Deals: B&H Photo Takes $200 Off Pre-Orders for New Entry-Level 21.5-Inch 4K iMac

Don’t do it. Don’t order the slow HDD. You will regret it forever.

Don’t do it. Don’t order the slow HDD. You will regret it forever.

5400 rpm platters. They're damn near criminal in an economy $400 Winbox. In a $1300 computer? That's when an OEM basically says screw you customer, I care about profit and profit margins.

Can’t believe they’re still using this ancient (by computer standards) iMac design.

That's why they invented "dark mode" so those abominable bezels would simply "dissappear" at no extra cost to Phil Schiller.
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2019 and we still get entry-level iMacs with 5400 rpm hard drives?!?

Tim Cook & Co. should be ashamed of themselves.

Phil Schiller is laughing all the way to the bank, no doubt. When those 5400 RPM drives begin to lose reading and writing accuracy, they act more like 2 RPM. Talk about built-in obsolescence.

Most people don’t need an SSD or even a 7200 RPM drive, nor would they notice any real world difference.

Sarcasm, I hope?

Most people don’t need an SSD or even a 7200 RPM drive, nor would they notice any real world difference.

Yet another person who seems to be all-knowing of what most people need. It's amazing.

What's even more amazing are people (like you) who think that "most people" wouldn't know the difference in performance between a 5400RPM drive and an SSD? I can guarantee that unless you're blind, 100% of people can tell the difference between using a 5400 and an SSD.
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They can be opened and the SATA drives replaced, by a Apple Authorized Service Provider. However, not sure how replacing the drive with non-service-part impacts warranty or AppleCare. And it costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 just for the labor and "parts" (the "gasket" kit, aka sticky tape that holds the screen on) not including the price of the SSD. Better off buying new with the SSD.

What especially sucks is that the SSD options are ALL BTO; so customers of places like Best Buy, Amazon, etc, who only get Apple's "good|better|best" tiers SKUs for the floor, are really gonna get fleeced.

Replacing the drive myself would not invalidate the warranty, by law. Having recently done an earlier model 21.5" iMac, the adhesive tape kit costs me $10 on Amazon, plus the cost of whatever SSD I would put in there.

Earlier iMac's that shipped with a Fusion drive have a PCI-e slot for a SSD also, so one could possibly utilize that slot for an NVMe style SSD and much faster performance. There are adapters that adapt the Apple slot to a regular m.2 slot and those cost less than $20.

The point being that I am capable of doing the upgrades myself, assuming the HDD isn't glued in place, and I don't like knowing that I have to live with whatever size SSD I buy now for the rest of the iMac's life.

2019 and we still get entry-level iMacs with 5400 rpm hard drives?!?

Tim Cook & Co. should be ashamed of themselves.

Or for the $200 you're saving here, you could buy a 1TB SATA SSD from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-T5-Portable-SSD-MU-PA500B/dp/B073GZBT36/ref=sr_1_1?hvadid=322539138421&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9004358&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=b&hvrand=13038789372134263414&hvtargid=kwd-304611484069&keywords=usb+3+external+hard+drive+ssd&qid=1553187316&s=gateway&sr=8-1&tag=googhydr-20

And run macOS from that. And then use the spinning drive for photos/movies/backup. It's an iMac, it's not going anywhere anyway.

My goodness those bezels in 2019, so hideous, I honestly think this would never have happened under Jobs.

Random All-in-one PC looks better than a Mac, how is this possible?