Apple's New iMac M4: A Subtle Yet Powerful Upgrade with AI Focus

My favorite feature on Apple's iMac M4 might one of the least talked about

Apple's new iMac with the M4 processor looks as slick as ever with new colors, updated displays, and a host of helpful features. The new chips are built to take AI-powered workflows to the next level, Apple says, but the M4 processors are powerful enough in their own right, handily outperforming last year's M3. Some great news about the new iMacs: the base model finally comes with 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB -- and for the same starting price of $1,299. Previous iMacs have always started at 8GB, which in today's digital landscape just isn't enough to be a robust main driver for many people, even for an Apple device. Also: I tested the M4 MacBook Pro for a week, and it beat my M1 model in the most subtle ways The 16GB of RAM allows for more possibilities in multitasking and productivity workflows, and the memory boost applies to the top end of the new iMac M4 line as well, with a 32GB configuration. In previous models, this amount of memory was relegated to the high-end iMac Studio. Paired with the power of the M4 processor, the new iMac offers a solid performance foundation. The bottom line is that this is not a vastly different device overall compared to previous versions of the iMac. Instead, the M4 focuses on fine-tuning its physical form and boosting the power under the hood regarding available memory and processing power, especially for AI. The physical form factor of the new iMac is very similar to the previous M3 version and a little more sleek. The lighter colorways (available in blue, purple, pink, yellow, orange, green, and silver) are subtle and stylish, and the matching peripherals bring some flavor and personality to a market of products that is historically deathly afraid of color. It's also quite thin, measuring less than half an inch thick. The display is 5.8 inches from the back of the stand to the front. In terms of weight, it's lighter than the M3, but barely -- the 0.08-pound difference is not something you'll likely notice. Also: The MacBook Air's free RAM upgrade was sneakily the best announcement during Apple's Mac event The peripherals didn't see a major redesign, though the switch to standard USB-C ports for charging has been a highly-requested change. This move brings Apple's ecosystem of products (as with the iPhone 15) in line with every other device that uses a USB-C port and makes charging and power management a whole lot easier and less exclusive. The iMac's display is one of its best-looking features. The 24-inch 4.5K Retina screen is crisp and bright for indoor viewing at 500 nits, while support for a second display at 8K resolution and 60Hz (or two additional monitors at 6K resolution) is some of the best visual performance available relative to price. Note that there was some confusion about this, as initial reports from Apple stated that it would support an additional display at 8K and 120Hz refresh rate, but later quietly adjusted the official specs page to reflect the accurate 60Hz refresh rate. You can opt for the glossy finish on the display (which is still quite good at mitigating glare) or the new nano-texture glass for a matte option. Both options look great, but the latter will bump up the price by $200. Unless you're using your iMac outdoors, there's really no need for the display premium. Also: Apple Magic Mouse gets USB-C, but still plugs in the bottom. Buy this instead The iMac's 12MP webcam is another notable hardware upgrade. It's one of the best webcams I've used for how little configuration is needed. Right out of the box, the camera is smooth and well-situated, without any adjustments or fiddling with settings. The 1080p HD video quality offers a clear, bright picture (even in suboptimal lighting conditions) that feels smooth and premium. While on a call, the camera's Center Stage feature automatically adjusts to your position, even tracking you if you're standing far away enough to walk around the room. Support for Apple Intelligence is now in full swing on the iMac M4, and the 16-core neural engine offers speedy on-device performance. Apple Intelligence can proofread and suggest edits to text in emails and iMessage, while natural language can help you find photos and videos in a crowded image library. Also: M4 Mac Mini vs. M2 Mac Mini: Which Apple desktop should you buy? Although Apple Intelligence's rollout came a little bit later than expected, the live features are integrated into apps and frameworks that Apple users already use. The delay has worked in Apple's favor to some degree, as its approach to AI technology has been careful and deliberate, focusing on privacy. The features on the iMac support this, and they are well-optimized and natural-feeling. Regarding its performance, this thing is fast. Web browsing is snappy, working with dozens of tabs across different apps feels responsive and lightweight, and more demanding workflows like 4K video editing feel natural. Paired with the display and dual display, this is a device that is made for creative tasks. For everyday users, Apple says the M4 chip is up to six times faster than the most popular Intel-based iMac, which looks like an impressive number, but this specifically refers to the six‑core Intel Core i5‑based iMacs, which aren't exactly new machines. Conversely, the company says the M4 iMac is 1.3 times faster at handling productivity tasks than the M3 chip, and up to 2.1 times faster than the M1 iMac, which is a far less impressive number on paper. However, what this actually means in terms of performance is more significant than it might appear. The M4 processor has 8-10 cores and a 16GB memory bandwidth (up from 8GB). In essence, it has more raw power and can harness more of that power at once. By comparison, the M3 Pro has 12 cores, outperforming the base-level M4, but the M4 Max (not available on the iMac yet) is the most powerful chip in Apple's product lineup. We'll likely see that chip in the high-end Mac Studio next year. Also: The new M4 Mac Mini might be the most lovable Mac ever - for two reasons In my benchmarking, the iMac M4 got some pretty impressive numbers, going head-to-head -- and surpassing -- many of the high-end Windows-on-ARM compatible devices with the Snapdragon X Elite chip. Regarding the GPU, the M4 is built similarly to previous chips, with 10 cores and support for ray tracing and dynamic caching. Apple has historically not been the first choice for gaming machines, but that is slowly changing. I fired up a few games on the iMac M4, and performance was certainly not on par with a dedicated gaming machine, but it was better than I expected. This device, in particular, wouldn't be my top pick for an Apple gaming machine (the Mac Mini M4, for example, now supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing and can be configured with a gaming monitor and peripheral setup), but the hardware on board is powerful enough to support it nonetheless. The answer depends on what you want to use it for and what you currently are using. If you have an iMac M2 or prior, the M4 will feel like a significant upgrade, especially if you plan on utilizing AI features (and require a better webcam for video calls). Also: The Mac Studio feature keeping me from buying a new M4 Mac Mini this fall If you have an M3 iMac, especially a high-end M3 Pro or Max, the upgrade might not feel as impactful. I would wait until next year when the Mac Studios with the M4 are released, and we see just how those perform. The iMac M4 is a quintessential jack-of-all-trades desktop that improves upon the previous version enough to stand out as a worthy upgrade. The M4 processor is powerful and enables the device to be capable and flexible for both work and play. Regarding the former, however, I'd say the iMac is a fantastic work machine. It's very well optimized for productivity, and the powerful hardware on board shines when it's being used to create, whether that's video editing, design, or spreadsheet surfing. Additionally, if you take a lot of video calls and want a premium, high-fidelity webcam, the iMac M4 is one of the best options on the market right now, especially since the high-quality webcam can also be used with FaceTime and other messaging apps.

