iMac 2026: Seven Colours, One Display — What Are You Actually Paying For?

The Display Elephant in the Room

Apple's 2026 iMac starts at £1,499 and comes in seven colours: Blue, Purple, Pink, Orange, Yellow, Green, and Silver. The marketing leans heavily on the visual identity — and it works. These are genuinely beautiful machines on a desk.

But here's the number Apple prefers not to put in the headline: the 24-inch 4.5K Retina display is essentially identical to the one in the M1 iMac from 2021. Same 4,480 × 2,520 resolution. Same 500 nits of brightness. Same P3 wide colour gamut. Five years of iMac generations and the screen you're looking at all day has not materially changed.

The comparable display on a Windows all-in-one at the same price point has, in many cases, moved to 4K or higher with higher brightness ratings. Apple is right that the 4.5K panel is still excellent — it is — but the premium pricing increasingly looks like you're paying for the silicon and the aluminium chassis rather than the screen.

Nano-Texture Glass: The Actual Display Upgrade

To Apple's credit, there is a genuine display improvement available on the 2026 iMac — just not the one you might expect. Nano-texture glass is a new option that reduces reflectivity and glare without the image quality compromise of traditional anti-glare coatings. For anyone who works near a window, under direct overhead lighting, or in a bright studio environment, it's a meaningful quality-of-life upgrade.

The catch: nano-texture glass is a paid upgrade, adding around £150 to the configuration price. It's also only available on higher-tier configurations. The £1,499 base model doesn't offer it.

So the honest picture is: the display quality floor is unchanged since 2021, but Apple has added a ceiling option for buyers who need it — at a premium that will frustrate anyone who sees it as the feature that should have been standard by now.

The Colour Tax — and the Accessories Bill

The colour story is where Apple's iMac genuinely differentiates itself. No Windows manufacturer comes close to the execution of a matched Pearl White, Ocean Blue, or Starlight Pink machine with colour-matched accessories. It's a product that looks designed rather than assembled.

But the accessories situation deserves scrutiny. The iMac includes a colour-matched Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad depending on configuration. That sounds generous — until you realise that if you want to upgrade or replace any of them later, the pricing is eye-watering:

• Magic Mouse (USB-C): around £85
• Magic Keyboard with Touch ID (USB-C): around £109
• Magic Trackpad (USB-C): around £149

A full replacement set — keyboard, trackpad, and mouse — costs approximately £343. That's nearly a quarter of the base iMac price for peripherals. And because the colour-matched versions are exclusive to Apple, there's no discount third-party alternative if you want the aesthetic to stay coherent.

The new USB-C ports on the accessories (replacing Lightning) are a genuine improvement and long overdue. But they don't justify the pricing relative to what competitors charge for comparable wireless keyboards and mice.

What the M4 Chip Actually Buys You

Setting aside the display and accessories, the chip upgrade is real and significant. Apple claims up to 6x faster performance than the most popular Intel-based iMac — which, given that those machines are now seven or more years old, isn't a hard bar to clear. More meaningfully, the M4 chip delivers around 2x the performance of the M1 on creative workflows, which is relevant for anyone upgrading from a 2021 iMac.

The M4's Neural Engine is the other meaningful upgrade: it powers Apple Intelligence on-device, handles 4K video editing smoothly, and does so without the fan noise that plagued Intel-based iMacs under load. The iMac with M4 is genuinely silent in everyday use.

If you're coming from an Intel iMac (2017–2020), the performance upgrade alone justifies the 2026 model. If you're on an M1 iMac from 2021, the case is weaker — the M4 is faster, but unless you're doing heavy creative work or specifically need Apple Intelligence, the day-to-day difference is less transformative.

The Ports Upgrade Is Quietly Important

One under-discussed improvement: the higher-tier 2026 iMac configurations now include up to four Thunderbolt 4 ports, up from two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports on the M1 model. For anyone running external storage, a display, a dock, and other peripherals simultaneously, this is a genuine quality-of-life improvement that the spec sheets undersell.

The base configuration still has two Thunderbolt ports — a limitation that will frustrate creative professionals who need more connectivity. But the step-up configuration addresses this without requiring a dock that adds another £150+ to the total outlay.

So Who Is the 2026 iMac Actually For?

The honest answer is narrower than Apple's marketing suggests.

A compelling upgrade if you're on: Any Intel Mac (2017–2020), a Mac from before Apple Silicon, or an M1/M2 iMac and you regularly do video editing, music production, or heavy multitasking where the M4 performance difference is real.

Hard to justify if you're on: An M2 or M3 iMac (the performance difference doesn't warrant the cost), or any Apple Silicon Mac that already handles your workload comfortably.

Worth paying the premium for: The colour and form factor, if aesthetics matter to your workspace. The nano-texture glass, if you work in a bright or glare-prone environment. The additional Thunderbolt 4 ports, if you're running a complex peripheral setup.

The 2026 iMac is an excellent computer. It's just not a revolutionary one. What you're paying for, above the M4 performance floor, is mostly design, aesthetics, and Apple's ecosystem execution — and whether that's worth £1,499 to £2,000+ depends entirely on how much those things matter to you.

Also see: Apple's full Mac lineup overhaul: MacBook Neo, new iMacs, entry-level Pro · Apple overtakes Nvidia: the valuation story · Apple's Klarna leasing plan: what it means for your upgrade