Who said Apple's event was all about the little things? Apple just unveiled its first redesign to its iMac desktop in three years. The new all-in-one makes the widely expected leap to Intel's Ivy Bridge Core i5 and Core i7 processors, but also represents a much leaner and meaner replacement for the 2009-era template -- its edges are just 5mm thick, and it's constructed with "friction stir welding" as well as a gapless, less reflective display that's laminated together with the glass. Screen sizes remain the same and include both a 21.5-inch, 1080p model and a 27-inch, 2,560 x 1,400 model -- sorry, no Retina displays this year. They share 720p-capable front cameras with dual mics as well as NVIDIA's GeForce 600-era graphics, up to 32GB of RAM and a panoply of storage options that peak at 3TB of spinning storage, a 768GB SSD or what Apple calls a Fusion Drive that mixes both 128GB of flash with 1TB or 3TB of conventional storage (a hybrid drive, for those of us who've seen it before). There's no optical drive unless you plug in a USB option.
The 21.5-inch model ships in November, and will set you back $1,299 for a 2.7GHz Core i5, 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive; pony up for the 27-inch model at $1,799 and you'll get a 2.9GHz Core i5 as well as the same memory and storage. Apple's larger iMac doesn't ship until December, however, which will give some impulse buyers at least a brief respite.
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Apple unveils next-generation iMac with slimmer design and Ivy Bridge, starting at $1,299 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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