New iMac 24″ – any good, which spec?

As title really. Any real-world apple user fans or critics? What’s the best bang per buck spec-wise, especially in terms of future-proofing? Using it for general work duties and some photo editing – nothing too taxing/technical. And any good ways to get a discount? Ta for any tips.

Well you can buy an equivelent spec PC for cheaper, unless you really want IOS?

Futureproofing is out as macs are a pain in the arse to upgrade, everything is more expensive as you have to buy ‘special RAM’ ETC. (read twice the price) ETC.

Also a 27″ screen is so much nicer to work with, compared to a 22″ or 24″.

Well you can buy an equivelent spec PC for cheaper

There’s always one*…

Got one on order, arriving any day now. I went for the ‘top’ model with 16Gb RAM. Standard 512Gb hard drive though; I’ll use an external drive plus NAS for storage. My only experience so far is in an Apple store, so nothing more than a cursory play. Screen is fantastic, amazing even. It’s basically the same resolution as the previous 27″ Intel iMac, just a little smaller. Perfect for my needs, but you can always add a larger display if needs be. A friend with an M1 MacBook Air says it’s night and day compared to his older Intel MacBook Pro; much faster. If you want to use your own display, then perhaps consider the M1 MacMini, although by the time you buy a comparable display, plus keyboard, mouse etc, it’ll run to not much less than the iMac, and use more power, plus have more cables etc.

I’ll give you an update once mine arrives, and try to give a bit of constructive feedback. Or you can just do what I did and order one. Apple are currently offering free Airpod earphones if you have access to a student Unidays account, or simply if someone in your family is/works in full time education. I wasn’t fussed, but something for nothing is always nice. Educational discount worked out to just under £200 off for my iMac.

*Please; do explain how you can get an equivalent all in one PC, with similar spec, similar display, KB+M, etc. Bearing in mind there is no PC equivalent to the Apple M1 chip. Or, just leave this thread to the Apple Fanbois? Thanks.

The base model is absolutely fine for non-taxing stuff, one of the good things about Apple is the base model isn’t a bad joke. I’m writing this on a base M1 Macbook Air, which has done software development, photo editing in Lightroom, and plays Civilisation 6 just fine. If you can afford it I recommend bumping to 16GB of RAM but it’s not essential.

As someone who has owned a variety of Macbooks since 2010 or so, the new M1 models are *astounding*. Work replaced my high spec 2019 x86 Macbook Pro with a M1 MBP and it’s just a different world entirely. Battery life is measuring in days, fan really needs to be encouraged on. As a software engineer I tested a build of our software on them both: the 2019 x86 MBP took over 3 hours of loud fan roaring and was unusable whilst building, the M1 MBP was done in just over one, fully usable during that time, and the fan was barely on.

Well you can buy an equivelent spec PC for cheaper, unless you really want IOS?

I’m typing this on my 11 year old unibody macbook, admittedly with expanded RAM to handle the new OS’s.

How many windows laptops have you had in 11 years.

admittedly it’s pretty much out of support now, can’t install new OS, lots of apps aren’t updating, but it still keeps on chugging away..

I’ve also been looking a the new iMac as a replacement/ family Computer

Thanks for these answers – really useful. I’ve only ever had Macs and after 20 years I’m only on my second laptop and second desktop, so I’m defo sticking with Apple. Had very few issues in that time too, all quickly sorted with calls to Apple. For a non-tech like me, they’re perfect.

I’m now sold on the 24”, probs with extra RAM and storage just to beef it up and perhaps slightly improve its lifespan. I’d like to get 4 or 5 years out of it if poss. It’s a work tool, so comes a bit cheaper than RRP once it’s gone through my books. Needs to be reliable tho, and cost effective in the long run. That it will be nice to use is a given. Cheers for your help. Any other views/tips from anyone are very welcome, tho it’s not worth trying to steer me away from Apple!

warton

I’m typing this on my 11 year old unibody macbook, admittedly with expanded RAM to handle the new OS’s.

How many windows laptops have you had in 11 years.

