Sony's partnership with Honda around a new concept EV called the Afeela has been a highlight of CES for several years now. And while we're not any closer to finding out if and when this car will become a reality, Sony had a fun way to show off the latest iteration of the vehicle: they drove it onto the Sony CES 2024 stage with a PlayStation DualSense controller. Sure, it was just a fun gimmick rather than any evidence of a PlayStation-controlled vehicle coming down the road, but CES is all about the spectacle.
Sony
We'll keep an eye out for more details on the Afeela, but Sony just invited Microsoft on stage to talk about how the in-vehicle experience is going to get smarter thanks to — you guessed it — AI. We're getting close to CES bingo here, folks.
We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sony-drove-its-afeela-ev-onto-the-ces-stage-using-a-playstation-controller-014403857.html?src=rss
Kia is back at CES after five years and just announced a new modular EV platform called Platform Beyond Vehicles, or PBV for short. These vehicles are still in the concept stage and aren't the kind of cars you're going to go out and buy to get around town or go on vacation — at least, not yet. Instead the PV5, the first vehicle Kia is planning, will focus on business utilities like ride-hailing, delivery and other business utilities.
Probably the coolest thing about the PV5 is how modular it is. Kia showed off four different configurations. The standard is a small van, but you can swap in an extended roof if you need more space. You can also swap the back two thirds out entirely and have it in a pickup truck configuration, and finally there's a taxi configuration focused on transporting passengers. As you might guess, the inside is completely modular to enable these transformations.
Kia didn't mention autonomous capabilities specifically, and shots of the insides of the vehicle showed a somewhat traditional driver seat and steering area. But the company also said it wants to develop a Robotaxi PV5 in partnership with Motional that'll provide an autonomous ride-hailing experience.
Beyond the PV5, Kia also teased the large PV7 and relatively tiny PV1, a pair of vehicles meant to work in conjunction. The PV7 is the largest in the lineup, which gives it more interior space as well as driving range, while the PV1 is mean tot be small and "agile" for last-mile deliveries. The cool thing is that there's a rail system that can link the two vehicles together so you can easily move cargo from the larger PV7 into the PV1.
Kia
As is so often the case at CES, there isn't a ton of detail on when the PBV initiative will move from concept to a product in production, but Kia is already building a dedicated PBV plant in Korea, with plans for manufacturing capacity of 150,000 vehicles in 2025, ramping up to 300,000 at an unknown future date. So it's possible we'll see the first of the PBVs hit the road next year.
We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/kia-announced-a-fleet-of-cute-modular-vans-at-ces-2024-004005807.html?src=rss
Victrola has made a somewhat surprising move into high-end, streaming-capable turntables over the last few years, and it's showing off the latest in the lineup at CES 2024. The Victrola Stream Sapphire is a $1,499 turntable with "premium" components and materials that can connect to Sonos and Roon streaming systems and also supports the Universal Plug and Play protocol (UPnP). It can also output up to 24-bit/48kHz lossless FLAC audio.
Getting beyond the jargon, this means that the Stream Sapphire can output your vinyl to a Sonos system once it's set up on the same network as your Sonos speakers. I've tried this with the Stream Carbon turntable from 2022 and it works pretty seamlessly and is easy to set up, so I wager the Sapphire will be similarly straightforward.
As for Roon, it's a more complex, server-based system that pulls together music files and streaming services and broadcasts them to compatible speakers and output devices. The variety of hardware you can use is much larger than the Sonos ecosystem, but it sounds like Roon support works the same way. Once you get the Sapphire connected to your Roon setup in Victrola's Stream app, the turntable will output audio to whatever speakers are in that setup. And since Roon integrates with other protocols like Apple AirPlay and Google Chromecast, you should be able to send the turntable's audio to devices like the HomePod or any Chomecast-compatible speakers. Similarly, any speakers or audio receivers that support UPnP can output audio from the Sapphire, as well.
