Apple adds 4K 21.5-inch iMac, updates keyboard, trackpad and mouse

Apple adds 4K 21.5-inch iMac, updates keyboard, trackpad and mouse

Graham Spencer at MacStories:

Starting at $1,499, this new 21.5-inch iMac has a screen resolution of 4096 x 2304 and the base model comes with a 3.1GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, a 1TB hard drive, 8GB of memory, and an Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6200 graphics card. You can also customize the new iMac – upgrading the processor up to a 3.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, add up to 16GB of memory, and up to 512GB of Flash Storage (or 2TB Fusion Drive).

In Jason Snell’s review for Macworld, he argues that you should go with the Fusion Drive over the base 5400rpm drive:

The base storage configuration of the 4K iMac is a 1TB, 5400rpm hard drive. It’s been a few years since I regularly used a Mac with a spinning disk as its primary hard drive, and man, did it feel slow. Starting up was slow. Launching apps was slow. Everything… just… took… longer. It’s disconcerting to take a brand-new, top-of-its-line Mac out of the box and be disappointed by how sluggish it feels, but that’s what I experienced, and it’s pretty much down to that slow hard drive.

Apple also announced the Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Trackpad 2. The trio of devices all come with a built in lithium-ion battery that charge via Apple’s standard lightning cable.

I’m most intrigued by the Magic Trackpad 2, as it would replace the original unit that I’ve been using since 2011. It also comes with the Force Touch technology that’s built in to many of Apple’s notebooks, which adds a whole new depth of interaction to OS X. The Magic Keyboard looks fantastic, but it doesn’t feature Apple’s new key switches that comes with the Macbook.