The desktop may well be dying, but all-in-ones are still occupying that spot nicely, delivering bigger screens for people who don’t necessarily need a computer to travel with them. But they still come with a price point, and if $1599 was too much for some, Apple is lowering it.
Previously, the entry point for an all-in-one from Apple was just a hair under $1600, with that price point delivering the 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM, and a 1TB hard drive under a 21.5 inch screen, but not everyone needs all of those innards, and so if you don’t care for the terabyte of storage or the speedy quad-core chip, Apple is now making another option available.
From this week, anyone with a passing interest in an all-in-one can find a new model to choose from, with the new 21.5 inch entry level model featuring a dual-core 1.4GHz Intel Core i5 chip, 8GB RAM, 500GB hard drive (half the 1TB), and all of the other regular bits and bobs the other iMac models come with, including four USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt ports, Gigabit Ethernet, SDXC slot, Bluetooth, wireless 802.11a/b/g/n/ac access, and a FaceTime HD camera.
That model now comes in at $1349, providing a $250 difference between the previous entry model, which features a faster and more capable processor as well as more storage.
From our point of view, the $1349 iMac may be a little less expensive, but with only a savings of $250 for less performance and space, we’d probably go with the middle option now, as a 500GB hard drive will be eaten into relatively quickly (especially as we’re all content hungry) and the faster chip with two more cores will provide much more oomph.
That said, you might think differently, and if you don’t plan to use the computer for more than just web surfing, emails, video chat, and photo checking, this new model might be ideal, especially since it saves money (though then again, another less expensive computer could also be just as ideal).
