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New 2020 iMac 27" 5k Unboxing and Compare against 2019 iMac | #shotoniphone

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The 2020 iMac finally arrived. I’d recently bought a 2019 iMac refurbished from the Apple Store because I was tired of waiting for a refresh, and a day after my return period expired, the 2020 iMac was announced. “Lesson learned. Nah, I’ll never change.”

Unboxing

The Apple Keyboard and Mouse are fantastic: I love the Magic Mouse (I know a lot of people hate it, as not ergonomic or tall enough), but I like scrolling left, right, up and down with inertial scrolling. The Magic Keyboard is one of my favorites (I’m not a keyboard snob, but I enjoy the feel). Also in the box: environmental information, stickers, a display cleaning cloth and a Lightning cable.

This is actually the third iMac I’ve unboxed in a month: my first refurb died and I had to send it back and get another, which I’d had for about two weeks when the 2020 model arrived. Apple said they’d take the other one back, no problem, and made me a return label. Setting up took about five and a half hours: I ran into a number of problems with the Time Machine restore, had to go into Restore mode, and disabled secure boot to boot from a USB drive; none of it worked, but eventually it just started working.

Design and display

It isn’t the redesign everyone hoped for and the leaks suggested, so the new design will wait for Apple silicon, which probably makes this the last Intel iMac and maybe the last Intel Mac. The front still has the industry-leading 5K display, now with True Tone (which shifts the white balance by ambient light; awesome on portable devices moving between rooms, and I’m not sure how useful on a desktop, but it’s new). Apple added a $500 nano-texture option, which I don’t think many people will get. The bottom still has speakers and vents as on every generation back to 2012.

RAM and ports

Around back, the 27-inch still has user-accessible RAM, awesome because no one should pay Apple RAM prices. (With Apple silicon, I don’t know whether third-party RAM will be possible if Apple builds it into the chips as with the iPhone and iPad: something to consider if you’re deciding between buying now and waiting.) The port configuration is the same: four USB-A ports, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, an SD card reader, a headphone jack and Ethernet.

Inside

  • 10th-gen Intel processors with moderate improvements: the i5s now come with hyper-threading, so the mid-tier six-core i5 has 12 threads versus six last year. (Luke Miani has done basic benchmarking; see the link in the description.)
  • All-flash storage options for the first time, from 256 GB up to 8 TB of NVMe.
  • New graphics, starting with the 5300 series in the low and mid-tier iMacs. I was a little worried about going from a 580X with 8 GB to the 5300 with 4 GB, but in basic testing with Premiere Pro, I see no performance issues and can play full-resolution playback with no problem.
  • A much-needed improvement for the work-from-home crowd: a 1080p FaceTime camera with better low-light performance (“you can look like you’re actually in the new millennium”), and better speakers and mics. The three-mic array can hold its own and produce usable audio in a pinch.

Speakers and the T2

The T2 chip controls sound, disk encryption, the camera and HEVC encoding. Apple says it gives the speakers variable EQ and enhanced bass. In a side-by-side test, both at max volume with the same music, neither distorted, and the 2020 had a clear, distinct, richer, higher-fidelity sound that I prefer.

SSD speed

I expected the T2 to give much better speeds. In Blackmagic: the 2019 iMac got about 1,900 read and about 2,400 to 2,700 write; the 2020 iMac about 2,400 read and write, a little faster read and a little slower write, which is disappointing.

Verdict

A nice upgrade from the 2019 iMac: for the same money, you get faster storage (mostly), faster chips with hyper-threading, a usable 1080p camera, better audio and mics, all around the industry-leading 5K display. It may be the last or one of the last Intel Macs, but I have no doubt it will be long-lasting and long-supported. With a paltry 8 GB of memory, you’ll want more: see my video on upgrading the RAM.

In this video

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