There will always be new pretenders to the crown, but in many ways, the iMac remains the jewel in Apple’s crown

I love iMacs. There, I’ve got it out of the way quickly and early, so you know that in some ways, there will be a bias to this story.

iMacs remain the most Mac of all Macs – if that makes any kind of sense at all? It’s the shape, design, feel and look of an iMac. They’ve been with us for nearly 30 years, and they are unquestionably iconic and gorgeous. They almost single-handedly saved Apple as a company, and for that reason alone, hold a special place in many of our hearts.

But with so many great Macs to choose from, does the iMac still make sense? There’s the brilliant Mac mini, the ultra-portable M4 MacBook Air, the venerable MacBook Pro lineup and even the Mac Studio you can now choose from.

So, with such stiff competition, why do I still love working on an iMac, who should be looking to buy an M4 iMac today, and what is the biggest pitfall you should avoid if you are about to buy one.

iMac – the perfect Mac

Let’s talk design first – in 2021, the iMac got a major facelift that went deeper than just new, playful colours.

With its chic, ultra-slim design, Apple made the iMac feel fresh all over again, yet somehow they managed to keep the essence of the iMac alive. I know the chin is contentious, yet it makes it instantly recognisable, and the fact that it is now colour-coded, I think, looks great. The older Intel iMacs instantly looked bloated and dated.

This is the best-looking iMac ever.

I mentioned in a story last week that part of buying into and enjoying Apple is the aesthetic. This Mac is engineered beautifully and is very much a Mac. The weight of the hinge, the machining of the corners and even the attention to detail of the stand alone. It’s not until you put yourself in front of it that you realise that it’s all these elements coming together that make it so inviting compelling and inviting to work on.

Somehow, even now, I find it more immersive to sit and work on my iMac than I do on any of my other Macs. The iMac draws you in – it’s subtle, but it spins its magic every time you work on it.

The all-in-one design makes it a design perfection.

As you’ll probably gather, I love the design of these new iMacs!

Value

A lot has been said recently about the Mac mini being great value for money.

It is, or rather it can be, but I’d argue the iMac gives it a very good run for its money – particularly in it’s M4 guise.

Obviously, with the Mac mini, you’ll need all the peripherals. Yes, it starts at £599, but if we start to spec it up like for like with the iMac, the value of the desktop soon starts to show.

The entry Mac mini comes with 10 cores of CPU & 10 cores of GPU, 16GB of memory and 256GB of SSD storage. But add on £149 for a magic keyboard, £79 for the Magic Mouse, and you’re already at £827, and that’s without a monitor that’s equivalent to the one on the iMac.

The iMac’s display is essentially a smaller, scaled-down version of Apple’s Studio Display, which costs £1499. A general rule of thumb for a monitor that is 3 or 4 inches smaller is that it could cost 20%, 30% or even 50% less. So even if we are generous and add the studio display in at only £750, that package would still cost £1577, whereas the same specs for an iMac would cost only £1499. Yes, sure, you could go and buy an inferior display to save money, but I bet it wouldn’t take long before you started to regret that decision.

The 4.5K display is plenty bright enough at 500 nits, is pixel dense and is colour accurate with a great contrast ratio that makes carrying out colour accurate work on it a delight. The blacks on my iMac look arguably and inexplicably better than they do on my Studio Display. But, without a doubt, part of the appeal of the iMac is that Retina display.

The M4 iMacs are looking even better value for money when you factor in that this year, Apple kept the starting prices the same at £1299 but gave us 8GB of extra memory and, of course, the overall benefits that the M4 chip brings with it.

Hitting the sweet spot

When it comes to buying your M4 iMac, I have some advice – there’s a surprise!

Although Apple has an iMac for £1299, I’d avoid it. Yes, it’s the one I bought, but I knew that I wouldn’t be pushing mine hard at all.

For a Mac that you want as your main workstation, though, go for the mid-tier iMac that costs £1499 as a starting point. The base model has the binned M4 chip with only 8 cores of both CPU and GPU.