I was going to stay well clear of this thread. But, since you ask (perhaps not me directly)…..I’m typing this on a £550 Acer laptop that I bought in either late 2011 or early 2012. I can’t remember. So, 1.
I swapped the HDD for a £60 Crucial SSD about 3 years ago when I upgraded to win10. It’s ready to go from cold in just under 30s and gets used for 3D CAD modelling (Fusion360), web browsing, Zwift and the occasional bit of light photo editing.

Admittedly, I only get about 40mins from the battery now, but it only really gets used at home anyway so it normally gets plugged in.

But yeah OP, get a Mac. If you can afford it & like the OS, then why not?

For the OP why not just get a macbook pro? I have had imacs and mbps in the past and not really found any difference performance wise. Im a ux/ui designer by trade so not doing super heavy work like trying to render huge 3d files, but the upside to a laptop is huge simply due to the portability about them and they have so much power these days.

If i was just after a daily driver i would get an air or 13″ mbp.

It’s well known the new M1 chip Macs are actually very good value for money compared to a PC and their screens are very very good indeed.
I sorted a PC out for my wife and we didn’t go for a Mac as she’s used to PCs and isn’t great with tech so stuck to what she knew and I had to spend a decent amount of money to get anywhere close to the same spec. The screens in particular you have to spend a lot to get as nice a unit.
I probably still wouldn’t buy one as I’m a tinkerer despite using having Apple mobile devices.
Sounds like for what you’re wanting it for it should be a good choice though.

The only other discount tip is to go for a refurbished unit but suspect these will be hens teeth for a while.

I’m about to pull the trigger on one to replace my 2013 iMac.

Had very few issues in that time too, all quickly sorted with calls to Apple. For a non-tech like me, they’re perfect.

works for this techie too, last thing I want after working with computers all day is to be fixing my own / my families machines.

The M1 chips are absolutely incredbile, get the 16gb if you can, mem use for apps seems to only go one way. I never bother with the extra disc space – icloud means that I have more or less infinite storage for £2 a month. Photograpers / musicians / video bods may need more

The big difference between the the base model and middle models of the iMac is the inclusion of Touch ID on the keyboard, and it has a cooling fan instead of some other lower tech cooling apparatus (may want to double check the specifics of that). I did a lot of reading about 4 months ago, and then bought a MacBook Air. The look gorgeous, but figured for the money I could have th laptop + accessories.

It is very impressive, even with 8gb ram and no fan.

Joepud – ta for the suggestion but I already have a 7 year old mbp still going strong for when I (only very occasionally now) need portability. I’m a copywriter, and I want the big screen for my work as it’s crucial for having two docs (or a website and a doc) open and readable/useable at the same time, which makes life way easier for me. Also nicer for photo work. The amazing quality of the latest IMac screens is another reason I’m happy to stick with the brand.

I am very close to clicking on buy on an M1 Mac mini mainly for use with Logic Pro. I have a 2015 i7 Macbook pro thats creaking with some of the projects. Only thing holding me back is that fact that not all plugins etc seem to work on M1/Big Sur yet.

I have a monster spec PC laptop I use for work but I still like using the mac for some stuff.

oh theres another generation of those chips out in the near future, might want to hold on to get the newer thing or a discount on the older thing

In our household we have a macbook pro, a macbook air, an imac 24 and a hackintosh. Plus a couple windows 10 running laptops.

In terms of niceness the macs win hands down, unfortunately they don’t run the CAD software I need to do my job.

I have had my 24″ iMac for about a month and am very impressed with it.
It replaced a 2016 27″ iMac and it is nicer to use. I was a bit concerned that the reduced screen size would be an issue but after a day or two I stopped noticing. Screen quality/resolution is excellent.
I went for the top spec model and upped the RAM to 16Gb as I wanted the extra USB ports and some degree of future proofing.
If you are doing graphics work it’s worth noting that the base model has a 7-core GPU rather than the higher models 8-core. The base model also has just 1 cooling fan compared to the higher models 2 fans.
Since having the new iMac I haven’t heard the fans kick in at all despite editing photos and a few videos.
The real decision you have to make is which colour to go for! 🙂

Dove – cheers for this, very helpful. The reduction in screen size is something I was a bit worried about, coming from a 27, but you’ve reassured me by confirming my suspicion that it won’t really matter and I’ll quickly get used to it. Out of interest, how much storage did you opt for? The cost is escalating but I don’t want to cut my nose off to spite my face if more SSD will be useful (and cost effective) in the long run. Colour will be boring old silver I’m afraid.

