Both sizes are LED backlit, and the 27″ iMac also allows video input over Thunderbolt, allowing another computer or video device (DVD or Blu-ray player) that supports DisplayPort or Thunderbolt to use the iMac’s screen (it’s not compatible with HDMI, DVI, or VGA, although there are third-party adapters). The smaller iMac has the same 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution as high-def television, and the 27″ beastie provides an incredible 2560 x 1440 pixels. The optional faster i7 CPU (2.8 GHz on the 21.5″ and 3.4 GHz on the 27″) adds $200 to the iMac’s price.Īpple has improved AirPort performance by building three WiFi antennas into the new iMac, allowing three channels with 150 Mbps bandwidth for a maximum bandwidth of 450 Mbps. With all these changes, the iMac looks like it has ever since Apple moved to 21.5″ and 27″ screens in October 2009.ĬPU speeds start at 2.5 GHz, and there’s a 3.4 GHz i7 option for the 27″ iMac making it the most powerful iMac to date. The 2011 iMac EFI Update, released 2011.05.05, enables 6 GBps SATA for even faster drive performance.
With the 2.7 GHz and faster models, you can choose to replace the hard drive with a 256 GB SSD or have both a hard drive and an SSD installed, an Apple first. The Mid 2011 iMac shipped with OS X 10.6.7 and supports OS X 10.9 Mavericks.Īpple now offers a solid-state drive (SSD) option on all iMacs except for the 2.5 GHz 21.5″ model, an improvement over the 2010 iMac, where only the top-end model had SSD as a build-to-order option. All other models ship with a 1 TB hard drive and even more powerful Radeon graphics. The entry-level iMac has 4 GB of RAM, a 500 GB hard drive, and Apple’s aluminum keyboard and Magic Mouse. The 27″ iMac is Apple’s first product with two Thunderbolt ports.
For 2011, the entire iMac line goes quad-core with Core i5 CPUs (and even faster i7 build-to-order options), moves to Intel’s Sandy Bridge chipset, gets Turbo Boost 2.0 technology, adopts the next generation of AMD Radeon HD graphics processors, and gains the Thunderbolt technology introduced with the Early 2011 MacBook Pro models.