iMac with M4 chip: Now at least 16 GB RAM and cheaper at the same time
[07:42 Tue,29.October 2024 by Rudi Schmidts]
Apple launched its new Apple iMac M4 yesterday without a dedicated event. The design remains basically unchanged, but there are seven ‘new’ colours (blue, yellow, green, orange, pink, silver and purple). These colours, which have actually already been used in the past, are now based more on pastel colours.
The new iMac with M4 chip comes in old, new pastel colours.
The real news is of course the built-in M4 SoC, which can be ordered with 8 or 10 CPU cores and 8/10 GPU cores. According to Apple, the M4 should offer roughly double the performance of the first M1, but the improvements compared to the last M3 are rather marginal.
The really significant news in our eyes is the increase in the minimum memory capacity (from 8 to 16 GB RAM). However, the entry-level SSD capacity remains at a somewhat outdated 256 GB.
The built-in 4.5K 24-inch display has also remained unchanged at 4,480 × 2,520 pixels - the maximum brightness is still 500 nits). However, there is a new option to purchase the display with a nanotexture coating, which significantly reduces reflections.
The basic version (8-core) comes with two Thunderbolt 4 ports and two USB-C ports. The more expensive 10-core version, on the other hand, offers four Thunderbolt 4 ports. Gigabit Ethernet is only an option in the basic version, but is included in the more expensive models.The Magic Mouse, the Magic Trackpad and the Magic Keyboard are now finally getting USB-C instead of Lightning and will be delivered in the same colour depending on the colour of the iMac.
The new Apple iMac with M4 chip will be available from 8 November. The smallest basic version with M4 8 Core, 16 RAM and 256 GB SSD will cost 1,499 euros. The faster M4 10 Core costs 250 euros extra. The ‘Nanotexture’ display coating costs an extra 230 euros.
And this brings us to the last piece of good news. The ‘old’ iMac with M3 chip was 100 euros more expensive with 8GB memory than the new iMac with M4 chip and 16 GB RAM. As it is highly likely that Apple will also present a new Mac Mini with an M4 processor in the next few days, this could perhaps also become a little cheaper with more memory. Currently, the cheapest M2 Mini with 8 GB still costs 699 euros and is in our eyes already a very suitable editing computer for relatively little money. A new model with 16 GB should eliminate our biggest criticism of the last model. We will probably find out this week exactly how much the new (and much smaller) M4 Mini will cost.