My favorite feature on Apple's iMac M4 might be one of the least talked about

Apple's new iMac with the M4 processor looks as slick as ever with new colors, updated displays, and a host of helpful features. The new chips are built to take AI-powered workflows to the next level, Apple says, but the M4 processors are powerful enough in their own right, handily outperforming last year's M3. Some great news about the new iMacs: the base model finally comes with 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB -- and for the same starting price of $1,299. Previous iMacs have always started at 8GB, which in today's digital landscape just isn't enough to be a robust main driver for many people, even for an Apple device. Also: I tested the M4 MacBook Pro for a week, and it beat my M1 model in the most subtle ways The 16GB of RAM allows for more possibilities in multitasking and productivity workflows, and the memory boost applies to the top end of the new iMac M4 line as well, with a 32GB configuration. In previous models, this amount of memory was relegated to the high-end iMac Studio. Paired with the power of the M4 processor, the new iMac offers a solid performance foundation. The bottom line is that this is not a vastly different device overall compared to previous versions of the iMac. Instead, the M4 focuses on fine-tuning its physical form and boosting the power under the hood regarding available memory and processing power, especially for AI. The physical form factor of the new iMac is very similar to the previous M3 version and a little more sleek. The lighter colorways (available in blue, purple, pink, yellow, orange, green, and silver) are subtle and stylish, and the matching peripherals bring some flavor and personality to a market of products that is historically deathly afraid of color. It's also quite thin, measuring less than half an inch thick. The display is 5.8 inches from the back of the stand to the front. In terms of weight, it's lighter than the M3, but barely -- the 0.08-pound difference is not something you'll likely notice. Also: The MacBook Air's free RAM upgrade was sneakily the best announcement during Apple's Mac event The peripherals didn't see a major redesign, though the switch to standard USB-C ports for charging has been a highly-requested change. This move brings Apple's ecosystem of products (as with the iPhone 15) in line with every other device that uses a USB-C port and makes charging and power management a whole lot easier and less exclusive. The iMac's display is one of its best-looking features. The 24-inch 4.5K Retina screen is crisp and bright for indoor viewing at 500 nits, while support for a second display at 8K resolution and 60Hz (or two additional monitors at 6K resolution) is some of the best visual performance available relative to price. Note that there was some confusion about this, as initial reports from Apple stated that it would support an additional display at 8K and 120Hz refresh rate, but later quietly adjusted the official specs page to reflect the accurate 60Hz refresh rate. You can opt for the glossy finish on the display (which is still quite good at mitigating glare) or the new nano-texture glass for a matte option. Both options look great, but the latter will bump up the price by $200. Unless you're using your iMac outdoors, there's really no need for the display premium. Also: Apple Magic Mouse gets USB-C, but still plugs in the bottom. Buy this instead The iMac's 12MP webcam is another notable hardware upgrade. It's one of the best webcams I've used for how little configuration is needed. Right out of the box, the camera is smooth and well-situated, without any adjustments or fiddling with settings. The 1080p HD video quality offers a clear, bright picture (even in suboptimal lighting conditions) that feels smooth and premium. While on a call, the camera's Center Stage feature automatically adjusts to your position, even tracking you if you're standing far away enough to walk around the room. Support for Apple Intelligence is now in full swing on the iMac M4, and the 16-core neural engine offers speedy on-device performance. Apple Intelligence can proofread and suggest edits to text in emails and iMessage, while natural language can help you find photos and videos in a crowded image library. Also: M4 Mac Mini vs. M2 Mac Mini: Which Apple desktop should you buy? Although Apple Intelligence's rollout came a little bit later than expected, the live features are integrated into apps and frameworks that Apple users already use. The delay has worked in Apple's favor to some degree, as its approach to AI technology has been careful and deliberate, focusing on privacy. The features on the iMac support this, and they are well-optimized and natural-feeling. Regarding its performance, this thing is fast. Web browsing is snappy, working with dozens of tabs across different apps feels responsive and lightweight, and more demanding workflows like 4K video editing feel natural. Paired with the display and dual display, this is a device that is made for creative tasks. For everyday users, Apple says the M4 chip is up to six times faster than the most popular Intel-based iMac, which looks like an impressive number, but this specifically refers to the six‑core Intel Core i5‑based iMacs, which aren't exactly new machines. Conversely, the company says the M4 iMac is 1.3 times faster at handling productivity tasks than the M3 chip, and up to 2.1 times faster than the M1 iMac, which is a far less impressive number on paper. However, what this actually means in terms of performance is more significant than it might appear. The M4 processor has 8-10 cores and a 16GB memory bandwidth (up from 8GB). In essence, it has more raw power and can harness more of that power at once. By comparison, the M3 Pro has 12 cores, outperforming the base-level M4, but the M4 Max (not available on the iMac yet) is the most powerful chip in Apple's product lineup. We'll likely see that chip in the high-end Mac Studio next year. Also: The new M4 Mac Mini might be the most lovable Mac ever - for two reasons In my benchmarking, the iMac M4 got some pretty impressive numbers, going head-to-head -- and surpassing -- many of the high-end Windows-on-ARM compatible devices with the Snapdragon X Elite chip. Regarding the GPU, the M4 is built similarly to previous chips, with 10 cores and support for ray tracing and dynamic caching. Apple has historically not been the first choice for gaming machines, but that is slowly changing. I fired up a few games on the iMac M4, and performance was certainly not on par with a dedicated gaming machine, but it was better than I expected. This device, in particular, wouldn't be my top pick for an Apple gaming machine (the Mac Mini M4, for example, now supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing and can be configured with a gaming monitor and peripheral setup), but the hardware on board is powerful enough to support it nonetheless. The answer depends on what you want to use it for and what you currently are using. If you have an iMac M2 or prior, the M4 will feel like a significant upgrade, especially if you plan on utilizing AI features (and require a better webcam for video calls). Also: The Mac Studio feature keeping me from buying a new M4 Mac Mini this fall If you have an M3 iMac, especially a high-end M3 Pro or Max, the upgrade might not feel as impactful. I would wait until next year when the Mac Studios with the M4 are released, and we see just how those perform. The iMac M4 is a quintessential jack-of-all-trades desktop that improves upon the previous version enough to stand out as a worthy upgrade. The M4 processor is powerful and enables the device to be capable and flexible for both work and play. Regarding the former, however, I'd say the iMac is a fantastic work machine. It's very well optimized for productivity, and the powerful hardware on board shines when it's being used to create, whether that's video editing, design, or spreadsheet surfing. Additionally, if you take a lot of video calls and want a premium, high-fidelity webcam, the iMac M4 is one of the best options on the market right now, especially since the high-quality webcam can also be used with FaceTime and other messaging apps.

