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Those anorexic new, super-thin iMacs are gorgeous for sure, but there’s a serious downside to that diminutive depth — the 21.5-inch iMac no longer has RAM you can replace yourself, so you’re stuck with Apple’s horrendously expensive prices, just like the MacBook Air and new retina MacBook Pro models. Ouch.
One thing that’s been nice about the iMac, up until now, is that it’s just been a desktop computer wrapped up in a slinky case. You’ve been able to replace the RAM, the hard drive, and other bits and pieces without issue. If you run out of space, just slap a new hard drive in there and be done with it. Likewise, there’s no point in forking out oodles for Apple to stick a few extra gigs of RAM in there. Just buy it for literally half price or less, and install it yourself; it used to take just seconds.
Now, just like the MacBook Air and retinas, you’re stuck with what Apple gives you at the start, so you best fork out all you can and grab as much RAM as your money will stretch to — you always need more RAM. Or you could always just pick up a pricey, but glorious 27-incher, I guess. [CultofMac]
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“you always need more RAM”
The base model comes with 8 GB of RAM. That’s more than enough for the vast majority of people who would buy an iMac. If you need more RAM, then you probably need more than an iMac…
not true, everyone i know who uses and iMac uses it for Photo and Video editing where a Macbook doesn’t just cut it, and the Mac Pro is too much (price and having to buy a screen with quality as good)
The one we have at work, the user uses Adobe Creative Suite and a Parallels virtualbox (using 3GB of RAM) for all the Windows programs, we had to upgrade her to 8GB as 2 of the Adobe products kept crashing or the Parallels box did
*upgrade her from 8GB
Giz, please can we get an edit button!
http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-themes/save-time-by-adding-a-quick-edit-button-in-wordpress-posts/
There you go! that’s how you do it!
I heard that they needed to sort stuff with their legal team for the edit feature =/
Yup, if you are using a 27″ iMac like myself for work, you want as much RAM as possible as I use virtualbox and Adobe creative suite along with several other development tools and those eat up memory due to the multitasking.
Exactly! My gaming PC doesn’t use anywhere near the 8gb of RAM I’ve got… It’s not like Apple is doing us over on this one…
The thing is with gaming is that most games these days are made with consoles as the minimum spec hence they are coded with the paltry memory those machines possess. However when you look at PC exclusive or tuned for PC games, some of the better ones are starting to utilize them.
Still, at the end of the day, if you do development work or in the creative field, more RAM is better as you have 27″ of screen real estate, you’re going to have a lot of windows and programs running.
At least, from my experience.
I have the 2011 updated 2009 model, I love it to bits. Luckily since you pointed out if I had bought these new ones I would have to ask an Apple expert to do all that jazz an an additional price, I’m happy I bought it when I did – which means adding more memory/RAM etc will be piss easy.
I know people are commenting that you dont need more RAM. And that is partly true.
But for power users and people who cant splash out a cool grand every year or 2 on a laptop need space to improve.
I just got my second SSD in the post today. And come Xmas I’ll be jacking my 8GB of RAM to 16GB.
My laptop is 2 years old and still dominates the high spec Macs.
Too right. I’ve got 8GB in my MacBook Pro and I often hit the buffer. SSD next, then more RAM.
A few years back I had an iMac with 2GB RAM. So I Bumped it to 4GB, and then 8GB (once i got 64bit windows7 on it).
Each time it became a bit better, but nothing like when I got my first SSD.
Defo go for the SSD next!
My comp went from 2min boot to 22seconds! And this is with a fairly budget SSD.
(OCZ Agility 3)
i did the same on my 2008 macbook a couple of months back: boot time went from about 45 seconds to 6 seconds =D and its only a sata 2 drive aswell =P
6 seconds is ridiculous!!!
I just got Windows8 running and im getting around 12 seconds now (including boot select screen)
Well because of reasons beyond my understanding, since replacing my HDD for the SSD, it boots as an external drive, so I’m counting from when it recognises the drive and I select it. From cold startup, I’d say maybe, 15 seconds? But still a vast improvement =D
Do it! The boot speed is amazetesticles. Careful though, certain ages of Mac and certain SSDs don’t talk to each other as fast as they should. I had to avoid Intel, Sandisk, Seagate and OCZ because of a breakdown in negotiations for the correct link speed. People report getting half the link speed they’re supposed to. MIGHT only affect iMacs. I got a Crucial M4 disk and it’s tip top.
