 400 nits; the iMac does 500 nits, making HDR pop and P3 colors stand out.

Ports

Connect a display to the 13-inch MacBook Pro M1 through USB-C or Thunderbolt and you have one port left. I frequently need external SSDs and SD card readers, sometimes both at once, so you need a dock or hub like the CalDigit TS3 Plus or SOHO. The iMac has more ports on the back: four USB-A, two Thunderbolt/USB-C, Ethernet, an SD card slot and headphone out. They aren’t well located behind the display, but you can relocate some to the front with something like the Satechi Clamp Hub Pro (SD card reader, three USB-A and a USB-C).

Speakers

The iMac’s built-in speakers sound really good, especially the 2020 model with the T2 chip for variable EQ and enhanced bass: loud and clear. The MacBook’s are decent but not great for desktop use, where I want a louder, clearer sound, especially when editing audio or watching a video. So external speakers are a must; I like the Kanto YU2 (with an audio DAC, available in a MacBook-matching space gray).

Bonus features of the MacBook

  1. Touch ID, which isn’t on any desktop Mac: waking and unlocking is fast and reliable.
  2. It’s a laptop: a 2-in-1 you can disconnect and keep working somewhere else.
  3. Apple silicon runs iOS and iPad apps.

Downsides I’ve found

  • External displays. The MacBooks and Big Sur seem to have lots of issues: the external screen doesn’t turn on, comes up distorted from sleep, or has refresh rate or resolution problems, and other oddities like speakers turned all the way up after reconnecting. (I have videos on these; the short story: it hasn’t been flawless.)
  • It’s not as clean. There’s more complexity: video cables, docks, speakers and power, and cable management. I’m not a clean freak, but constant disorganization makes me a bit anxious, and a laptop desktop always has more clutter than an iMac.

The iMac, as a pure desktop, lets me leave hard drives running and connected, and use it as a Plex media server, file server or Time Machine server for other computers, without worrying about it going offline when I take the laptop to the couch or on a trip. Its only downsides: it doesn’t move (obviously), and it has no biometrics (Apple Watch unlock is clumsy and sometimes slow). It would be nice if Apple added Touch ID to an external Magic Keyboard, maybe with a T2 chip that pairs with the iMac’s for security. “One can only Hope.”

Hope is a mattress brand, made in Texas, that delivers a comfortable night’s sleep at a lower cost than some other online brands. I’ve had mine for a few days (the Aspire Hybrid, with four premium foam layers and an edge-to-edge coil system) and it’s 100% more comfortable than our previous foam mattress: soft and supportive, and it sleeps cool with phase change material woven into the fabric. My wife could sleep in for the first time in a long while, after months of back pain. There’s a 120-night risk-free trial, super-fast shipping, and each purchase donates 100 meals to Feeding America. Use code Jerry for 10% off (details in the description).

Verdict

Is the M1 MacBook Pro a better desktop than the 2020 iMac? I don’t think so. It can be a desktop with compromises: you need extra stuff like a monitor and speakers, adding complexity and, with the M1 MacBooks and Big Sur, some frustration, and it can be difficult and expensive to match what the iMac offers. The iMac is the perfect desktop in my opinion: everything built into a neat, compact enclosure, a built-in display nothing comparable can beat at a reasonable price, enough ports, and it can serve as an always-on backup or media server. I’ll be moving back to my iMac for desktop use and using the MacBook Pro M1 for the couch and mobile. This will be the first time I have two primary devices, so if you have suggestions for workflows or keeping things in sync, let me know.

Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.

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