This Mac model is the computer most people should buy (and it's not a MacBook or Mini)

Apple's new M4 iMac looks as slick as ever with new colors, updated displays, and a host of helpful features. The new chips are built to take AI-powered workflows to the next level, Apple says, but the M4 processors are powerful enough in their own right, handily outperforming last year's M3. Some great news about the new iMacs: the base model finally comes with 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB -- and for the same starting price of $1,299. Previous iMacs have always started at 8GB, which in today's digital landscape just isn't enough to be a robust main driver for many people, even for an Apple device. Also: I tested the M4 MacBook Pro for a week, and even the base model beat my $3,000 laptop The 16GB of RAM expands the multitasking and productivity workflow possibilities, and the memory boost applies to the top end of the new iMac M4 line as well, with a 32GB configuration. In previous models, this amount of memory was relegated to the high-end iMac Studio. Paired with the power of the M4 processor, the new iMac offers a solid performance foundation. The bottom line is that this is not a vastly different device compared to previous versions of the iMac. Instead, the M4 focuses on fine-tuning the physical form and boosting the available memory and processing power, especially for AI. The physical form factor of the new iMac is very similar to the previous M3 version. Maybe it's a little more sleek. The lighter colorways (available in blue, purple, pink, yellow, orange, green, and silver) are subtle and stylish, and the matching peripherals bring some flavor and personality to a market of products that is historically deathly afraid of color. It's also quite thin, measuring less than half an inch thick. The display is 5.8 inches from the back of the stand to the front. In terms of weight, it's lighter than the M3, but barely -- the 0.08-pound difference is not something you'll likely notice. Also: The MacBook Air's free RAM upgrade was sneakily the best announcement during Apple's Mac event The peripherals didn't get a major redesign, though the switch to standard USB-C ports for charging has been a highly-requested change. This move brings Apple's ecosystem of products (as with the iPhone 15) in line with every other device that uses a USB-C port and makes charging and power management a lot easier and less exclusive. The iMac's display is one of its best-looking features. The 24-inch 4.5K Retina screen is crisp and bright for indoor viewing at 500 nits, while support for a second display at 8K resolution and 60Hz (or two additional monitors at 6K resolution) is some of the best visual performance available relative to the price. Note that there was some confusion about this, as initial reports from Apple stated that it would support an additional display at 8K and 120Hz refresh rate. The company later quietly adjusted the official specs page to reflect the accurate 60Hz refresh rate. You can opt for the glossy finish on the display (which is still quite good at mitigating glare) or the new nano-texture glass for a matte option. Both options look great, but the latter will bump up the price by $200. Unless you're using your iMac outdoors, there's really no need for the display premium. Also: Apple Magic Mouse gets USB-C, but still plugs in the bottom. Buy this instead The iMac's 12MP webcam is another notable hardware upgrade. It's one of the best webcams I've used for how little configuration is needed. Right out of the box, the camera is smooth and well-situated, without any adjustments or fiddling with settings required. The 1080p HD video quality offers a clear, bright picture (even in suboptimal lighting conditions) that feels smooth and premium. While on a call, the camera's Center Stage feature automatically adjusts to your position, even tracking you if you're standing far away enough to walk around the room. Support for Apple Intelligence is now in full swing on the M4 iMac, and the 16-core neural engine offers speedy on-device performance. Apple Intelligence can proofread and suggest edits to text in emails and iMessage, while natural language can help you find photos and videos in a crowded image library. Also: M4 Mac Mini vs. M2 Mac Mini: Which Apple desktop should you buy? Although Apple Intelligence's rollout came a little bit later than expected, the features are integrated into apps and frameworks that you already use. The delay has worked in Apple's favor to some degree, as its approach to AI technology has been careful and deliberate, focusing on privacy. The features on the iMac support this, and they are well-optimized and natural-feeling. As for performance, this thing is fast. Web browsing is snappy, working with dozens of tabs across different apps feels responsive and lightweight, and more demanding workflows like 4K video editing feel natural. Paired with the display and dual display, this is a device that is made for creative tasks. For everyday users, Apple says the M4 chip is up to six times faster than the most popular Intel-based iMac, which looks like an impressive number, but this specifically refers to the six‑core Intel Core i5‑based iMacs, which aren't exactly new machines. Conversely, the company says the M4 is 1.3 times faster at handling productivity tasks than the M3, and up to 2.1 times faster than the M1, which is a far less impressive number, at least on paper. What this actually means in terms of performance is more significant than it might appear. The M4 processor has eight to 10 cores and a 16GB memory bandwidth (up from 8GB). In essence, it has more raw power and can harness more of that power at once. By comparison, the MacBook with the M3 Pro has 11 or 12 cores, while the MacBook with the M3 Pro Max is a 14- or 16-core CPU (including performance and efficiency cores). Also: The new M4 Mac Mini might be the most lovable Mac ever - for two reasons In my benchmarking, the iMac M4 got some pretty impressive numbers, going head-to-head -- and surpassing -- many of the high-end Windows-on-ARM compatible devices featuring the Snapdragon X Elite chip. As for the GPU, the M4 is built similarly to previous chips, with 10 cores and support for ray tracing and dynamic caching. Apple has historically not been the first choice for gaming machines, but that is slowly changing. I fired up a few games on the M4 iMac, and performance was certainly not on par with a dedicated gaming machine, but it was better than I expected. This device, in particular, wouldn't be my top pick for an Apple gaming machine (the M4 Mac Mini, for example, now supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing and can be configured with a gaming monitor and peripheral setup), but the hardware on board is powerful enough to support it nonetheless. The answer depends on what you want to use it for and what you are using currently. If you have an M1 iMac, the M4 will feel like a significant upgrade, especially if you plan on using AI features (and need a better webcam for video calls). Also: The Mac Studio feature keeping me from buying a new M4 Mac Mini this fall If you have an M3 iMac, or a Mac Studio with the M2 Max or Ultra, the upgrade might not feel as impactful. I would wait until next year, when the Mac Studios with the M4 arrive, and we see how they perform. The M4 iMac is a quintessential jack-of-all-trades desktop that improves upon the previous version enough to stand out as a worthy upgrade. The M4 processor is powerful and enables the device to be capable and flexible for both work and play. I'm also happy to see a higher base-level memory option for the iMac, especially at the same starting price -- a welcome bonus that is one of my favorite aspects of the new lineup. The iMac is a fantastic work machine. It's well optimized for productivity, and the powerful hardware on board shines when it's being used to create, whether that's video editing, design, or spreadsheet surfing. Additionally, if you take a lot of video calls and want a premium, high-fidelity webcam, the M4 iMac is one of the best options right now, especially since the high-quality webcam can also be used with FaceTime and other messaging apps.