“One thing that’s been nice about the iMac, up until now, is that it’s just been a desktop computer wrapped up in a slinky case. You’ve been able to replace the RAM, the hard drive, and other bits and pieces without issue.”
For the past few years, you have only been able to replace the RAM on the iMacs without issue. To replace anything else you need take out the glass front and the screen to get to the rest of the gubbins inside. I wouldn’t called that easy for the average iMac owner.
Agreed. You have to work with more screws and different screw heads then you can shake a stick at and a suction pad gadget to get the screen off. Apart from being a pretty object, it also deters owners from making DIY upgrades and forces you to go for expensive upgrades at purchase or return-to-base upgrades.
3 things are true in life.
1. taxes
2. death
3. Apple over charge
Well said.
Instead, get yourself a normal PC with a nice lookin monitor with hackintosh loaded on, save yourself about £700 and have it so it’s easily upgradable!
I like using Macs, they’re nice and smooth and fast and have awesome programs like Logic and such. But I think they’re just a bit redundant these days, sure, they look nice, but hackintosh really is just so easy (download file -> stick file on disk -> put disk in tray -> install OSX) to get these days, it seems like you’re throwing money away for something that admittedly looks really nice…
Yep, thats why I drive a 20 year old car, looks crap, and constantly needs bits upgrading, and will eventually get me from A to B, but I saved myself £30,000 instead of getting that lovely Z4.
Macs are comparable to a Z4?
Gutted for you, then Z4′s are crap.
It’s the lack of an optical drive that I’m having problems with. I use mine a number of times a week for playing/ripping DVD’s so I’d have to get a Superdrive. Kind of defeats the all in one concept if you have tons of extra stuff on your desk.
But it just werks!
I wonder what other negative stories they can spin off these new products.
‘The New iMac Will Shred Your Hands Into Ribbons When You Lift It’
The new iMac doesn’t cut cake as well as it should do.
“The new imac is too thin at the edges and leaves unsightly pressure marks on my palms when I am carrying it”
Negative but true.
Granted saying it is too thin is a bit misleading in the headline, but the point about how you can no longer upgrade the RAM yourself is valid. What happens if you want to upgrade the RAM in 2 years time? What happens if the RAM goes kaput in 3 years? You’re basically screwed, into paying stupidly high repair costs, or paying for a new imac.
I recently upped te RAM in my 2010 model (27″) and threw in a 2.5″ SSD while I was at it. Terrifying experience, especially when I saw lies across the display and it stopped working altogether. All minor teething problems and the thing is running fast now. Looking at the new ones though, I wouldn’t fancy opening one of them up.
Hehe you open that up, and then spend the next day weeping as it no longer works.
Yeah, it was not good. Taking the glass off the front with suction pads is the easy bit. The glass is held on by magnets, so you can actually ping it off with your finger nails, it’s getting the screen out that’s really worrying as it is attached to the motherboard with various ribbons.
Because the SSD is much smaller than the 3.5″ HDD that was inside it, strangely I have a bit of room inside my iMac. It’s kind of novel thinking that there’s a big hollow space in the middle… (bit like my melt).
Glad your story had a happy ending. I’ve seen too many friends calling me for help after they tried to do similar things.
I guess I should be glad with the new ones I won’t be bothered anymore as but the tinkerer in me laments it at the same time.
I agree, I’m happy with the fact I can replace the RAM on my iMac.
I did however laugh at your article title as it reminded me of a SNL sketch done recently featuring Gizmodo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybDKfGEw4aU
Well shit time to buy one of these http://h41111.www4.hp.com/new_workstations/uk/en/z1_tech-specs.html
Christ, was that designed by David Blunket?
Am I the only person who doesn’t see what’s so great about all-in-ones? Surely an inability to upgrade is just the nature of the design?
The good old desktop is cheaper, full upgradable, more flexible and potentially more powerful. So, pretty much better in every meaningful way. All it asks in return is that you sacrifice a couple square feet of floor space and have a few unsightly cables leading up to your desk. Are AIOs really worth all this sacrifice?
I just hate it when you can’t change your RAM… And with Apple prices these days… pfft! You are right on that one.