iMac 2012 - 2020 Keyboards & Mice

The 2012 revision to the iMac was a major redesign, coming in a much thinner and more modern looking case than its predecessor. The complete lack of an internal DVD drive was a bold, and not universally popular, move for the time. But the look of the new machines was immediately and lastingly well received. Two screen sizes, 27" and 21.5", were offered throughout the range. The smaller model was also generally less powerful, particularly in terms of its graphics card and upgradeability. The 27" was pitched more towards the professional creative market, with the 21.5" for home and general office use. Though there was a lot of crossover between the two with the 27" iMac being a very popular home machine.

While SSDs were offered as an option on all these machines, they were not standard until the very end of the range, unlike on Apple laptops of the same vintage. Many of these iMacs were shipped with old style hard drives and this makes them feel old and sluggish by modern standards. This is a particular problem on the 21.5" where the default drive option were slow old 2.5" 5400RPM hard drives long after these should have been considered obsolete. This makes these iMacs a prime target for SSD upgrades. This one change transforms a machine that is almost to slow to use, into something that feels comparable with a brand new machine. This is one of our upgrades with the most overwhelming positive feedback - many people are using iMacs that are several years old, but more than capable in terms of CPU and graphics card for the sort of tasks they are being asked to do. But they are painfully slow to use due to hard drives that were slow when they were new, and have only got slower as they aged. Simply swapping out the drive for an SSD, and perhaps upgrading the RAM a bit, is enough to transform them.

Unfortunately while the concept is simple, the actual upgrade is not. The screens are glued on and have to be cut off, then reattached with bonding tape. We sell the tools required, and have links to video guides for each machine. We also provide a fitting service with extremely experienced technicians who have done a huge number of these upgrades (on site available if you have an office or school full of them).

On the 27" models RAM is an easily upgradeable part, while on the 21.5" it requires the same opening of the iMac that a drive upgrade does - we can fit RAM at the same time as doing a drive for no additional labour charge. Sadly both the 2014 and 2015 21.5" models soldered the RAM to the logic board making replacement impossible, but all earlier and later models can be upgraded.

We have been working on these machines since they came out and offer extensive repair services as well as upgrades.

Revisions from 2012 and 2013 max out at macOS 10.15 Catalina. All later models can run the current macOS 11 Big Sur.