The best feature on Apple's iMac M4 might one of the least talked about

The base model M4 might not feel as impactful for M3 Pro or Max users looking for a high-end machine. Apple's new iMac with the M4 processor looks slick as ever with new colors, updated displays, and a host of new features. The new chips are built to take AI-powered workflows to the next level, Apple says, but the M4 processors are powerful enough in their own right, handily outperforming last year's M3. Some great news about the new iMacs: the base model finally comes with 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB - and for the same starting price of $1,299. Previous iMacs have always started at 8GB, which in today's digital landscape just isn't enough to be a robust main driver for many people, even for an Apple device. Also: The MacBook Air's free RAM upgrade was sneakily the best announcement during Apple's Mac event The 16GB of RAM allows for more possibilities in multitasking and productivity workflows, and the memory boost applies to the top end of the new iMac M4 line as well, with a 32GB configuration. In previous models, this amount of memory was relegated to the high-end iMac Studio. Paired with the power of the M4 processor, the new iMac offers a solid performance foundation. The bottom line is that this is not a vastly different device overall compared to previous versions of the iMac. Instead, the M4 focuses on fine-tuning its physical form and boosting the power under the hood, regarding available memory and processing power, especially for AI. The physical form factor of the new iMac is very similar to the previous M3 version and a little more sleek. The lighter colorways (available in blue, purple, pink, yellow, orange, green, and silver) are subtle and stylish, and the matching peripherals bring some flavor and personality to a market of products that is historically deathly afraid of color. It's also quite thin, measuring less than half an inch thick. The display is 5.8 inches from the back of the stand to the front. In terms of weight, it's lighter than the M3, but barely -- the 0.08-pound difference is not something you'll likely notice. The peripherals didn't see a major redesign, except for the switch to standard USB-C ports for charging. This move brings Apple's ecosystem of products (as with the iPhone 16) in line with every other device that uses a USB-C port and makes charging and power management a whole lot easier and less exclusive. The iMac's display is one of its best-looking features. The 24-inch 4.5K Retina screen is crisp and bright at 500 nits, while support for a second display at 8K resolution and 60Hz (or two additional monitors at 6K resolution) is some of the best visual performance available relative to price. Note that there was some confusion about this, as initial reports from Apple stated that it would support an additional display at 8K and 120Hz refresh rate, but later quietly adjusted the official specs page to reflect the accurate 60Hz refresh rate. You can opt for the glossy finish on the display (which is still quite good at mitigating glare) or the new nano-texture glass for a matte option. Both options look great, but the latter will bump up the price by $200. The iMac's 12MP webcam is another notable hardware upgrade. It's one of the best webcams I've used for how little configuration is needed. Right out of the box, the camera is smooth and well-situated, without any adjustments or fiddling with settings. Also: Apple Magic Mouse gets USB-C, but still plugs in the bottom. Buy this instead The 1080p HD video quality offers a clear, bright picture (even in suboptimal lighting conditions) that feels smooth and premium. While on a call, the camera's Center Stage feature automatically adjusts to your position, even tracking you if you're standing far away enough to walk around the room. Support for Apple Intelligence is now in full swing on the iMac M4, and the 16-core neural engine offers speedy on-device performance. Apple Intelligence can proofread and suggest edits to text in emails and iMessage, while natural language can help you find photos and videos in a crowded image library. Although Apple Intelligence's rollout came a little bit later than expected, the live features are integrated into apps and frameworks that Apple users already use. The delay has worked in Apple's favor to some degree, as its approach to AI technology has been careful and deliberate, focusing on privacy. The features on the iMac support this, and are well-optimized and natural feeling. Regarding its performance, this thing is fast. Web browsing is snappy, working with dozens of tabs across different apps feels responsive and lightweight, and more demanding workflows like 4K video editing feel natural. Paired with the display and dual display, this is a device that is made for creative tasks. Also: M4 Mac Mini vs. M2 Mac Mini: Which Apple desktop should you buy? For everyday users, Apple says the M4 chip is up to six times faster than the most popular Intel-based iMac, which looks like an impressive number, but this specifically refers to the six‑core Intel Core i5‑based iMacs, which aren't exactly new machines. Conversely, it says the M4 iMac is 1.3 times faster at handling productivity tasks than the M3 chip, and up to 2.1 times faster than the M1 iMac, which is a far less impressive number on paper, however, what this actually means in terms of performance is more significant than it might appear. The M4 processor has 8-10 cores and a 16GB memory bandwidth (up from 8GB). In essence, it has more raw power and can harness more of that power at once. By comparison, the M3 Pro has 12 cores, outperforming the base-level M4, but the M4 Max (not available on the iMac yet) is the most powerful chip in Apple's product lineup. We'll likely see that chip in the high-end Mac Studio next year. In my benchmarking, the iMac M4 got some pretty impressive numbers, going head-to-head -- and surpassing -- many of the high-end Windows-on-ARM compatible devices with the Snapdragon X Elite chip. Regarding the GPU, the M4 is built similarly to previous chips, with 10 cores and support for ray tracing and dynamic caching. Apple has historically not been the first choice for gaming machines, but that is slowly changing. I fired up a few games on the iMac M4 and performance was certainly not on par with a dedicated gaming machine, but it was better than I expected. This device in particular wouldn't be my top pick for an Apple gaming machine (the Mac Mini M4, for example, now supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing and can be configured with a gaming monitor and peripheral setup) but the hardware on board is powerful enough to support it nonetheless. The answer depends on what you want to use it for and what you currently are using. If you have an iMac M2 or prior, the M4 will probably feel like a significant upgrade, especially if you plan on utilizing AI features. Also: The Mac Studio feature keeping me from buying a new M4 Mac Mini this fall If you have an M3 iMac, especially a high-end M3 Pro or Max, the upgrade might not feel as impactful. I would wait until next year when the Mac Studios with the M4 are released and we see just how those perform. The iMac M4 is a quintessential jack-of-all-trades desktop that improves upon the previous version enough to stand out as a worthy upgrade. The M4 processor is powerful, and enables the device to be capable and flexible for both work and play. Regarding the former, however, I'd say the iMac is a fantastic work machine. It's very well optimized for productivity, and the powerful hardware on board shines when it's being used to create, whether that's video editing, design, or spreadsheet surfing. Additionally, if you take a lot of video calls and want a premium, high-fidelity webcam, the iMac M4 is one of the best options on the market right now, especially since the high-quality webcam can also be used with FaceTime and other messaging apps.

