Quick review
The good
The not-so-good
You can’t find the old school USB ports or a card reader on the iMac anymore, but if you want them back, you might want to check out the $149 Satechi iMac Stand. Is it worth the asking price?
Computers have been pushing away from older ports and slots for so long, you might have forgotten what the rectangular USB port looks like, or even why you’d use a card reader.
Of course, if you need either, you probably haven’t, and may even have one of those gadgets as an accessory, or long for one in your regular day to day.
Don’t worry, you’re not alone: while Apple might have seen fit to ditch the card slot on the majority of its computers, it did bring it back for the most recent incarnation of the MacBook Pro, suggesting Apple hasn’t forgotten about it.
Unfortunately, if you already own an iMac, that doesn’t help you very much. However, there may be a way to bring the card slot and even the older USB port style back to that computer, and you might even gain a little more space between your Mac and the desk.
What is the Satechi Type-C iMac Stand?
All in the name, Satechi’s Type-C iMac Stand is an aluminium shelf to hold up your iMac (or other monitor), with a Type C connection cable coming out of the bottom to let you plug in a laptop and expand on the ports available from your computer.
It is both a stand and a port replicator, giving you one Type C port back and offering you some extra ports alongside, with the Type C port returned alongside three rectangular USB Type-A ports, a 3.5mm headset jack, and both a microSD card slot and an SD card slot.
The Satechi stand also lifts whatever you’re placing it under off the ground a little, acting as a monitor riser of sorts, but one that isn’t adjustable, providing a sort of space for things underneath
The stand itself can hold up to 22 kilograms of weight, making it ready to withstand the 4.5 kilogram M1 iMac 24, the near 9kg iMac 27, or another equally meaty monitor you’re keen to lift up from your desk slightly.
Does it do the job?
Just like the name suggests, the Type-C iMac stand holds up an iMac and expands its ports, giving you a little more to work with on the front of Apple’s desktop, but not just that.
We don’t typically use an iMac, even if we review them, and found the Satechi Type-C iMac stand allowed us to hold up monitors, making it a handy way of lifting the regular massive work-from-home screen we’re using in our Dell Ultrawide.
The extra height helped the Satechi iMac Stand to act like a monitor riser, even if that category has largely disappeared over the past decade. With so many of us working from home and the WFH world in full swing, lifting it up meant more way of getting a camera positioned nicely under the display, and helping make our desk that little bit more orderly.
What does the Satechi iMac Stand need?
With Satechi’s iMac Stand being good for computers outside of the iMac, it has two things missing from its design: powerful USB ports and colours.
For the former, the ports are basically low power, so you can’t run things like optical drives from them, as they’re just not powerful enough. You’ll want to rely on the ports on your computer, as this is basically just splitting the ports from one Type C on your machine, and isn’t like a properly powered port replicator.
The other factor is design, and with the recent iMac models coming in colours, you’ll want to be aware that Satechi’s stand is focused more on the silver look of the old iMac.
You know the one we mean, back before Apple re-adopted colours in its iMac range. Apple still makes a silver M1 iMac 24 and even last year’s silver iMac 27 qualifies, but they’re the only two that’ll look properly nice on the space grey Satechi stand.
Our pink iMac review model didn’t quite look as amazing on the dark Satechi design, and we suspect the blue, green, and other models won’t either. They’ll still clearly work and function totally fine, but the aesthetics may be less than appealing, so to speak.
Is it worth your money?
Despite the difference in style, there’s a lot to like about the Satechi iMac Stand. Notably, it gives you more ports you might be missing and holds an all-in-one iMac up, giving you a touch more height, and even a little spot to hide things you mightn’t want to look at.
USB sticks, an unused touchpad, SIM ejector tools, headphone cables… we found we could throw a reasonable amount of little things under, which given the $150 price tag, seemed more than decent for the extra flexibility on offer. With one gadget, Satechi has more or less cleaned our desk up. W00t.
Yay or nay?
While the colour might be stuck on grey and the ports not as powerful as what’s found on a Mac, we found the Satechi iMac Stand suitably useful in our regular day-to-day.
It won’t suit everyone, but if you’re looking to bring back some of those needed ports and card slots, and you happen to crave a little more height, you’ll find that in this gadget for sure.
