2 days Ago By Tim Biggs
Superpowered “Pro” computers are all well and good, but there’s something to be said for the strong and reliable family desktop PC, which is exactly what Apple is delivering with its latest 24-inch iMac and its cute little Mac Mini. Since the start of the Apple Silicon era, I think there’s a good argument that the Mac Mini has been the best overall desktop computer on the market. Certainly, it’s the best compact.
And in Apple’s line-up, the iMac is right behind it in terms of offering high-end mass market computing at a reasonable price. The new Mac Mini pairs well with Apple’s displays and accessories, but it also works with anything else. The new Mini still starts at $1000 and is smaller than ever, weighing around 700 grams and measuring less than 13cm x 13cm and 5cm tall.
What I love about the Mini is that it’s small and subtle enough to become invisible on your desk, and you can build your own set-up with as much or as little Apple-branded stuff as you like. There’s HDMI, and Ethernet three Thunderbolt ports on the back for monitors, gear and hubs, a headphone jack and a couple of plain USB-Cs (not Thunderbolt) up front. It’s quiet and powerful and you practically forget it’s there.
The iMac is obviously a different proposition, being that it’s an all in one with no need to attach anything to it if you prefer (except a power cable). This new version is similar to the last but with a few nice improvements. It starts at $2000 and has more RAM than before (minimum of 16GB versus 8GB), while all the models above that entry-level one have four full Thunderbolt 4 ports (versus two with plain USB-C last year), meaning more options for fast external storage and accessories.
The new iMac also has an option for anti-glare glass. It still comes with your choice of colour-matched input devices, but probably the biggest change in terms of peripherals is the camera. It’s a much-improved 12MP ultra-wide unit this time, which gives you a linear widescreen view by default, but it can also pan and zoom to keep you in frame as you move.
Assuming you have a decent amount of desk between you and the Mac, it can also film the space in front of it so you can easily show documents or other objects in a video call. The new iMac has bolder colours on the back, and a faster chip inside. The iMac and Mini units I tested each have the standard M4 chip inside (though the latter is configurable with the souped-up M4 Pro), and although the year-on-year improvement is slight, it’s incredibly powerful for most use cases.
General browsing is faultless; it’s strong and steady for video editing; and if you’re coming from the standard M1 or M2, you’ll notice a general increase in fluidity moving between all your apps. Gaming is totally possible too, as long as you’re realistic about the results in recent high-end games. The Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark at 1080p and medium settings returned an average frame rate of 45, and in gameplay, it very rarely dipped below 40, which is very playable.
A major focus of the M4 is the neural core, meaning much faster AI processing. To be honest, I couldn’t tell much difference in Apple Intelligence performance versus an M3 device, but if you’re doing AI work or crunching ML-heavy Photoshop filters, it is a lot faster, and the potential is there for benefit when more advanced Apple Intelligence features (such as generated images) arrives soon. I have a sneaking suspicion that many of Apple’s strangest design quirks are intentionally conspicuous.
Elements such as the big display notches on iPhones and MacBooks, or the awkward underside placement of the charging port on the Magic Mouse, mark the products as unmistakably Apple. There are a few of those features to note with these new Macs. As part of its push to put USB-C chargers on every battery-powered device, in line with European regulations, Apple has finally ditched the “Lightning” ports from the keyboard, mouse and trackpad it includes with its Macs.
This is a big win because keeping a “Lightning” cable dangling around just for these things is annoying when you can have one USB-C cable handle literally every other device. Despite the update, the Magic Mouse is still charged via its underside. Pretty much every other wireless mouse charges in a way that allows you to keep using it while plugged in.
And while you’re flipping your mouse over to charge it, you can now start flipping your entire Mac over too, because as part of its Mac Mini shrinking, Apple has opted to relocate the power button underneath the device. Having the button at the back (where all the other Apple desktops have theirs) was already a bit of a bother, but it’s understandable that putting it on the top or front (where pretty much all non-Apple PCs have theirs) could ruin the aesthetic. But having it underneath seems intentionally antagonistic.
In practice, whether this annoys you will depend on how you use your computer. I tend to put mine to sleep from the Apple menu at the end of the day before carefully switching off my mouse and keyboard so it doesn’t wake up again, so I don’t need the power button unless I’m planning to not use it for a few days. If you prefer to turn your PC all the way off, you’ll have to get used to blindly scooching an upside-down finger under the back left corner of the Mini every morning.
Most egregious is the fact that both the iMac and Mac Mini are now entirely without USB-A ports, and while that’s not a change that makes the devices uglier at all, it does massively increase the likelihood of having dongles and adapters cluttering up the place. I understand that there are plenty of situations in which a streamlined approach to ports is preferable, and it’s great to have an option that does the minimum. For example, the least expensive new iMac has a lower core count on the M4 chip; it has no Ethernet port; and it has just two USB-C ports instead of four.
If you’re putting it in a shop or out in the open, and you only need it to do light work, that’s perfect. But the idea that most people can get by with only USB-C is a stretch. There are simply too many devices that rely on USB-A, or even SD cards.
Most adapters that go into USB-C to expand your ports are pretty ugly, and especially so since almost all of them are designed for laptops, and will dangle sadly from the back of your iMac. I used a StayGo hub from Twelve South to add USB-A ports and SD readers as it was one of the few units I could find with a decently long cable. It works, but it would still be nicer to have it integrated.
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