MacBook Pro M4 review: A revelation

Why you can trust Tom's Guide Our writers and editors spend hours analyzing and reviewing products, services, and apps to help find what's best for you. Find out more about how we test, analyze, and rate. As someone who's still mostly happy using an M1 Pro MacBook Pro from 2021, I feel like I'm just the right person to review the MacBook Pro M4. My machine still gets the job done, but it's not as zippy as it used to be and it doesn't last as long on a charge. Yes, both machines support Apple Intelligence, but the newer M4 Pro packs a much more powerful chip along with other welcome upgrades. The new MacBook Pro also promises up to 24 hours of battery life, features an optional nano-texture display that obliterates glare and a sharper 12MP Center Stage camera for video calls. Plus, the M4 MacBook Pro can power two external displays at once (which is overdue) and now comes with three Thunderbolt ports instead of two. The MacBook Pro M4 is also fully optimized for Apple Intelligence, which means that you can take advantage of a wide range of AI features like Writing Tools, the new Siri, transcriptions in Notes and Cleanup in Photos. And there's more Apple Intelligence features on the way in macOS Sequoia like Image Playground and ChatGPT integration. I've been testing the new MacBook Pro M4 and using it as my everyday laptop, and this thing flies. Plus, this is one of the longest lasting laptops we've tested and it blows away my aging M1 laptop. Based on my testing I think this is the best MacBook for power users on the go and certainly one of the best laptops. Here's the pros and cons in my M4 MacBook Pro review. Welp, at least you don't have to pay extra for black now. With the MacBook Pro M3, you needed to spring for the M3 Pro chip in order to get the bad-ass Space Black color. Now you can get the entry-level M4 MacBook Pro in Silver or Space Black, and it is indeed striking. This is the laptop Darth Vader would use, complete with matching black MagSafe power cord. Too bad the big power brick is white (although I guess it's Storm Trooper white so it's not that terrible). I'd say the coating on the lid does an okay job resisting fingerprints but it still picks up some smudges during a typical day. Otherwise, the MacBook Pro M4 looks identical to its predecessor with an aluminum design that's easy to carry and feels rock solid. I continue to appreciate the front lip that makes the lid easy to open, as well as the Touch ID button for logging in quickly, but I really wish Apple would add Face ID at this point. Measuring 12.31 x 8.71 x 06.1 inches and weighing 3.4 pounds, the M4 MacBook Pro is fairly light for a Pro-level laptop and I had no problem carrying it in my backpack for my walk to work in New York City. The Dell XPS 13 is lighter at 2.6 pounds but has a smaller 13-inch display and the Asus ProArt PX13 is in the middle at 3.04 pounds. The port selection on the MacBook Pro M4 is a little bit better than the M3. The base model now has three Thunderbolt 4 ports (compared to two last time), and you still get an SD Card slot, HDMI port and headphone jack. If you want more bandwidth with Thunderbolt 5, you'll need to step up to a M4 Pro model, though. The good news is that you can connect dual displays simultaneously on the base model plus have the laptop open, so you can have three displays in one. I don't want to overstate things but based on my time with the M4 MacBook Pro the new nano-texture display is a revelation. This $150 option does an amazing job minimizing glare and reflections, and this is coming from someone who spends a lot of time working in my back yard and on the bus. When I put the MacBook Pro M4 side by side with the MacBook Pro M1, it was a night-and-day difference. When watching the trailer for Captain America: Brave New World, I noticed that the red in Sam's shield was a bit more vibrant on the glossy older MacBook Pro, but overall the image was significantly brighter with wider viewing angles on the new M4 MacBook Pro. I also tried editing some articles outside in direct sunlight with the M4 Macbook Pro, and I experienced zero glare. Same thing goes with my daily bus commute. It's just a more pleasurable viewing experience. On our lab tests, the MacBook Pro M4 reached a very impressive 1,527 nits in brightness when displaying HDR content and 556 nits with SDR. That beats all of its closest competitors, some of which don't even support HDR. However, part of me does wish Apple would offer an OLED display on the MacBook Pro -- after all, there's a tandem OLED panel on the iPad Pro 2024 -- and it's hard not to be jealous when you see the richer OLED panel on the Dell XPS 13. On the plus side, the Delta-E accuracy score from the M4 MacBook Pro is the best in its class at 0.19 where 0 is perfect. The MacBook Pro M4 has the biggest leap in webcam performance I've seen yet. It now features a 12MP Center Stage camera, up from the 1080p camera on the M3 MacBook Pro. And I noticed a huge difference in image quality when I took some selfies using the Photo Booth app. My hair and blue shirt look a lot more detailed through the new MacBook Pro's camera, and it's all the more impressive because the lighting in the meeting booth was lackluster. The Center Stage support means that you'll be keptkeep centered in the frame even as you move around during video calls, which can come in handy when giving presentations. The M4 chip inside the new MacBook Pro offers all sorts of promised performance gains. Based on a 3-namometer process, Apple claims you're getting the fastest CPU core and better multithreaded performance. Our system has a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU, plus 16GB of unified memory and a 1TB SSD. In my testing I found this M4 Mac extremely responsive. I had dozens of Chrome tabs open, multiple Slack chats and I could easily perform complex ML Enhance edits on large image files in Pixelmator Pro without experiencing lag. Everything just feels super fluid with this machine, especially compared to my aging M1 MacBook Pro. The only drawback in our testing is surprisingly low SSD performance scores. On Geekbench, which measures overall performance, the MacBook Pro M4 turned in considerably faster scores on the single-core test than the M3 model and blew away competing Windows laptops. On the multi-core test the M4 MacBook Pro was on a part with the Asus ProArt PX13 with an AMD Ryzen chip but beat the XPS 13 with both Snapdragon X Elite and Intel Lunar Lake chips. When it comes to transcoding 4K video to 1080p, the M4 MacBook Pro was over a minute faster than the M3 model on our Handbrake test but only 20 seconds faster than the Snapdragon-powered Dell. The Asus was nearly a minute faster than the new MacBook, though it's likely aided by a more powerful RTX 4050 GPU. If you regularly do photo editing as part of your daily workflow, you'll be happy to know that the M4 MacBook Pro scored much higher than competing Windows laptops both in terms of the overall score and time on the PugetBench Photoshop test. The new MacBook Pro was also nearly twice as powerful as the Intel-powered XPS 13 on the Premiere Pro video test, though the Asus was the fastest overall. The M4 MacBook Pro is a capable gaming laptop, but it's certainly not the best gaming laptop for the money. On the plus side, I had a blast playing a demo of Resident Evil 4. The graphics were lush with impressive lighting effects as I ran around a muddy nightmare-fueled landscape. And when I paired a PS5 controller to this Mac I experienced smooth frame rates when playing Asphalt Legends Unite. Just don't expect the fastest performance in demanding titles. For example, when playing Borderlands 3 the MacBook Pro M4 mustered only 23 fps, which is the same as the Lunar Lake XPS 13 but about a third of what the Asus ProArt PX13 reached with its discrete RTX 4050 GPU. It was a similar story with other titles. We saw a playable 36 fps and 53 fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Civ VI, respectively, which is good. But the Nvidia-powered laptop was faster. The MacBook Pro M4 runs the new macOS Sequoia out of the box, and I upgraded to the developer beta of macOS 15.2 to try out all the latest Apple Intelligence features. But before we get to that there's some pretty neat upgrades that are not AI-related. For example, macOS Sequoia finally includes easier window tiling. You can just drag and drop the window you want to dock to the left side or right side of the screen and the OS does the rest to snap them into place. You won't find as many options as my favorite free Rectangle app, but it's a great improvement. Another macOS Sequoia highlight is iPhone Mirroring. You can easily use your iPhone on your Mac even if it's in another room. I tried this and it connected almost immediately, complete with all my apps and notifications. Other welcome Sequoia features include a new Passwords app for improved password management, new effects in messages, and new audio transcription in the Notes app. But Apple Intelligence is the star of the show here, and I got to try a bunch of new features that I think come in handy. For example, with Writing Tools, you can quickly summarize a long note with ease (though you have to select all copy first) and format it in multiple ways, such as key points. From there you can copy that summary and put it at the top of your document. Apple Intelligence can also help you re-write or proofread your copy, which I personally find offensive because of what I do for a living but I can see the utility. It can even help make your tone sound more professional, which is a good filter for sending emails. I really like having a smarter Siri on board with macOS Sequoia. Yes, you can talk to the assistant, but I found typing easier using the dedicated glowing icon in the top right of the display. I could ask follow up questions (like "how about the next 10 days" after asking about the weather today, and I also appreciate that you can get step-by-step instructions on all sorts of things you want to do on your Mac, from setting up iPhone Mirroring to recording your screen. With the macOS 15.2 developer beta, you can push things even further with ChatGPT. For example, I could ask the assistant to generate an image of a golden retriever underneath a rainbow that came back in seconds. And then I could add that image to the Photos app with a click. Another handy Apple Intelligence feature is Clean Up. The system did a remarkable job finding things I might want to remove from a portrait photo and the background looked quite realistic and clear once it wiped away the distractions. Those are just some of the highlights of Apple Intelligence on the Mac. I wouldn't say these are gaming-changing features, but they are thoughtful and well integrated in the apps you already use. I'm also looking forward to trying out Image Playground for generating AI images. Apple says that the MacBook Pro M4 can last up to 24 hours when streaming video and 16 hours when surfing the web, but we sawy even better endurance than that in our testing. On the Tom's Guide Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits of screen brightness, the new MacBook Pro lasted a whopping 18 hours and 31 minutes. This runtime is over an hour longer than the already long-lasting MacBook Pro M3 and about an hour longer than the Intel Lunar Lake-powered XPS 13. However, the Snapdragon-powered XPS 13 is still the battery life champ for now at 19:31. The MacBook Pro M4 is pretty close to the perfect laptop. You get fantastic performance from the M4 chip, useful Apple Intelligence features (though you'll have to be patient as more roll out), a better webcam and obscenely long battery life. It's just too bad my favorite feature -- the nano-texture display -- costs $150 more. I do have a few nitpicks at the $1,949 price of my review unit. First, the SSD performance is slightly behind the competition. And if you're into gaming you may want to step up to a beefier M4 Pro model with a 16-core or 20-core GPU, compared to the 10-core GPU on the base model. Overall, though, the M4 MacBook Pro is the laptop I'd buy with my own money. And it's one of the best laptops you can buy, period.