The Stream Sapphire has a few other upgrades over the existing Stream turntables as well. Probably most notable is that it uses the Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge, compared to the 2M Red. The Sapphire also has a lovely walnut veneer over its MDF and aluminum body, and it has the same high-end carbon fiber tonearm and aluminum platter as the Stream Carbon. It also has adjustable-height aluminum feet with a sound-dampening base to help reduce vibration and make sure the turntable is level on whatever surface it sits on. And, in a nod to the traditional, it has gold-placed RCA jacks for hooking up wired speakers.
This turntable follows the $800 Stream Carbon, which can send music to Sonos speakers; Victrola followed that up with the more affordable $600 Stream Onyx at CES 2023. Since then, the company also announced the Hi-Res Carbon and Hi-Res Onyx, two turntables that opt for Bluetooth or aptX wireless audio output. I really enjoyed using the original Stream Carbon with my Sonos system when I first tested it, but even that felt like a niche device — I'm wondering how big of a market there is for a $1,500 wireless turntable, but Victrola now has a pretty wide range of streaming record players at this point, from the Hi-Res Onyx that's currently selling for $300 all the way up to the new Sapphire. Victrola says the Stream Sapphire will be on sale this spring.
We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/victrolas-latest-streaming-turntable-the-stream-sapphire-costs-an-eye-popping-1499-170037014.html?src=rss
AI is literally everywhere, so it's not a big surprise to learn that Volkswagen is planning to bring ChatGPT to its vehicles. As part of its CES 2024 announcements, the automaker says that its existing IDA voice assistant will work with ChatGPT across a range of its newer models. VW isn't the first to try this — Mercedes-Benz announced ChatGPT integration in June of last year, so it seems like this is certainly a thing we're all going to have to get used to.
Specifically, VW says that ChatGPT will be enabled in these specific models with the latest generation of the company's infotainment systems: ID.7 (pictured above), ID.4, ID.5, ID.3, the new Volkswagen Tiguan, the new Passat and the new Golf. It'll roll out ChatGPT as as "standard feature" in "many" production vehicles in Q2 of 2024; the company didn't say in which regions, but notes that the feature is only currently "being considered" for the US market.
As for what it can do, it sounds like ChatGPT will be used to enhance the existing capabilities of VW's voice assistant as well as offer some new conversational tricks. VW notes how its assistant can already do things like control the infotainment system, navigation, climate control and other such features. With the addition of ChatGPT, VW envisions interactions with more intuitive, back-and-forth language. That's something we're seeing from companies like Google and Amazon as they explore how to enhance Google Assistant and Alexa, so the same may apply here. VW's press release specifically cites "enriching conversations, clearing up questions, interacting in intuitive language, receiving vehicle-specific information" as things that ChatGPT can enable.
One good thing is that this will all be built into the car without the need for a driver to really set anything up. As you can now, you'll activate the voice assistant — and if the car's standard system can't adequately answer the query, it'll anonymously send it to ChatGPT. The company stresses that ChatGPT doesn't get any information about the vehicle and questions and answers are deleted immediately.
I'll admit that I was initially skeptical of how something like ChatGPT could be used in a car — but if it can in fact better understand and answer queries that are important when you're behind the wheel, I'm willing to give it a shot. VW didn't say if it would have any demos of this new tech at CES this year, but we'll be looking to see if we can experience it for ourselves.
We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/volkswagen-thinks-chatgpt-integration-will-make-its-in-car-voice-assistant-good-160033466.html?src=rss
Finding weird pet-related technology is a CES tradition, and this year is no exception. Take Flappie, for example. The Swiss start-up is showing off an AI-powered cat door that automatically locks if your kitty tries to bring in prey it caught from the outside.
On the side of the door facing the outside, you'll find a motion sensor and night-vision camera. Flappie says it has compiled a "unique and proprietary" dataset over the years, with a focus on diversity — this means getting lots of different kinds of cats as well as prey, filmed in a variety of different lighting conditions. The company says that its AI-powered detection system is accurate more than 90 percent of the time, which means your cat could still get a mouse inside. But hopefully that'll happen a lot less frequently.