@wl – I upped the storage to 1TB, mainly because of photo and video storage.

The cost is escalating but I don’t want to cut my nose off to spite my face if more SSD will be useful (and cost effective) in the long run.

obviously it’s nice to have a big main drive but given the Thunderbolt/USB4 ports I wouldn’t worry at all about using an external drive for extra storage, especially if it’s just as a place to dump photos/vids.

I have had my 24″ iMac for about a month and am very impressed with it.

You lucky git! Demand is insane, apparently, and supplies much slower than ‘normal’, due to myriad global factors. I ordered mine 6 weeks ago now I think, and it’s still not here. 🙁

The real decision you have to make is which colour to go for!

This. I went for a nice discreet dark green. The orange didn’t look as good as I’d hoped it would. What did you go for?

The cost is escalating but I don’t want to cut my nose off to spite my face if more SSD will be useful (and cost effective) in the long run.

Given the huge cost of Apple storage, I didn’t bother ‘upgrading’, as external storage is far cheaper per GB. I have various external drives, that I’ll use. Unless you’re doing massive video projects, then you won’t need ultra-fast access to huge files, so use the onboard storage for projects you’re currently working on, then move them on to external drives. The iMac can use Thunderbolt 3 drives, and they are super fast, much quicker than USB 2 and 3. They can also use USB 4 drives, as the connector is the same.

I was in the Apple store yesterday (getting a new battery in my phone) and had a first look at these. The colours are odd – I like all of the ‘strong’ colours on the back but few of the ‘pale/pastel’ colours that you actually see on the chin, stand and keyboard when you’re looking at them. Both the red and the orange front faces actually look diffent shades of pink.

I thought the blue, green and yellow actually looked best.

I’ve always gone for base model Macs as for normal use they’re more than good enough and are always the best value. (writing this on a 2013 iMac with 8Gb of Ram). With SSD and apple memory management I don’t think most people need to pay the extra for 16gb memory. The base model only has 2 USB C thunderbolt ports but I’m not sure whether it’s worth paying for the next spec up for a few more – I figure I’m going to need a hub of some kind for USB-A anyway.

Likewise the base SSD feel small – I’m using about 500Gb on this current machine (music and photos). External drives are cheap now but how reliable is the connection on a drive sitting under the desk connected by thunderbolt? Do you ever get any issues on boot?

Had mine a month and it’s a big step up from my 2009 model. Web pages loading a lot faster and start up time is amazing. Screen is gorgeous and speakers are a huge improvement.
I went for the increased memory and 1tb storage as my wife likes the odd photo or two (million). Liked the fact the bigger memory one came with 4 ports and the Touch ID keyboard, although it’s a bit too handy for making quick payments now. Also went for a track pad instead of mouse. Trackpad took a bit of getting used to, but now feels really intuitive. Kept the old mouse but never needs to use it yet.
Most importantly the green colour is lovely.

First experience of post iTunes OS as my old one couldn’t run the last few versions. Was a bit worried but the separate apps make sense as you’re only searching through the media you want at the time.

Hi, thought I would ask a mac question in here.
I’m looking for a new computer.
I have a gigantic PC tower from 2006 that is on its last legs.
Really considering an M1 Macbook Air instead.

Can the M1 Macs run windows applications at all – some kind of dual boot or virtualisation thing?
Or, if not, can they remote in to a Windows PC? I’m asking as I am setting up a little MiniATX Windows machine I have in the shed as a Plex media server/brewery software centre and it will be always online. I could remote desktop in to that and run the application there.

Cheers for the replies, loads of helpful info.

You can run parallels on an M1-based Mac, but if remote access is ok for you then the MS RDP client supports the M1.