M4 Mac Mini Review: Apple's Littlest Mac Is Big on the Inside

The surprising thing about the M4 Mac Mini isn't that Apple made it smaller; it's how much smaller it is than its M2-powered predecessor and how it can still have a more powerful M4 Pro chip in it and stay cool. The Mini can fit in your hand and be everything from an everyday home office computer to a full-on professional content-creation machine -- and an easily portable one at that -- with support for up to three 6K-resolution displays. True, there's a sizable price difference between the M4 and M4 Pro Mac Mini, but even the $799 M4 model I tested is strong enough for media creation as well as, of course, Apple Intelligence. The M4 Mac Mini arrived at the same time as the latest version of its operating system, MacOS 15.1 Sequoia, and Apple Intelligence, the company's personal, private AI designed to help you with everyday tasks (and part of the reason all new Macs now have at least 16GB of unified memory). Sequoia has some interesting new tools that are worth exploring, and they all worked well on the Mini. For most people, iPhone Mirroring is likely to be the most interesting. As the name implies, it puts your iPhone on your display, giving you access to anything on it. You can, for example, open up a social app and post something or check notifications. My iPhone is for work, so I used mirroring to read and reply to email and Slack messages while I worked on this review on the Mac Mini. It worked fluidly, but navigating a touchscreen device without a touchscreen is not the best experience. As for Apple Intelligence on the Mac Mini, it seems like a perfect pairing, especially if you're considering it for home office use. A lot of the tools are geared toward helping you get through work or tackle an endless to-do list faster. Things like summarizing emails and then generating replies (it can do the same with Messages), finding a device setting using natural language with Siri or using the Notes app to record and transcribe audio, and then Apple Intelligence will summarize it for you. Two of my favorite features, though, are in the Photos app. One is Clean up, which lets you quickly remove things like people or objects from photos. It's similar to AI tools from Google, Adobe and others, and Apple's is pretty good with its fixes but not always perfect (which is the case with the competition too). The other tool is natural language search. Simply type in what you're looking for and the search can drill down and find it. For example, I take a lot of photos of recipes, including cocktails. So I searched for "cocktails" and found pictures of drinks and people drinking. But adding "recipe" to the search terms, and finally "whiskey," brought up the image I was hunting for. And this is all without me ever tagging a single photo with any info. If you're more organized than me and assign names to people, you can really drill down. The base model M4 Mac Mini is $599, which is kind of a deal. It features a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU, 16GB of unified memory and a 256GB solid-state drive for storage. The version I tested is $799, and the only difference is the storage capacity: 512GB. Bumping up to $999 increases memory to 24GB and 512GB storage. Essentially, every memory or storage bump adds $200 to the base price, with the M4 configurations maxing out at 32GB of memory and 2TB of storage for $1,799. In general, your money is best spent on increasing memory, not storage, especially at $200 a pop. Although the 256GB SSD is a paltry amount, with three high-speed Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports (or even faster Thunderbolt 5 if you get the M4 Pro chip), adding more speedy external storage as needed is a better (and cheaper) option. Now, in addition to extra memory and storage, you can also upgrade to two M4 Pro chips. For $1,399, you'll get a 12-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 24GB of memory and a 512GB SSD. An additional $200 gets you an M4 Pro with a 14-core CPU. Memory with the M4 Pro goes up to 64GB, and storage is 8TB. Another $100 puts in a 10GB Ethernet jack for network-attached storage. Fully loaded, it's $4,699, which is a lot, but you're getting a lot. This is a long way of saying, the M4 Mac Mini can be as powerful as you need it to be as long as you're willing to pay for it. It's worth noting that this is the first Mac Mini to support connecting to up to three displays. If you get an M4 Pro model with Thunderbolt 5 ports, it allows for transfer speeds of up to 120Gbps and the ability to connect up to three displays up to 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt or its HDMI out. The standard M4 can also do three displays, but only two are up to 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt. The third can have a resolution of up to 5K at 60Hz via Thunderbolt or 4K at 60Hz over HDMI out. After the M4 Mac Mini was announced, there was much chatter about how it could be a game console. Apple has certainly pushed the Mini for gaming in the past and is doing more so now. It's only about 1.5 inches larger than the Apple TV 4K streamer -- certainly tiny enough to live in or on the smallest of TV stands. In my testing, the M4 Mini was fine for casual gaming, especially if you lean toward more mobile-friendly indie games. With more graphically demanding titles, you'll likely have to dial back to Medium on graphics settings and play at 1440p or 1080p for a more enjoyable experience. On Baldur's Gate 3, I set it to Ultra and it was not smooth, which is to be expected. No doubt bumping up to the M4 Pro or even going above the 16GB of memory in my Mini would address that. Of course, the overwhelming issue is if you're looking for AAA games, you'll only really find older ones. The game Control, which Apple uses for demos of hardware-accelerated ray-traced reflections, is from 2019. Another, the Myst remake, is from 2021. So yes, if you want to play games, the M4 Mac Mini is up for it. But you just might not find all the games you want to play and you'll probably need to spend at least $999 for more graphics-intensive titles. For all of Apple's design prowess, every once in a while, it makes a choice that leaves us scratching our heads. The M4 Mac Mini is remarkably small and certainly a design feat, especially given its high-performance potential. But for some reason, perhaps because of its compactness or simply to keep it hidden, Apple put the Mini's power button on the bottom of the computer's rear-left side. That means to power it on and off, you'll need to lift it up some. It's not a huge hardship to lift the rear, but it's nonetheless unusual placement and potentially a bit of a pain if it is connected to three displays. It's also going to make mounting it to the back of a display or TV a little trickier. The thing is, the Mac Mini is so small and the back is so filled with ports, that it doesn't really leave a good place for a button. If you're looking for a home office computer, a home entertainment machine or a system for live streaming, podcasting or other content creation, the M4 Mac Mini can do all that. You'll get the best of what MacOS Sequoia and Apple Intelligence have to offer in a tiny box and at a reasonable starting price. The price ratchets up quickly from there, though. The good news is the M4 seems like it can handle quite a bit (we're still wrapping up our benchmark testing of it), so definitely consider just upping the amount of memory before rushing to the $1,399 M4 Pro, unless you need extra graphics performance and better display support. Also, for students and families, I would recommend the M4 iMac because the all-in-one design is easier to manage.

