The new M1 iMac comes in 7 colors, but where the hell is the SD card slot?

Okay, there’s a lot going on with the new M1-powered iMacs. The seven colors (a nice nod to the colors of the original iMac), 50 percent thinner chassis, 24-inch Retina display with 4.5K resolution, improved 1080p webcam, and six-speaker sound system are all worth talking about.

But where the hell is the SD card slot? It’s gone. Apple removed it and now you’re going to be in dongle hell if you buy this new iMac.

This hurts me on a personal level because as a journalist and creator, I have been asking for Apple to bring the SD card slot back to MacBooks for years. But now Apple’s axed it from the iMac and I’m completely livid. Why? Why? Why? Tons of students, professionals, and creatives need to offload gigabytes (if not terabytes) of footage from SD cards. This removal stings... hard.

The chin’s still alive— The rumors were wrong. The new iMac doesn’t remove the “chin” below the screen. The Apple logo is gone, but the chin remains. The bezels surrounding the 24-inch 4.5K resolution Retina display are thinner (and white, which looks strange!); it’s going to be interesting to see how this impacts watching content and using it for color-accurate work like color-grading videos.

Seven colors — These look good and fun. God, we need desktop computers that are fun again these don’t look a bit boring. The new iMacs even come with color-matching Magic Keyboards and Magic Trackpads; these are the keyboards with the emoji picker, Spotlight, and dictation buttons first introduced on the M1 MacBook Air and Pro.

Some slightly bad news, though: The colors are sort of split between the $1,299 and $1,499 models. Blue, green, pink, and silver for the $1,299 and all seven colors for the higher end version.

There are two other keyboard options: one with a Touch ID fingerprint reader and another full-sized layout with a numeric keypad.

Apple Silicon — More important than the facelift is the silicon inside of the new iMac. Apple has replaced Intel CPUs with its own M1 chip. This is the same 7-core GPU performance that comes in the M1 MacBooks; an 8-core model will cost extra and comes with two additional USB-3 type-C ports and Touch ID Magic Keyboard.

Smarter power adapter — The power cable now clips onto the back of the iMac via a magnetic plug and the brick itself sits further down the fabric-covered cable and comes with a built-in ethernet port to not clutter up the back of the iMac. Smart!

How much? — The 7-core GPU M1 iMac starts at $1,299 and comes with 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of SSD. The 8-core GPU M1 starts at $1,499 with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of SSD, and the aforementioned four USB-C ports (two Thunderbolt and two USB 3).

Comes out in May — The new iMacs will be available for pre-order this Friday, April 23 with computers arriving in “the second half of May.”

iMac throughout the years — Just going to leave this graphic here because it shows the beautiful evolution of the iMac from the original all-in-one Macintosh desktop. As you can see, in 2012, Apple ditched the slot-loading optical drive and greatly slimmed down the iMac’s profile. After adding a larger 27-inch 5K Retina display model, Apple left the design unchanged.