The iMac remains as iconic as ever but is it the right Mac for you?
The latest M4 iMac is one of the best-value Macs that Apple currently offers.
It also has that ‘mass appeal’ and probably remains the most recognisable of all Macs. Ask someone who is not a tech nerd to describe a Mac – and the chances are that it’ll be an iMac.
M4 Apple silicon is proving to be a game-changer and is probably the most meaningful improvement we’ve seen to Apple’s chip since it first wowed us in 2020 with the M1 version. The transition has been slow, but now all Macs, including the iMac, are running on Apple silicon – and late last year, Apple gave us M4 MacBook Pros, M4 Mac minis and the M4 iMac.
Every Mac that Apple has in its current lineup has a very specific role to fulfil and services a specific demographic and user group. They’re all there for a reason – and so it is true of the iMac.
Why buy an M4 iMac
If you are looking to buy an M4 iMac, it could be for several reasons, with familiarity likely being one of them. For many of us, iMacs were our gateway to an Apple way of life. We’ve grown up with iMacs – they’re in our DNA.
We feel comfortable & at home working on an iMac.
Other reasons that possibly factor into you buying an M4 iMac are its cute style and unquestionable convenience. It’s unique in Apple’s lineup because it is still their only all-in-one desktop. It’s the easiest of all Macs to set up because it has everything in one box that you’ll need to be online in well under an hour. Pretty much anyone can set one of these up.
The M4 iMac is an affordable Mac.
It’s often the way with Apple, though, that convenience comes at a price – but sometimes, it’s hard to spot. Those guys at Apple are very cunning, you know! To show you what I mean, let me compare the base M4 iMac to the base M4 Mac mini.
On the face of it, they appear similar beasts but pull back the covers, and a few interesting facts begin to surface.
The M4 iMac starts at £1299, which is great value, but the chip is the most basic of all forms of Apple’s M4 chip you can buy. The iMac starts with only an 8-core CPU, an 8-core GPU, a 16-core Neural Engine, 256GB of Storage and 16GB of memory.
One of the improvements across the board that Apple made during that week of Mac announcements last November was that all Macs now come with 16GB of memory at no extra cost because of the demands that Apple Intelligence will make on the system.
Whether or not you’re a potential fan of Apple Intelligence matters little – something for nothing is always welcome.
Now compare that to the entry-level Mac mini. That costs £599 but it comes with a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU – you see, the devil is always in the detail.
And if we take a look at the I/O, it’s a similar story.
For £599 on the M4 Mac mini, you get three Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB-C ports and a Gigabit Ethernet port. On the iMac, though, you only get two Thunderbolt USB-C 4 ports – but an Ethernet port will cost you an extra £30.
But, if you choose carefully, the iMac can still represent tremendous value. For £1299, you’re getting a mouse, keyboard and a screen. Part of the enduring appeal of the iMac is its 24-inch 4.5K Retina display with its 4480×2520 resolution at 218 pixels per inch.
We’d all love to see a black 27-inch M-series iMac – you bet – but I doubt it will ever happen…sadly!
So, going back to the M4 Mac mini for a moment – to prove what great value the M4 iMac is, if you add on the same basic Magic Keyboard (£99) and mouse (£79) that comes with the iMac, the entry-level Mac mini will set you back £777 or £522 less than the iMac. Trying to find a 24-inch, 4.5K, or 5K Retina display for that kind of money is no easy task, though. There is this Asus 27-inch ProArt Display, which is apparently ok – but it’s no match to a Retina display.
Be cautious
Although the M4 iMac I have is the basic, cheapest model, I wouldn’t recommend it.
Yes, I am sitting here today working on it, and it is just fine, but for anything more taxing, I’m in the lucky position of having other Macs to use. The base M4 iMac is ok but for only a very small number of users and uses. Its limitations? Well, everything really – the memory, the I/O and, of course, the storage. But it serves its purpose by having a low appealing price-point and bringing more new users to Mac.
Now, I’ve already hinted that one of the iMac’s biggest wins is its convenience – that one-and-done, out-of-the-box experience is hard to replicate or beat. And it may be your heart is simply set on having the most gorgeous of all of Apple’s Macs sitting on your desk for the next 3, 5 or 10 years. It is bloody lovely, and I wouldn’t blame you for choosing to want to sit down in front of one of these colourful, inviting Macs every day.
They have an alluring quality to them that helps to pull the best out of you – working on an iMac still feels more like an event than any other Mac.
So, knowing that you want an iMac and having said that the £1299 should be avoided at all costs, what would I suggest to ensure that you get the best bang for your buck?
Buying your new iMac
The M4 iMac comes in three configs – well, I see it more as only two. The only difference between the £1499 & £1699 model is the storage. Basically, you’re paying £200 for an extra 256GB of SSD storage – that is the only difference – and that doesn’t represent good value in my eyes.
The £1499 M4 iMac would be the model I’d suggest you look at – at least as a starting place. The I/O is way better on that iMac – you get four Thunderbolt 4 ports and a Gigabit Ethernet port as well.
Although it’s rumoured that Apple Intelligence is going to be memory-hungry unless you are planning some seriously heavy uses for it, I don’t think you need to go bonkers on the unified memory – Apple silicon is so efficient.
I’ve heard stories of the 16GB starting to cause some grief on the M4 Mac mini, so I suggest you spend that £200 difference we spoke about a moment ago between this model and the next one up, not on storage, but on unified memory. That way, this M4 iMac should always feel fast and snappy no matter how many apps you have open at any time. 24GB will be more than enough for most people.
