Alert: A 21.5-inch iMac is $500 off at Best Buy

SAVE $500: Best Buy has a 21.5-inch Apple iMac (Intel Core i5, 256GB SSD) for just $999 as of Oct. 26. That's 33% off its suggested retail price of $1,499.

Those colorful new 24-inch iMacs have been so gosh darn stubborn. They've hardly gone on sale at all since they came out this spring, much less been featured in any retailer's early Black Friday sales.

We'll be on the lookout in case that changes, but in the meantime, anyone who's in the market for a new desktop should absolutely snap up this 21.5-inch iMac with a Retina 4K display from early 2019. As of Oct. 26, Best Buy has it marked down to $999 (normally $1,499) as part of its pre-holiday Early Deals Event and throws in six free months of both Apple Music and Apple News+ just for kicks. (Those are for new subscribers only, FYI.)

That $500 discount is eons better than any deal other stores are offering on the same configuration (with 256GB of storage and a 3.0GHz, eighth-gen six-core Intel Core i5 processor): Walmart had an open-box model listed for $1,284.95 at the time of writing, while Adorama and the Apple Store itself were selling used ones for $1,299 and $1,269, respectively. Meanwhile, Amazon and B&H Photo are probably punching the air right now because their supplies are completely sold out.

FWIW, this iMac's slightly less powerful base model with a quad-core Intel Core i3 processor was also listed for $999 at Best Buy the last time we checked (normally $1,299). That $300 savings is separate from the Early Deals Event, though, and therefore not covered by its new Black Friday Price Guarantee. (You might as well get the one with more bang for your buck, anyway.)

The star of the show here is very obviously this iMac's stunning Retina 4K display, which brings support for a billion colors (casual), but the AMD Radeon Pro 560X graphics card under its hood should also be a big draw for anyone who's into video editing or game design. Apple rounds out its spec sheet with a FaceTime HD camera, 8GB of RAM, and two Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, and throws in a Magic Mouse 2 and a Magic Keyboard to get you off and running.