Had ours a month or so now, just took whatever midlevel version they had in the shop. Would have preferred purple, but silver will have to do. Can’t see most of it anyway.
Had to add a Satechi hub to add an SD card slot & 2 usb type A ports, needed for Photos on an external drive. They’re not 3.1, so it’s a bit sluggish.
Any recommendations for an external thunderbolt drive for photos? And should I go SSD or HDD?

I just added a usb 3.0 ssd as a time machine back up. Backed up my entire Mac in 10 minutes. USB 2 Hard drive when I did the computer swap last month took a couple of hours.

I went for a Toshiba T5. Got good reviews but not as fast as the T7, but was £70 cheaper for same size. Paid £112 for the 1tb version.

Well…

I think they are quite decent. I mean they’re an expensive way to get computing power but not so much in the context of a fancy designer type product.

They aren’t high end workstations of course, more like a decent laptop attached to the back of a big screen, but not bad at all.

The bug problem for me (besides MacOS and the fact Apple are bastards 😉 ) are the colours, they’re all awful.

So mine arrived yesterday. Apart from an issue with a couple of bits of Adobe software, it seems excellent. Lightning fast for the usual tasks. This forum is still pretty slow and finicky at times, but I don’t think it’s the Mac… 😉

What I’m most impressed with (after one day), is the quality of the thing. I’m used to Macs and Apple products, but this seems even a step up from that. The power cord for one; it just pops into place, and feels secure enough not to pull out accidentally. The screen is sublime, but that’s a given anyway. Touch ID on the keyboard is great; I still need to configure a few accounts to work with it, but as someone pointed out above, it makes buying things far too easy! As for actual performance; it’s faster with the apps I use; video rendering is much, much quicker than my old iMac (unsurprising); I’ve run a couple of basic comparisons like opening multiple apps at once, and it does all that instantly and effortlessly. I really can’t say yet how much the improved technology really benefits beyond that though, but then I’m not a ‘pro’ type user. I have had to buy a USB hub to connect some of my older bits and pieces though. No biggie. But what is most surprising, is the sound. I’d expected to have to connect to a Homepod or invest in some desktop speakers, but considering this is such a thin (11.5mm!) device, the sound quality is nothing short of astonishing. How have they done that?! The one downside is that the stand is still just tilt only, no height adjustment, or side to side movement. But I’ve lived with the same for a good number of years now, without any real issue. Somebody wanting to be able to move the screen around, might want to consider a Vesa mount option, and use a monitor arm etc. Would be nice to have that as an option in a single model, rather than needing a whole different machine.

I’ll give updates as I get to use it more, if I remember.

For those asking about external drives, I’ve been using a 1Tb Samsung T7 Touch SSD with my M1 MBA for editing in Final Cut Pro. Any drop in performance over the (exceptionally fast) internal SSD is negligible as I’ve been able to work seamlessly with multiple projects/layers/FX. They’re about £150.

If you need fast, regularly access then get an SSD. If you’re looking to backup/archive then a bigger capacity HDD will do the trick and offer better VFM.

bridges – thanks, very good to know and I’m glad you’re so pleased with yours. I’m about to order this week. What spec did you go for – base model?

spacemonkey – cheers for this info, very useful.

Still wondering if it’s worth replacing my 2015 27.5 Retina iMac. It’s 16 gig/1TB SSD, i7 4ghz QC. Bought from Refurb store 3 years ago. Love the screen, it’s a bit slow rendering big video files but otherwise hard to justify changing it.

I already run an external (USB HDD) drive for video files etc. Do all the processing on the iMac SSD and archive onto external.

I can find a home for it in the family and any new one would be a company purchase. I wonder if it’s worth waiting for the 27.5 replacements but I think they are going to be silly money.

If I do, I’ll go for a second 1TB SSD and a smaller internal. All my stuff gets backed up onto my NAS and the cloud so I’m not worried about losing data.

Hmm… I do quite like the blue ones and my second monitor is a 24….

bridges – thanks, very good to know and I’m glad you’re so pleased with yours. I’m about to order this week. What spec did you go for – base model?