There are some manual switches on the inside of the door so you can lock and unlock it any time you want as well as turn off the prey-detection system. Eventually, Flappie says that pets are likely to be trained that they can't enter when carrying something, and when they drop the prey the door will promptly unlock so they can get inside. (One of Flappie's co-founders admitted that a smart cat might figure out to drop the mouse, get the door open, pick it back up and then run in. But no solution is foolproof, right?)
Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
Flappie also included chip detection in its cat door. So if your pet has been microchipped, you can make it so the cat door only opens for your specific pet. And, of course, there's an app so you can control the door from your phone. But if you're not inclined to hook the Flappie door up to the internet, it'll still work via the controls on the door itself.
For starters, Flappie plans to launch its pet door in Switzerland and Germany later this spring, with plans to expand from there once it gets production scaled up. A US launch is part of the roadmap, but there's no word yet on when that'll happen, or how much the Flappie door might cost when it gets here. But a CES newsletter focused on Swiss tech companies says that Flappie will cost $399, or $199 with a two-year $8.90 monthly subscription to the app so you can see all the videos the door records of your pet.
Update, January 8, 2024 12:45 PM ET: We've added pricing details on the Flappie to this story.
We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-flappie-ai-cat-door-stops-your-pet-from-gifting-you-dead-mice-033237654.html?src=rss
Mui is no stranger to CES — the company's first wooden smart home control board was shown off way back in 2019, and the company has been working on a second generation model for at least a year now. But, finally, it looks like the new Mui Board will be something you can order, and hopefully get before the end of 2024.
Like the original, the new Mui Board is a wooden, touch-sensitive surface that lets you control smart devices around your home. When it's not in use, it looks like a minimalist little wooden ledge, but when you tap it, the display lights up. It's kind of like a classier, less obtrusive version of a Nest Hub. The smart home controls apply, like adjusting thermostats, turning lights on, locking doors, starting the charger for your electric car and more. Perhaps the most significant change with this new board is that it works with Matter, the smart home standard that may have broad enough support to finally be successful. So while it's a little early to say exactly how that'll affect its usefulness, chances are good it'll be a lot more compatible with your smart home than the original was.
Despite the fact that the second-generation Mui Board has been in the works for a while, the company says it won't be shipping until the end of 2024. But a Kickstarter campaign for the device opens up on the morning of January 8, with the Board sporting a $499 price tag. Mui's latest feels like a classic CES product from a small company, something with a nice design and intriguing features that is far from guaranteed to be something that makes sense for many people. But if Mui can make its utility can match its whimsy (c'mon, look at these adorable pixelated animals enjoying the forest!), it might be worth having in your home.
Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/muis-whimsical-wooden-smart-home-controller-hits-kickstarter-tomorrow-022119102.html?src=rss
It’s been four years since Tesla first announced the Cybertruck, a hideously ugly electric pickup truck that didn’t seem to actually improve on EVs or pickups in any meaningful way. Instead, the 6,600-pound mass of “stainless super steel” seems to be more the culmination of one man's bizarre fantasy, and that man just so happened to own an entire company he could leverage to birth that fantasy, with all its sharp angles and unnecessary lighting bars, into reality.
Today, Tesla finally delivered the first, long-delayed production Cybertrucks to 10 buyers in a livestream on CEO Elon Musk’s decimated X platform, the first of an unknown number of wealthy consumers who have bought into his grim vision of the future. It's a car that promises — for only those who can afford them — a blank check for vehicular manslaughter and unnecessary survivability from semi-automatic firearms. Its tagline ("more utility than a truck, faster than a sports car") speaks almost poetically to two distinct but orthogonal archetypes of threatened masculinity: the tacti-cool milspec dork, and the showboating rich guy.
