Er hat zwar kein Retina Display, aber der neue 21,5" iMac hat ein paar lobenswerte Eigenschaften:

2,7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 Prozessor mit 6 MB L3-Cache

8 GB RAM

1TB Festplatte (5400 rpm)

NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M Grafikprozessor mit 512 MB dediziertem VRAM

Vier USB 3.0-Anschlüsse und zwei Thunderbolt-Anschlüsse

802.11n Wi-Fi und Bluetooth 4.0

Falls du es noch nicht gehört hast: Der neue iMac ist wirklich dünn... irgendwie. An seiner dünnsten Stelle (am Rand) ist er 5 mm dick. An seiner dicksten Stelle ist er allerdings über 4 cm dick, also mehr als 8 Mal so dick wie die Kante.

Da der neue iMac kaum dicker als eine CD ist, verfügt er nicht über ein optisches Laufwerk. Dennoch verfügt er über eine Fülle von Anschlüssen:

3,5 mm Kopfhörerbuchse

SDXC Karteneinschub

4x USB 3.0

2x Thunderbolt

Gigabit Ethernet

Auf der Rückseite des Gehäuses, versteckt hinter dem "Fuß", befinden allem Anschein nach Belüftungsöffnungen. Im Gegensatz zu früheren Versionen sind die Lüftungsöffnungen rechteckig und nicht rund.

Obwohl sich an der Unterseite des hinteren Gehäuses Lüftungsschlitze befinden, vermuten wir, dass sich der Lüfter irgendwo in der Mitte des iMacs befindet - dort, wo er am dicksten ist. Diese Schlitze sind wahrscheinlich die Abluftöffnungen, die die von unten angesaugte Luft herauspusten.

Versteckt über dem Apple-Logo finden wir die kleinen Doppelmikrofon-Gitter.

Es hört zu; es hört immer zu...

Die Modell- und EMC-Nummern dieses iMacs verstecken sich an ihrem üblichen Platz unter dem Fuß: A1418 und EMC 2544.

Wir fangen an, den Kleber, mit dem die Displayeinheit befestigt ist, zu lösen.

Anders als beim vorherigen iMac wird das Glas nicht nur durch Magnete gehalten.

Zu unserem Entsetzen müssen wir unsere Heißluftpistole und Gitarrenplektren hervorholen, um den Kleber zu entfernen, mit dem das Display befestigt ist.

Nachdem der iPad-ähnliche Kleber abgetrennt wurde, haben wir unsere Saugheber herausgeholt.

Reparatur-Fauxpas! Um Platz zu sparen und die Lücke zwischen dem Glas und den Pixeln zu schließen, hat sich Apple dafür entschieden, das Frontglas und das LCD zu verschmelzen. Das bedeutet, dass du, wenn du eines der beiden Teile austauschen möchtest, beide ersetzen musst.

Das verschmolzene Display mag fantastisch aussehen, aber zu welchem Preis, Apple? Zu. Welchem. Preis!?

Die Kosten sind schnell ersichtlich: Beim Entfernen des Displays wird der Schaumstoffkleber zerstört, der das Display verschließt. Um Display und Gehäuse wieder zusammenzusetzen, muss der gesamte ursprüngliche Klebstoff abgezogen und ersetzt werden, was eine Reparatur extrem erschwert.

Wir waren ziemlich überrascht, als wir sahen, dass das LCD des neuen iMac die gleiche Modellnummer trägt wie das letztjährige Modell - LM215WF3 von LG - obwohl das LCD 5 mm dünner ist.

Wenn es dasselbe ist, warum ist es dann kleiner? Wir vermuten, dass Apple die gleichen Teile des LCD-Bildschirms genommen und in ein kleineres Gehäuse gepackt hat.

Ein Blick auf die Display-Steuerplatine offenbart ein paar bemerkenswerte ICs:

Vorspannungsnetzteil TPS65161 von Texas Instruments

TParade DP627HDE DisplayPort-LCD-Steuerung

Talk about a facelift—nothing about the inside of this iMac resembles last year's model.

As we tear through this machine we'll be able to take a look at how Apple managed to eliminate a millimeter here and a micron there, one component at a time.

We like hard drives and devices that support dual hard drives, so naturally we start by examining the new iMac's 1 TB drive.

By switching from a traditional 3.5" desktop hard drive to a 2.5" laptop drive, Apple designers were able to clear a lot of real estate inside the iMac.

Smaller laptop hard drives are also often quieter, thanks to smaller moving parts than their big brothers.

Apple turned to HGST—Western Digital's acquisition of Hitachi—to manage the iMac's spinning storage.

A rubbery housing is lightly adhered to the edges of the hard drive beneath the upper and lower hard plastic bezels.

This design is far different from what we've seen before. Since the internal components are more tightly packed than before, small vibrations may carry through more components. The rubber housing dampens the vibrations from the spinning hard drive so they are not perpetuated throughout the device.

You might already know that we carry a 54-bit driver kit to handle any of your mechanical fastener needs. What you might not know, however, is that the included extender can be used to provide extra torque to remove tough screws—such as those holding down the power supply board inside the iMac.

This board takes the readily available AC voltage from your wall socket and converts it to tasty DC voltage for the iMac to consume.

