Configure your iMac 21.5–inch

THE iMAC 21.5–INCH is good value considering its built–in 4K screen, which supports the wider DCI–P3 color space as well as sRGB. For comparison, LG’s slightly bigger 23.7–inch 4K P3 monitor, available from the Apple Store, costs $699.95. All configurations include a dedicated graphics card from AMD’s Radeon 5 series.

Even the base i3–8100 processor is quad–core and will handle a wide range of tasks. The bottleneck in the cheapest models is the slow 5400rpm mechanical hard disk. Swapping this for a 256GB SSD is expensive, at $200, and you would probably need more space. Instead, you could stick with the internal HD and add an affordable external SSD via the Thunderbolt 3 ports, which also accept USB–C connections. Using Disk Utility, format this drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with GUID Partition Map, then download macOS Catalina from the Mac App Store and install it on this drive. Using this as your startup drive will maximize the speed gain, and you can use the internal HD as additional storage.

Other models have a Fusion Drive — a hard disk boosted by a flash memory cache — but this falls far short of SSD performance. The default 8GB of RAM will be enough for everyday purposes, which is just as well, because Apple’s 16GB option is overpriced at $200 and the iMac 21.5–inch has to be completely disassembled to upgrade the memory later. The iMac was last updated in March 2019, and we’d hope to see specs bumped soon.

SCREEN QUEENS

Current iMac models support one external display at up to 5K or two at up to 4K via Thunderbolt 3, which is compatible with USB–C and can be used with DisplayPort, DVI, and HDMI adaptors. The Mac mini can drive up to three 4K monitors, or one 5K via Thunderbolt 3 plus one 4K on HDMI, while the MacBook Air can use two 4K monitors or one at up to 6K. All screens are supported at 60Hz.