Apple MacBook Pro review (M4, 2024): incredible power now infused with AI | Stuff

Apple's MacBook Pro has always been one of the best laptops available and it's now been upgraded with the latest M4 chips in the form of the M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max - the fourth generation of Apple's ARM-based chips to make it into the Pro since the introduction of the M1 in late 2020. As well as coming to the redesigned Mac mini, the M4 chip is also now in the iMac, too. But while the Mac mini is a very interesting little PC, it's the introduction of the M4 series to the MacBook Pro that really shows the level of power these chips are capable of. I've been sent two review models from Apple for this review. The first model is an off-the-shelf base level 14in M4 with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD for $1,599/£1599. The second is a 16in M4 Max model but upgraded to have a huge 48GB of RAM and 2TB SSD for $3649/£3649. Upgrading the memory is an expensive affair because it's unified memory. Likewise pumping the internal storage upwards is pretty extortionate; consider if you can cater for this need with external drives. As in 2022 and 2023, the MacBook Pro unibody design remains unchanged from the 2021 rework that added back ports that had previously been taken off, like the SD card reader and HDMI port. It was also goodbye to the Touch Bar, lamented only by a few. You now get physical function keys instead. The keyboard too, was a reinvention of what had gone past, moving on ) from the disastrous butterfly keyboard era that cost Apple a lot of money in terms of repairs. Rubber feet sit the Mac nicely above any uneven surfaces that could scratch or split coffee on café tables. There's no MacBook Pro wordmark under the display, but there is one moulded into the base. Once again the Pros come in a brace of 'colour' options - silver and space grey. There are some rumours that Apple will revisit the MacBook Pro design in 2025. That would make sense to us, but while the current design may seem a little outdated compared to some, the fact remains that it still looks broadly appealing, is fairly robust and works well. Plus 2020s Apple isn't exactly renowned for tearing up designs and starting again like Apple of the naughties. Externally, the difference between the 14 and 16in versions are minimal aside from the physically larger device, larger display and bigger grilles either side of the keyboard. You once again get three USB-C ports (USB 4 and Thunderbolt 4) which you can charge from both ways. MagSafe is on the left side for the default charging solution. There's also HDMI, an SDXC card reader and - yes! - a headphone jack. Just like the last three years, we're surprised that HDMI is still here when many displays can be driven via USB-C. We like it, but we were surprised that Apple reintroduced it. Likewise the SD card reader which is surely highly underused. The mini LED displays on both models is simply stunning as previously uses Apple's ProMotion variable refresh tech. The colours are terrific. The display is capable of 1600nits of brightness which is fine in all but the brightest conditions where I find there is still a little bit of a struggle to see the screen. There's quite a difference in pixel count between the two sizes, too. To be expected perhaps, but it's welcome to see a hefty jump. (3024 by 1964 pixels for the 14in and 3456 by 2234 for the 16in. New this time is the option of a $150 nano-textured matt finish to the display. I've got it on my 16in review model. If you work in an environment where there is often glare - such as from strip lights or other bright sources - it may be welcome to you. As you can see below, it still reflects some light of course. But honestly I don't find the usual glossy display to have too much glare and as such we're not convinced it's a necessary upgrade. As I say though, there will be some environments where it is more welcome. There's a camera notch at the top of the display but once again this is not being used for Face ID. I absolutely cannot fathom why this hasn't come to the Mac yet (Microsoft's Windows Hello tech has been around for quite some time now). Maybe it wouldn't play nicely with third-party apps? Maybe it needs to wait for Intel Macs to be unsupported - surely in the next couple of years? Who knows. The notch is only really a problem for long app menus or the Menu Bar where you inevitably have too many icons. We use a third-party app (iBar) to prioritise these. Once again the webcam is much improved from Macs of old and is 1080p. Strangely though, the Mac still doesn't support Centre Stage to keep you in the frame (it does work with Apple's Studio Display). Audio is provided by a six-speaker array. It's fine for video calls, watching video and music while you're travelling - perhaps in a hotel room - but you're not going to be sat at your desk using it as a replacement for a quality speaker system. While the MacBook Air is passively cooled, the Pro still has fans though you'll have to work hard to get them to spin up; they're reserved for just the most intensive tasks. So for us they only kicked in for benchmarking for example. There are long vents on the side as well as under the display. You'll find the Mac does get warm, but never hot. I also have a 16in MacBook Pro which is my company machine that runs the top-notch (for the time) Intel Core i9. Looking at this Mac, it's easy to see why Apple made the switch to Apple Silicon. It's noisy, the battery life has always been fairly poor and the performance wasn't the greatest even a couple of years ago. Once again, the M4 and M4 Pro push the boundaries of what is possible with PC processing. We can't judge the M4 Max as it's not in front of us, but it should be even more formidable. Put simply, software can't really challenge these chips at present. Software can always be better, of course, but these chips can handle everything you ask them to do. Benchmarking the M4 Pro yields crazy results. Just as with previous versions, single core performance in Cinebench is world-beating, while multi-core performance only lags behind a couple of server chips. Server chips! A mad level of performance. I can't wait to find out what the M4 Max can do, too. The SSD performance is also crazy - Blackmagic's Disk Speed Test recorded write speeds of over 6500 MB per second. The M4 Pro boasts a 14‑core CPU and 20‑core GPU. The graphics capability on offer here is incredible. Video encoding is ripped through in seconds. Battery life is claimed as a slight improvement on last year's model at 24 hours (!) for video streaming on both of these models. The 14in has a 72.5Wh battery while the 16in has 100Wh, but Apple only claims a slight improvement for general tasks, what Apple calls 'wireless web' - 16 hours for the 14in and 17 hours for the M4 Pro 16in. You won't get that, but you will get more out of it than you ever dreamed possible a few years ago. And certainly you can eke it out towards two days of work. Once the dust settles and you've had this thing a while it's still going to be able to get you through a full day of work and probably beyond provided you don't tax it too much. And even if you do, you'll find you aren't going to be spending loads of time messing about with a charger. The key thing is that you're not going to need to charge it over the course of a working day unless you're really taxing it. macOS Sequoia (macOS 15, if you're counting) is similar to the last few versions in that it is increasingly inspired by iOS and iPadOS in terms of some of the design, but it's a hugely capable OS that feels so much better to work in than iPadOS with its limited multitasking capabilities. I have multiple desktops and apps on the go and even the standard M4 doesn't flinch. And that applies if you have virtual machines running, working in Adobe Photoshop or editing a 4K movie. Easy. Thankfully there are now no app issues with Apple Silicon. This took a little while to iron out, but developers got there fairly rapidly. Certainly it's no longer an issue. There are numerous tweaks that come with a new version of macOS with the long-awaited window tiling maybe the best of them, but the key thing this time is in version 15.1 - the introduction of Apple Intelligence. It's still US English only for now, but wider rollouts are imminent in 15.2 for Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK. Apple Intelligence is rather limited in appeal right now, despite what Apple says. But you're able to toggle it off if you don't want it. You can type to Siri (or talk to it as before) and get suggestions. Siri has a draggable interface across your desktop and a more natural voice. Siri has improved a little, especially for context but don't expect miracles as it's still very much a work in progress. You can also now get notification summaries just as on iOS. Messages are also summarised in Messages and Mail by default. This works sporadically well, just as on iOS. Sometimes Apple Intelligence hits the spot and sometimes it just doesn't. Again you can fine-tune this per app - for example we have opted out of using it for text messages and WhatsApps so we can see the whole message as a notification each time. Smart Reply in Mail is pretty good as are the Writing/Rewriting Tools, again a work in progress. But what's there is a great start and the proofreading feature will impress current Grammarly users. What is a revelation though is drag and drop for iPhone Mirroring - moving files and photos between both is so powerful and means you don't need to AirDrop to send something to yourself. 15.2 will also bring Image Playground, enabling you to generate images using AI including Genmoji. You'll also be able to use the ChatGPT integration. We haven't tested 15.2 out for the purposes of this review as it is still a developer beta at the time of writing. Apple's M4 MacBook Pro series is a special set of laptops. Apple isn't just iterating on performance, it is seriously pushing the envelope year-on-year. Can it keep up with this cadence? Time will tell, but it feels like in a decade's time, the M14 won't offer the same performance gains. As I've said before, the main thing you need to comsider when buying a MacBook Pro is whether you actually need this level of power. While the MacBook Air M2 isn't favoured by some regular Pro users, it is more than good enough to do what most traditional MacBook Pro users need. Essentially, the Pro is a high-end machine for high-end tasks. If you don't regularly need the performance, then it's hard to recommend the step-up in price from the Air. But if you are regularly undertaking some of those Pro-level tasks that are bread and butter foir the Pro, then go for it - you won't be disappointed by the incredible levels of performance on offer here.