The specified output is 12.1 V, 15.4 A.

A new fan layout! We are fans.

Apple is changing things up quite a bit and has moved from multiple small fans to a single centralized fan.

"1" may be the loneliest number, but removing 2/3 of the fans goes a long way towards saving space.

Judging by the orientation of the squirrel cage fan, we gather that it draws cool air from the bottom vents, then blows hot air out of the grating in the back of the iMac.

The webcams in iMacs of yesteryear have always been connected to the logic board with long snaking cables that were relatively fragile; that is no longer the case.

A ribbon cable we can only describe as "beefy" keeps the FaceTime HD camera in touch with the logic board.

As we mentioned earlier, the newest iMac features not one, but two microphones.

Dual microphone technology has been utilized in mobile devices for years to cut out background noise during phone calls. Now, the same idea is being applied here to improve sound quality during intimate FaceTime chats with your mother.

It's not often that we see the microphone(s) and webcam for a computer disconnected from each other. That modularity means positive points towards repairability.

Three gold bars antennas come out next with a few spudger flicks.

Even though the main Wi-Fi antenna is hidden behind the big Apple logo on the rear case as usual, these three antennas split up Bluetooth and secondary Wi-Fi duties.

Stop—speaker time!

The speakers may look simple, but removing them is nerve-wracking. For seemingly no reason other than to push our buttons, Apple has added a barb to the bottom of the speaker assemblies that makes them harder-than-necessary to remove.

After sufficiently wracking all of our nerves, the speaker assemblies allow us to remove them from their sick beat dropping enclosure.

The next logical step was to remove the iMac's logic board.

We flip the board over and get our first glimpse of the goodies side, which reveals, well, a lot of goodies.

Good news: The iMac's RAM is "user-replaceable."

Bad news: You have to unglue your screen and remove the logic board in order to do so.

This is just barely less-terrible than having soldered RAM that's completely non-removable.

Our bargain-basement unit has a solid 8 GB of Hynix PC3-12800 RAM.

Like a young fellow nervous to dance at prom, the AirPort card sits inconspicuously in the corner.

After a short hiatus, Broadcom is back to bring WLAN capabilities to the iMac.

A Broadcom BCM4331 single-chip WLAN solution dominates the tiny AirPort card.

The three Wi-Fi antennas are run by three Skyworks SE5515 Dual-Band frontend chips.

New from last year's model, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are integrated into the same card, with the addition of a BCM20702 single-chip Bluetooth 4.0 processor.

And off comes that honkin' heat sink!

And along with it…what's this…the CPU???

The new iMac uses a spring-loaded, FCLGA1155 socket to make all those little electrical signals go into, and out of, the CPU.

The Intel Core i5-3330S is clocked at 2.7 GHz, but can stretch its legs up to 3.2 GHz if needed.

This is the bottom rung of the ladder as far as processors in the iMac go. You can max out a 21.5" machine with a 3.1 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 with Turbo Boost up to 3.9 GHz.

Major players on the front side of the Lo-Bo:

Nvidia GeForce GT 640M GPU

Intel E213B384 platform controller hub

Texas Instruments Stellaris LM4FS1AH microcontroller

2x Hynix H5GQ2H24AFR GDDR5 SGRAM

National Semiconductor VM22AC

Delta 8904C-F

Broadcom BCM57765A1KMLG gigabit ethernet controller with integrated SDXC card reader

Sneakily hidden on the backside of the logic board, we find a few more chips:

Intel DSL3510L Cactus Ridge Thunderbolt controller

Analog Devices SSM3302 audio amplifier

Vimicro VC0359 webcam processor

Intersil ISL6364 multi-phase pulse width modulation (PWM) controller

Cirrus Logic 4206BCNZ audio controller, the same chip as found in last year's 21.5"

So, ummm...

See these traces on the board here?

See this other hole on the left?

Looks like this is where Apple's proprietary SSD connector should reside.

Placing the SSD from the 13" MacBook Pro Retina Display confirms this notion. If the shoe fits...

We purchased the "bargain-basement" version of the iMac. We're assuming that the more-expensive version—one that has the built-to-order Fusion drive option—has this connector soldered onto the board, and a 128GB SSD placed into said connector.

Looks like there'll be no love for our awesome dual-drive kit from this iMac generation. :(

Though the rear case is the last piece we reach, it's where the design of the new iMac began.

In order to carefully join together the pieces of the case, Apple turned to friction stir welding, a process previously reserved for applications such as ship building and aerospace.

Friction stir welding is more like joining clay than welding—it doesn't melt the workpieces, but rather softens the area between them and forces material together, creating a strong weld with no weakened heat affected zone.

iMac 21.5" EMC 2544 Repairability Score: 3 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair)

You can still replace the RAM, hard drive, and CPU inside this machine.

The glass and LCD are now fused together, and there are no more magnets holding the glass in place. That means it's heatgun time!

Most replaceable components (like the RAM) are buried behind the logic board, meaning you'll have to take apart most of the iMac just to gain access to them.

Budget-minded folks can no longer add a second hard drive to the base iMac unless they are super-fond of soldering missing proprietary connectors onto the logic board.

You'll have to masterfully peel off the old double-sided sticky tape and apply new tape in order to reseal this iMac into original condition.