No; ‘top’ spec model with 16GB Ram, 512GB storage. Although to be honest, 8GB Ram would probably have been fine for my needs. I don’t tend to run multiple apps at once anyway, just 3 or 4 tops. I thought it best to bump up the spec for better ‘future proofing’ though. The next Mac I buy will probably have like a 24k floating screen or something, whatever technology is available then! I intend to be able to use this one for at least 6-8 years before replacement. My ‘outgoing’iMac is about that. This will be just the 4th Mac I’ve bought in 20 years, so another six years or so will be a good average life per computer I think.

Anyone else considering buying one; just do it!

I get on very well with my iMac and thought it would be the last big desktop I’d buy. It’s pretty well specced for general household use, business purposes and Windows development.

However, I hadn’t really researched properly how BootCamp deals with the Fusion drive malarky, and as a result the Windows image runs quite a bit slower on startup than my previous (SSD) retina MacBook Pro. So maybe, just maybe it might not be the last purchase ever after all.

Well after my daughter heard the words ‘free airpods’, we bought one. Ended up gritting my teeth and paying for extra memory as – said above – I tend to keep apple stuff for years.

She gets her airpods on Friday, I have to wait a month for my Mac!

Think I’m going to pickup a Macbook Air this week.
Currys are doing them for £900, i.e. £100 off. Plus £150 trade in bonus. I have a really low spec HP Stream laptop I bought for £50 years ago for uni. They’ll only give me £16 for it, but plus the £150 extra brings the price down to £734. And I can buy it through my company (I’m a IT contractor with a LTD co) which kind of saves 20%, so I’ll only be paying ~£500 for it.

Quite excited!

So a couple of months in, and the new iMac is chugging away, no major issues with anything. Fusion 360 has hung a couple of times, but that’s down to the software not being updated for the M1 machines. I expect that will be sorted pretty soon. Adobe etc software running perfectly. Absolutely no issues whatsoever with the amount of RAM; I’m not a ‘power user’, but I can still have plenty of apps open at once, and there doesn’t appear to be any strain on system resources at all. Fans have only kicked in a few times, for heavy 4k video work, and multiple photo processing type stuff. And even then, they are pretty quiet. The machine is almost completely silent the rest of the time; you have to put your ear to the bottom of the machine, to actually hear anything at all. It’s only ever slightly warm, never hot. Having a separate power supply helps massively with this, as it does with size and weight. Plus it removes a potentially failure vulnerable component from the main unit, thus making it even more reliable.

Video calls conferencing are much improved, for others at least, as many people have commented on how clear my video quality is, and how good the sound is. The built in speakers are actually good enough to enjoy quiet music; I really thought I’d be adding external speakers, but there’s really no point. For any extra volume, I just switch to Homepods and Airplay on the Hi-Fi.

I specced the Trackpad as well as KB+M; the mouse was basically a waste of money as I’ve only used the Trackpad since I got it. Plus I’ve actually got a new unused Apple mouse that I’d forgotten about anyway! Doh. Trackpad is a revelation; anyone considering one of these machines, just get one, you won’t regret it. Touch ID button is another revelation; purchases with PayPal, Apple Pay etc are just that much quicker and easier; you just click the button rather than typing in login info. My iPhone has facial recognition, but I don’t want that on a desktop computer.

What else; nothing major really- it’s a Mac, so works well anyway. Much faster than my old machine, which was getting on a fair bit. The display is obviously on another level; I don’t think you can buy any separate display as good as this, without spending a lot of money. So for my needs at least, an iMac is a better value for money option than a MacMini.

Criticisms: not many, but more ports at the back would be helpful. I’m using a USB-A dock thing to use older USB accessories, but just 4 USB-C/Thunderbolt ports is perhaps a bit stingy; 6 would be much better (the lower spec machine has just two ports, that’s really not great. Display stand is not height adjustable; doesn’t bother me, but might be an issue for others. There is a vesa mount version available to order though. A removable desk stand would aid transportation; it’s such a slim, light unit, that transporting it anywhere is barely more hassle than taking a laptop somewhere, so having a removable stand would make that easier still.

In short; I’m more than happy with it. The size is just perfect for me, so I’m not at all bothered about the rumoured larger versions coming out next year. Apple have made the perfect desktop computer for me.