A “bulletproof” body has been a key feature since the Cybertruck's introduction in 2019; today Musk admitted it was there for no good reason. “Why did you make it bulletproof?” Musk said. “Why not?” he said with a broad grin, before metaphorically waving his genitals at the cheering crowd, while also promising metaphorically larger genitals to anyone who buys the Cybertruck. “How tough is your truck?” Musk smirked.
This admission came alongside video footage of a Cybertruck being sprayed with rounds from a .45 caliber tommy gun, a Glock 9mm and a MP5-SD submachine gun, which also uses 9mm rounds. We'd ask Tesla what cartridges they were firing and if they were being shot from within the effective range of any of these weapons, but the company dissolved its PR team in 2019.
It was a stupid but expected bit of showboating from Musk during his rambling presentation. Right before the gunfire demo, Musk touted the truck’s overall toughness, noting that its low center of gravity made it extremely difficult to flip in an accident. A video also showed the Cybertruck barely moving after a much smaller vehicle moving at 38 mph collided with it. To that, Musk commented that “if you’re ever in an argument with another car, you will win,” glibly encouraging Cybertruck owners to engage in such "arguments."
In a country where both traffic fatalities and gun violence have surged in recent years, it’s a little galling to see Musk promoting his vehicle as some sort of tool for rich people to survive the apocalypse, or even just the inconveniences of a world where their lessers occupy space at all. (All-wheel drive Cybertrucks start at about $80,000; a $60,000 RWD model is supposedly arriving in 2025.) “Sometimes you get these late civilization vibes, the apocalypse could come along at any moment, and here at Tesla we have the finest apocalypse technology,” Musk mused.
Beyond that is the simple fact that SUVs and trucks have gotten dramatically bigger and heavier in the past decade or so. EVs naturally weigh more because of their batteries, but auto manufacturers have been making the fronts of cars larger and taller in recent years, too. That’s a combo that makes these vehicles more dangerous for pedestrians and other drivers alike.
“Whatever their nose shape, pickups, SUVs and vans with a hood height greater than 40 inches are about 45 percent more likely to cause fatalities in pedestrian crashes than cars and other vehicles with a hood height of 30 inches or less and a sloping profile,” research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety states. It also noted that pedestrian crash deaths have risen 80 percent since a low in 2009. Anyone who walks or bikes around a city has probably felt that danger before, and it’s even more startling when the wall of a truck stops short when you’re crossing the street. Finally, it’s well known that the speed of a car dramatically impacts the survivability of a pedestrian, which isn’t great when an extremely heavy car also can do 0-60 in less than three seconds.
Now that the Cybertruck is nearly ready for public consumption, it looks like Musk has basically built a vehicle that, for a steep price, enables the worst impulses of US drivers and gives them the “freedom” to do whatever they want. It doesn’t matter if the Cybertruck’s lightbar headlights blind the drivers of smaller vehicles; they should get the hell out of the left lane. And if someone else on the road pisses off a Cybertruck driver, who cares? Other drivers should just accept that they’re about to lose a very expensive and potentially life-threatening “argument” with the Cybertruck’s front fender.
This all should have been obvious right from the start. From day one, the Cybertruck has alluded to a cyberpunk future, a genre with cool haircuts and hacking and slightly problematic orientalism, yes — but also one where wealth inequality is even worse than it currently is, and the rules don’t apply to those with money. The implicit promise of the Cybertruck has always been a vehicle that waives societal standards for people who can afford it, and today’s spectacle made that explicit. To that end, maybe this marketing is as much genius as it is nonsense.