If you are trading up from an old Mac, you can take the guesswork out of how much memory you need. Open the Activity Monitor on your old Mac on a typical day of using it – and click on the memory tab. At the bottom of the screen, it’ll tell you how much memory you are using. Make sure to get at least that much memory on your new Mac – and you are sorted.
There are only a couple of other options you have when you’re spec’ing your M4 iMac – and one of those is the Nano-texture glass finish, and even here I have a suggestion.
With, say, a MacBook Pro, you may well end up using it in all kinds of different environments that you can’t control. You may remember that I tried the Nano-texture on my M4 iPad Pro last year, and although I decided not to keep it, it’s great at what it sets out to do. So, on a laptop or tablet, it makes more sense to consider it.
But with an iMac, varying light & working conditions shouldn’t prove to be a problem. Before buying your new M4 iMac, you’ll probably already know where it’s going to live. So take a look at different times of day and consider whether reflections or bright light will be a potential issue. If so, then spend that extra £200 – but if not, save your money. Rather than hand over £200 more to Apple, could you simply move where your iMac is going to live instead?
The only other option there is when you’re buying your iMac is whether you decide to spend £30 extra for the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID. Yeah, it’s convenient, but if you have an Apple Watch, why not set that to unlock the M4 iMac instead – and save more money?
Storage wars
Simplicity and convenience are bywords for the iMac – and Apple will quickly lure you in over the convenience factor with their storage.
I have recently changed my tune when it comes to storage – I’m like one of those annoying people who have turned vegetarian or vegan when it comes to storage – I can’t stop banging on about it.
I’ve always said to buy as much internal storage as you can – historically, Apple’s storage has not only been the most convenient but also the quickest.
Oddly, it’s Apple who has shot itself in the foot now, though and given us a genuine option to not buy Apple’s expensive SSD storage. The Thunderbolt 4 ports on the M4 iMacs may not be grabbing the headlines that the Thunderbolt 5 ones did on the MacBooks and Mac minis, but they are more than quick enough – 40Gbps data transfer will mean that you can work from them all day without issue.
The days when I/O meant that external SSDs were only suitable to store or archive on are a thing of the past. They are now a viable, genuine, cheap alternative to Apple’s SSD storage.
Of course, when you’re buying third-party SSD enclosures and storage, you’re getting a lot more for your money. I’ve been trying out an Acasis M.2 NVMe TBU405Pro M1 enclosure with 2TB of Samsung 990 Pro Evo Pro Plus – and I’ve been mightily impressed by the results – and its added usability & value to my M4 iMac.
The enclosure costs £100, and the Samsung SSD £140. That’s £240 for an extra 2TB of SSD. If you’d jumped from the 256GB that comes as standard on the £1499 M4 iMac up to 2TB with Apple – that would’ve cost you £800!
A usable solution
Both in benchmark tests and in general day-to-day use, this enclosure is proving a hit – and bears out my murmurings from a moment back, that Apple has thrown us a lifeline with these Thunderbolt Ports.
Running a disk speed test proved interesting. The iMac was giving me speeds of 1700 MB/s write and 1900 MB/s read. The Samsung SSD in the Acasis enclosure is giving me 2775 MB/s write & 2850 MB/s read – and those numbers are important.
They mean that you can properly work from this external SSD. I can edit entire videos from this external SSD with no overheating issues and no spinning beach balls. Apps can be stored on it if you want, as can large photo or music libraries – and they are expandable, too.
Of course, the M4 iMac is a desktop, which means that the issue of having an SSD connected is not an issue. Once you’ve decided on what size SSD you’re going to put in the enclosure, you can fix it out of sight and forget about it, keeping your desk clean and free of clutter.
The iMac is a perfect Mac for folks who aren’t particularly tech-savvy or just have no interest in how things work – as long as it does work. This Acasis enclosure (and no, I haven’t been paid by them to write this, but they did send me the enclosure free to try) is a perfect match for the iMac. They are soul mates.
For starters, no tools are needed to open the thing up – you just pop off the lid and slot in your memory. That’s it – you’re done! There are no confusing switches, and no external power supply is needed – it powers up via the Thunderbolt 4 port. The only other switch on it is a button for the fan – but so far, I’ve not needed it. All I’ve ever heard is a feint, quiet hum.
Final thoughts…
You’re future-proofed if you use an external Thunderbolt 4 SSD like this one. If you should eventually fill it up, no sweat, you can just swap it out. This Acasis one I’m using will let you put in up to 8TB – which, even for me, would see me through the best part of a year.
Where once I would’ve suggested spending as much as you can on Apple’s storage, now, honestly, there’s another answer. I’ve been using this enclosure for the past week with my M4iMac and I haven’t got one negative word to say about it.
It’s quiet, discreet, quick and affordable. It’s sleek, stylish and well-made – does that sound familiar?
If you choose wisely, the M4 iMac is still an affordable Mac that will serve you for years. It’s plenty powerful and can easily be used for video, music or photo editing. Using this hack for extra storage that I’ve chatted about here should mean that you are set for a very happy, long life with your M4 iMac – without breaking the bank!
Happiness is an iMac!
(PS – after writing this story, and just before posting it, I’ve already spent another £300 on 4TB of Samsung SSD to go with my M4 Pro Mac mini)
