iMac 21.5" Review
updated 21 April 2022
Take note, I am not in any way related to Apple Company and I am not promoting this product.
The Monitor
The monitor of the iMac 21.5" is almost next to perfection. I really love the way they designed it as simple as possible.
The bezel is an issue for the others who don't truly understand. It's negligible for that size and it actually helps you focus because you think that it's not that large enough.
The Retina Display
The retina display is really an awesome experience, I covered that here:
https://github.com/jdevstatic/display-resolution-review
Your eyes won't have the usual fatigue and it's almost next to natural view because you don't see the pixels.
The only downside is that, since 4k is so dense, the things on the screen will appear smaller when your eyes are used to 1080p displays. But the only trick here is the viewing distance. I mentioned that in my display review.
The Display Scaling
The display scaling is really great. The way things were scaled are exactly the size you expect.
Windows scaling is not that much for widescreen monitors but iMac just nailed it.
As you can see here, everything is fine, things are proportional. In Windows 10, even in Chrome the scaling is not that good even just for a 27" external monitor.
I feel like this is a very big mobile phone and the scaling is just exactly like that.
And if you noticed that, I am not making it full screen just to save the landscape view. I still want to see the Desktop background too. If you have the full screen, most spaces will be just white just to fill the page, so it's an overkill.
The Built-In Camera & Speaker
The built-in speaker is an excellent one in terms of sound quality. It's also loud enough that you don't need an external speaker.
For the built-in camera, compared to others, it's not that good. The auto-adjust feature does not seem to benefit, if there is any at all. Say, for example, your background is brighter than your front, it will auto-adjust in such a way that your face is too dim. That's not good. You need extra lighting for your face.
The Virtual Desktop (Spaces)
The Virtual Desktop is another great built-in app of iMac. As a productivity machine, you will be dealing with a lot of windows and the Spaces app will enable you to have several setups.
Now, here is the thing: you must set up
everything and make sure you select:
Reopen windows when logging back in. This way,
you don't need to do the same thing every time
you shut it down. This feature is, by default,
missing in Windows.
The Performance
Since Apple is also responsible for the hardware of their products, they are making sure they install everything at optimum performance.
For example, the iMac that I'm using is just an i3 processor yet the performance is really excellent. I did not experience lagging for so many Google Chrome tabs opened at the same time. They are also scattered for 9 virtual desktops and the performance is still excellent.
The iMac that I'm using is using the Fusion Drive technology, not purely SSD. But still, for me, that's sufficient enough for the overall performance. The new release is already using SSD, so you get that speed of an SSD.
Take note, if you are quite confused, computers need a disk so that all data that should be saved will be kept before shut down. An Operating System, just like macOS or Windows OS, has a lot of files for the system. These files should be saved to the disk not to the memory because you can't save it there: the memory is volatile.
Now, the difference between the hard disk and Solid State Drive is that the other one has the literal moving arm so it is slower compared to the SSD, which is like the flash drive.
But several technologies implemented hybrids like the Fusion Drive. SSD is costly so the tendency is to mix both technology for performance, so buyers still saved some money.
Realization
If I would have the chance, I would go for 27" 5k iMac. The product is really worth it. I would be using another external monitor on top of the iMac, maybe a 35" 4k display for further space aside from the virtual desktops.
Or, I would have the MacBook Air and I would project it to two external 4k monitors, stacked. I don't want the other one to be placed on either side because it's not ergonomic.