“If Al Capone showed up with a Tommy gun and emptied the entire magazine into the car door, you’d still be alive,” Musk crowed at one point, either promising to revive the dead or oblivious to the terrifying number of human beings who use guns to commit acts of violence. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in a world where being swiss cheesed by lethal armaments is something I need to consider when I’m buying a car. Maybe the rich survivalists playing out Blade Runner meets Mad Max in their Cybertrucks haven't considered that when everything burns down, the power grid will go down too.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/teslas-cybertruck-is-a-dystopian-masturbatory-fantasy-225648188.html?src=rss
Google has been trying to make it easier for people to secure their accounts for years now. The company is one of several that are pushing a transition to passkeys from passwords, and they have also sold physical keys for unlocking accounts that support FIDO standards. Today, Google has updated its lineup of Titan security keys with some features that'll make them work better with passkeys as well as passwords.
As before, Google is offering two Titan keys, one with USB-C and another with USB-A. Both keys still support NFC so they can be used to unlock accounts on compatible smartphones as well as through the physical port. The new key supports FIDO2 specifications for password-free sign-ins and can store up to 250 passkeys.
Google is using this as an opportunity to push people towards using passkeys to protect their Google account — as part of the set-up process, you'll be encouraged to create a passkey and store it on the Titan key rather than continue using your password. At that point, you'll also set up a PIN that can be used in conjunction with the security key to unlock your Google account. But the Titan key can work with any supported account, not just Google. And, of course, you can use it as a two-factor authentication device alongside traditional passwords, as well.
These new Titan keys are on sale today on the Google Store and cost the same as the ones they're replacing. The USB-A model is $30, while the USB-C key costs $35.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-updated-titan-security-key-can-store-up-to-250-passkeys-180035899.html?src=rss
YouTube Premium may have gotten more expensive in the last year (like basically every other streaming service), but the company at least has adding features pretty frequently as well. YouTube Music in particular has gotten a lot of upgrades in 2023, but today YouTube is announcing a number of experimental features and offers for subscribers to check out.
Probably the most significant is that YouTube's "enhanced" 1080p playback feature is coming to everyone, regardless of what device you're using. It started out as an iOS-only feature, but is now available on Android, the web and smart TVs too. This quality setting provides an improved bitrate that YouTube says has more information per pixel. The enhanced 1080p setting started rolling out to some users on the web this summer, but it should be available to all Premium subscribers regardless of what device you're using.
In the same vein, a "continue watching" feature that YouTube launched for phones and on the web is rolling out to tablets and smart TVs as well. Basically, if you're watching a video on one device, all your other ones will remember what you're watching and where you left off so you can seamlessly continue the video.
You'll also be unsurprised to learn that YouTube is starting to bring AI-generated content into the Premium experience. Earlier this month the company announced it was testing out AI-generated summaries of comment sections as well as a chatbot that can attempt to answer questions about what you're watching. The company didn't do a full announce then, just dropping some info on a YouTube support page, but with today's news you can sign up for a spot to try the chatbot out. YouTube says that only a limited number of people will get into the test, so don't hesitate if you want to give it a shot. You can find the details about YouTube's experimental features here.
YouTube also has a handful of decent perks available for Premium subscribers at the moment. Among them are three-month trials to Discord Nitro, Walmart+, and Game Pass for PCs (the last one is "coming soon"). There's also a four-month subscription to the Calm meditation and sleep app and an "in-game loot bundle" for Genshin Impact. Finally, there are some cute new achievement badges highlighting how much you've watched or listened, among other things.
As part of the announcement, YouTube also noted that it now has 80 million paid and free trial users of Premium around the world. None of these new features are exactly the kinds of things that'll drive more people to try the service, but existing subscribers should try and get as much as they can out of it — particularly people who are new to Premium in the face of YouTube's recent crackdown on ad blockers.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/youtube-rolls-out-high-bitrate-1080p-to-all-premium-subscribers-160018538.html?src=rss
On the surface, Apple’s new iMac is easy to evaluate. It’s almost identical to the 2021 iMac, with its lovely 24-inch screen and multicolor exterior. In fact, the only difference between the new iMac and the old one is a new chip, the M3 processor.
