Apple announces 21.5-inch Retina iMac with 4K display, better color gamut

Enlarge / The new 4K iMac's body looks a lot like the 2013 iMac's, pictured here. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

If you've ever stared longingly at the 5K iMac and thought to yourself "that's the computer for me, except I wish it wasn't so big," we've got some news for you: Apple has just announced a 4K version of the smaller 21.5-inch iMac, an upgrade to the 2012-era redesign that shares the same pixel density and color gamut as the newly upgraded 27-inch version. The iMacs also include Apple's redesigned Magic Keyboard and your choice of a Magic Mouse 2 (included) or Magic Trackpad 2 ($50 extra).

The Retina iMac starts at $1,499 and includes a quad-core Intel Broadwell processor, 8GB of 1867MHz LPDDR3 RAM, Intel's integrated Iris Pro Graphics 6200 GPU, and a 1TB 5400 RPM hard drive. That Retina display has a native resolution of 4096×2304, giving it the same 217 PPI pixel density as the 27-inch version. In addition to having more pixels, the 4K iMac also supports a wider DCI-P3 color gamut instead of the heretofore standard sRGB.

The $1,499 configuration of the 4K iMac includes a quad-core Intel CPU based on the Broadwell CPU architecture, specifically the 3.1GHz (3.6GHz Turbo) Core i5-5675R, and you can upgrade it to a 3.3GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) Core i7-5775R. That CPU will give you Hyperthreading support along with the additional clock speed. Both CPUs come paired with an Iris Pro 6200 GPU with 128MB of on-package eDRAM, and, unlike past years, Apple isn't offering any dedicated GPU options in any 21.5-inch iMac.