Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/ Apple Introduces Entry-Level iMac for $1,099 Josh Centers Apple has [1]announced a new entry-level iMac starting at $1,099, which is$200 cheaper than the existing 21.5-inch [2]iMac. It features a 21.5-inch screen, 1.4 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (up to 2.7 GHz with Turbo Boost) with 3 MB shared L3 cache, 8 GB of RAM, a 500 GB hard drive, and Intel HD Graphics 500. It also sports two Thunderbolt ports, four USB 3.0 ports, and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. The RAM is not expandable, and the only build-to-order options are a 1 TB hard drive ($50), a 1 TB Fusion Drive ($250), and 256 GB of flash storage ($250). In terms of [3]tech specs, the new iMac is a big step down from the $1,299 21.5-inch iMac, which improves on the entry-level iMac with a significantly faster 2.7 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor (up to 3.2 GHz with Turbo Boost) with 4 MB L3 cache, 8 GB of RAM (expandable to 16 GB), a 1 TB hard drive, and Intel Iris Pro graphics. The $1,299 model also offers a 1 TB Fusion Drive ($200), 256 GB of flash storage ($200), and 512 GB of flash storage ($500) as build-to-order options. If you can spare the extra $200, the $1,299 model is a distinctly better machine, though it's nice to see Apple making Macs more affordable. References 1. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/06/18Apple-Introduces-New-Entry-Level-21-5-inch-iMac.html 2. http://www.apple.com/imac/ 3. http://www.apple.com/imac/specs/ .