As such, everything that we liked about the iMac in 2021 holds true here. It's an extremely well-designed machine, the screen looks lovely, and the M3 is plenty powerful for most people. But the issues we had with it — particularly the specs of the lower-end model — are harder to ignore.
First, the good news. The M3 chip inside the new iMac (paired with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage in the model I tested) provides more than enough power for my daily workflow. Of course, as a journalist my needs are moderate. I don’t edit 4K movies or run intense music-creation software, and most things I do can be accomplished in a browser. But a ton of Safari tabs coupled with my usual apps like Messages, Photos, Slack, Bear, Apple Music and Trello never slowed it down. More power-hungry apps like Lightroom or Photomater never stuttered either, as I edited and exported RAW photos. I’m particularly glad that the M3 iMac supports up to 24GB of RAM this time around, up from 16GB on the M1 model.
The M3 iMac is also capable of running modern games, at least those that are available for it. In a tale as old as time, game options on the Mac lag far behind what you’ll find on Windows, but the situation is improving. Titles like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Lies of P are the kinds of games you usually wouldn’t expect to see on a Mac. That’s part of an overall trend this year, with other big blockbuster games like the Resident Evil 4 remake, Resident Evil Village and Death Stranding either available now or coming soon.
Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
Both Baldur’s Gate 3 and Lies of P ran well on the iMac. They weren’t running at the highest resolution, but they were still totally playable. And other games from the Mac App Store like NBA 2K24 Arcade Edition and Skate City from Apple Arcade worked without a hiccup — but given those games have to run across a huge variety of lower-powered devices, good performance is basically a given. While no one is going out there buying a Mac with cutting-edge gaming in mind, I am still glad that there are more options than there were a few years ago.
Benchmarks show the M3 is a modest improvement over the M2, which is not a big surprise. The M3 is also almost identical in single-core performance to the M3 Max, which we tested on the new 16-inch MacBook Pro. Of course, that computer blows past the iMac in multi-core performance. But given the iMac’s intended purpose as a family computer, the M3 should be more than enough for most people. Apple Silicon is so performant that people who bought the M1 iMac two and a half years ago likely won’t have much reason to upgrade.
What hasn't changed
Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
As for literally everything else: if you’ve seen a 24-inch iMac before, you’ve seen this one. Mine came in a lovely shade of blue — dark and metallic on the back and a more pastel shade on the front. There are six other colors available, all the same as what Apple offered before, and they all make me wish Apple used these bold shades on more of its products. (Seriously, this year’s iPhone 15 colors are terrible.) The display has a 4.5k resolution, splitting the difference between the old Intel-based 21.5- and 27-inch models. I generally find that to be enough, though I do miss the expansive canvas you got on a 27-inch iMac. I’m not alone, but Apple has made it clear that that computer isn’t coming back. If you want a bigger screen, you’re better off checking out a Mac mini or Mac Studio and pairing it with the monitor of your choice.
Despite occasionally wishing it was larger, this panel remains great, with 500 nits of brightness, Apple’s TrueTone technology for adjusting color temperature to your environment and support for the Wide P3 color gamut. It’s not the most advanced display ever since it uses a time-tested LED panel but, once again, the people that Apple is targeting with this computer won’t mind.
The iMac is still extraordinarily thin at 11.5mm and weighs less than 10 pounds. I actually wouldn’t mind if it was just a little heavier. It’s easy to accidentally move the whole computer when I adjust the tilt of the display. And feline owners beware: my cats liked to jump on the desk and nuzzle the iMac, sliding it across my desk. But its minimal weight also makes it easy to move around the house.
It mostly sat on my desk, but I also brought it down to the bedroom to watch a movie when I was feeling under the weather. My colleague Devindra Hardawar (who reviewed the M1 model in 2021) also sang the iMac’s praises as a computer you can drop in your kitchen, which is not something I could do with my relatively limited counter space. But the point is that this remains the most portable iMac ever, and that opens up some interesting uses.