That extra £200, though, gets you not only the full beans on the core count with a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU but you also get a Gigabit Ethernet port and most usefully four Thunderbolt 4 ports, which are quick.

You’ll know I’m not a fan of giving Apple any money unnecessarily, but equally, I’d hate for you to shoot yourself in the foot. Go for at least 512GB of Apple’s SSD storage and possibly as much as a terabyte, but no more. There are tons of third-party Thunderbolt 4 SSD enclosures that you can buy now that are almost as fast as Apple’s and offer way more flexibility. As the iMac is a desktop, there is no downside to having some extra SSD attached – and with this model, you have four of those snappy Thunderbolt 4 ports at hand as well.

Another win for this mid-tier model is that you can spec the memory up to 32GB (as long as you choose at least 512GB of SSD). It’s taken me some time to realise it, but getting the memory option right is the key to buying an Apple silicon Mac that will serve you well for years to come.

While it’s great that Apple now starts all Macs off with 16GB of memory, if you plan on using your Mac at all creatively for photo, audio, 3D, rendering or video work, then try to at least stretch yourself to 24GB and if you can, go for the full 32GB option.

And there is one other tick-box that this £1500 Mac gives you – and that is Nano texture. If you know that your iMac will be sitting somewhere that is bright and reflective, then the £200 Nano texture finish is something worth considering. I’ve tried it, and it works very well at what it’s supposed to do and does reduce virtually all reflections, but it also mutes the colours quite a bit. Don’t choose it until you get to go and look at it first in an Apple Store.

Time for change

If you’re an iMac lover who has been clinging to your 27-inch Intel Mac, hoping that a new, larger iMac may be in the pipeline, then think again, and think about buying a new M4 iMac today!

I’ve seen nothing to suggest that Apple intends to replace the larger iMac. With their current inventory, it makes no sense. We have Mac minis and Mac Studios that can pair quite happily with the 27-inch Studio Display, which means that a larger iMac would be either redundant or superfluous.

But don’t be put off by the fact that the M4 iMac is only 24 inches. In use, it never feels small or cramped, and because of the quality of the display, it still feels fantastic to work on for long periods.

But with an eye to what Apple may have in mind for the future of their stand-alone displays, the un-binned M4 chip offers support for one external display with up to 8K resolution at 60Hz. Now, there have been rumours of Apple updating their displays, and if that’s the case, having spotted that little nugget, I wonder if that’s any kind of clue as to what we may expect.

Who is the M4 iMac for?

Well, as I mentioned earlier on if you’ve been eeking the last life out of your beloved Intel 27-inch iMac, now is the time to change. Put it off no longer. You love working on an iMac – so why put up with something slower when you have another option open to you? If you’re still waiting to sample what Apple silicon is about, then give the M4 version of it a go.

Another group of Mac users who may want to think about getting the M4 iMac could be those who bought the M1 iMac with the wrong spec. If you only have 8GB of memory and you keep getting memory full warnings flashing up – and I’ve been there and know how frustrating that is – get an M4 iMac with 16GB or possibly even 24GB of memory. You could even think about trading in your M1 iMac to go towards the upgrade.

Lastly, if you are looking to get the best bang for your buck and create as much desk space as possible, then an M4 iMac could be your dream Mac. They are way more than simply a pretty Mac – with M4 inside, they can become a serious workhorse.

Apple used to pitch this Mac as being the kind of Mac that would sit in a family room or be used in shops and at hotel receptions – but honestly, it’s way more than that.

While we may never see another leap forward like we saw jumping from Intel to Apple silicon, the speed at which Apple is improving their silicon is frightening. I know that the sweep of M5 Macs is just around the corner, and there will always be something new coming, but M4 Apple silicon feels the real deal.

I’ve used M1, M2, M3 and M4 Macs and the jump in performance between M1 and M4 is huge.

Avoid that binned M4 cheap in the cheapest model, get the memory choice right, and you’ll have a Mac that’ll make you wonder why you waited so long.