// THE VERGE — MOBILE & WEB
The new iMac is a good desktop computer that needs a redesign
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I’m a simple guy. I usually work from my MacBook Neo wherever I end up sitting in my house. And while I have monitors, mice, and keyboards to plug it into, I often end up leaning over the MacBook and doing none of that. I rarely even sit at my office desk, which has done wonders for my posture.
But over the past week, I’ve found myself returning to my desk more and more often to use Apple’s latest iMac. With the iMac, I have a far bigger screen and solid built-in speakers that are much better than what I have on my laptop.
When The Verge last reviewed the iMac, we asked: “Who is this for, exactly?” It’s still true that it’s often cheaper and more flexible to build a desktop setup yourself. But after testing Apple’s latest version with the new M6 chip and a couple of other upgrades, I think the iMac might be for people like me: I like that everything is right here, no thinking required. I don’t have to worry about adding speakers or a webcam or anything like that. It’s a computer built for families and for people who just want to set up a pretty desktop computer and forget about it. Somehow, at 41, I’ve become that guy.
The iMac takes two seconds to set up. You open the box, snap in the magnetic power cable, place the included keyboard and mouse on your desk and voila, you’re off running. It’s the perfect desktop computer for people who don’t like to think about computers. And while I largely believe “family computers” shared by multiple people in the house are dead, replaced by iPads and individual laptops, I still see room for this in small-business offices and homes where two people might want to share a computer. I’m thinking of people my parents’ age, or grandparents who want to FaceTime their families on a large screen and don’t care much about which computer to buy.
Barely anything has changed since the M4 version we reviewed two years ago. This model has Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. The colors are still the same, and there are still thick white bezels and a large chin beneath the screen. Apple also didn’tchange the camera this time around. It’s still a pretty solid 12-megapixel module with features like Center Stage that helped keep me in frame during work calls as I moved around my desk. The microphones are solid, too, and a colleague said I sounded clear during a weekly 1:1 video chat.