Apple has done a good job of putting surprisingly solid speakers into its laptops, and it’s also worked out an impressive speaker system to go in the svelte iMac. It has six speakers total with two force-canceling woofers, and this results in clear and relatively loud audio. I prefer using dedicated speakers as I’m a bit of a music nerd, but for casual listening or watching YouTube, this system is far better than you’d expect from such a thin device. The speakers also support Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio for Apple Music, movies and shows via the Apple TV app. Those effects aren’t the most obvious on this system; songs sound different, though not necessarily better, but I’ve found that to be the case no matter what device you’re using to play Spatial Audio.
Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
As before, the iMac comes with a color-matched keyboard and mouse (and/or trackpad, your choice), a subtle but really nice touch. Mechanical keyboard enthusiasts will scoff, but I continue to find the Magic Keyboard extremely comfortable to type on for extended periods of time, and I love that you can get Touch ID built in now. The Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad are the same ones Apple has been selling for years, and they’re very reliable (though plenty of people are not fans of the mouse’s shape).
However, Apple really missed a good opportunity to redesign these accessories to use USB-C for charging. Instead, they use the same old Lightning connector that has been on iPhones and other devices for years now. With Lightning’s days clearly numbered, this would have been a perfect time to move to USB-C. At least the included Lightning cable is also color-matched.
Base specs are a big downside
Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
Most of the things Apple didn’t change with the new iMac don’t bother me — the design and screen all make sense, even if some people wish things were a little different. What doesn’t make sense are the corners Apple is cutting to offer the iMac at a starting price of $1,299. That configuration comes with a paltry 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which was stingy two and a half years ago and now is completely unacceptable. I can’t in good conscience recommend anyone spend more than $1,000 on a computer with only 8GB of RAM in 2023.
There are other cuts to the entry model that aren’t quite as egregious but are still disappointing. Apple doesn’t include the power adaptor with a gigabit ethernet port, the Magic Keyboard doesn’t have Touch ID, the GPU has eight cores (compared to 10 in the $1,499 model), it only has two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports (the more expensive iMac also has two more USB-C ports) and it only comes in four colors rather than seven. The base iMac might exist mostly as a more affordable model for education, but there’s no reason to handicap yourself with only 8GB of RAM if you’re buying this computer for yourself or your family.
That means you’re spending at least $1,499 to get a computer with 16GB of RAM and all the aforementioned compromises. That’s the same price as the middle-tier iMac, which includes the gigabit ethernet adapter, Touch ID and so on — but it also only comes with 8GB of RAM. Stepping that computer up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, the minimum specs I’d consider for a desktop, comes to a whopping $1,899.
This isn’t a new problem. The company’s entry models often feel artificially limited to push you toward a more expensive option. Just look at the $1,099 MacBook Air, which is also hamstrung by 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, but it feels slightly more forgivable on a laptop. With the iMac, you don’t get improved portability in exchange for poorer specs. In fact, in many ways (except the screen), the iMac is a more limited and more expensive computer than the MacBook Air.
Fortunately, Apple also sells the Mac mini. You can pick up that tiny desktop with an M2 chip, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for $999, add a nice 4K monitor and you’re good to go for less than $1,500. Of course you lose the niceties of an all-in-one, which aren’t insignificant — I’ve really enjoyed the complete lack of cord clutter on my desk while using the iMac.
Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget
Wrap-up
Thanks to Apple Silicon, Apple’s desktop computer lineup is in stronger shape than it’s been in years. For a while, the iMac had to be both a simple all-in-one for those with basic needs as well as a more powerful, pro-focused machine (remember the iMac Pro?). But now, the Mac mini and Mac Studio are compelling options for people who want better performance, leaving the iMac to serve a smaller audience. And it does it well — the screen is great, the M3 is powerful, and the whole thing is shockingly compact. If you want the simplest and easiest Mac experience, the iMac is still the way to go. Just make sure you bump up the RAM.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-imac-review-2023-nothings-changed-except-the-m3-013032286.html?src=rss