M4 Pro Mac mini Review: Pro Performance in a Tiny, Affordable Package

The latest-generation Mac mini sports a fresh and improved design and Apple's newest M4-series processors. The facelift and performance bump close the gap between the Mac mini and Apple's fantastic Mac Studio desktop in multiple ways, making the new Mac mini an extremely compelling choice for photographers and video editors alike. The story is becoming familiar as Apple turns the page to its fourth-generation Apple Silicon, predictably called the M4 series. With each new generation, Apple makes iterative CPU and GPU performance improvements. However, this year, artificial intelligence, or "Apple Intelligence," as Apple calls it, is a focus through the M4 family's more powerful Neural Engine. However, dismissing the M4 series' performance gains as "more of the same" undersells what Apple has done since it moved away from Intel chips. Apple's in-house silicon is seriously impressive, even if it is starting to feel familiar. The sheen of newness has worn off, but the performance on offer is no less incredible. Besides, in the Mac mini's case, the newfound power comes with a brand-new design that shrinks the computer's footprint, adds some height, and puts much-welcome front ports on the tiny computer. Even though the new mini is taller than its predecessor, the smaller footprint makes it seem significantly more compact and, thus, all the more impressive. There's remarkable power inside the cute little desktop, especially when users opt for the M4 Pro version rather than the base model with the standard M4 chip. Speaking of the configurations, we tested the M4 Pro version with 48GB of unified memory and a 1TB SSD. While the base M4 Mac mini starts at a ludicrously cheap $599 with an M4 chip, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of SSD storage, the unit we tested, with the upgraded M4 Pro with a 14-core CPU, 20-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine with 48GB of unified memory and a 1TB SSD, prices out at $2,199. The base M4 Pro version with a 12-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 24GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD is $1,399. When the Mac mini made the jump to Apple Silicon during the M1 era in 2020, it did so without any significant changes to its physical appearance. Sure, ports had changed over the years, but the M1 and newer Mac mini computers looked essentially the same as the Mac mini did in 2010 -- an eternity in the fast-paced world of computers. With the move to M4, the Mac mini finally has a new design. The outgoing model is 7.75 by 7.75 inches (19.7 by 19.7 centimeters) and 1.41 inches (3.6 centimeters) tall. The latest version measures just five by five inches (12.7 centimeters along each side) and is a couple of inches (five centimeters) tall. Beyond the shrunken footprint, the new Mac mini is significantly lighter, too. While the outgoing Mac Mini weighed about 2.7 pounds (a bit over 1.2 kilograms) on average, the redesigned computer weighs around 1.5 pounds (0.7 kilograms). This doesn't much matter since the computer stays on a desk, but it's still worth mentioning. Besides the different size and shape, which channels the Mac Studio's aesthetic, the new Mac mini also borrows from its flagship big brother in another critical way: front ports. There's no doubt that the old Mac mini looks "cleaner" given that it has an entirely naked front, but the cost of the clean face is that every single port is on the back of the device. At the risk of sounding dramatic, as someone who has used an M1 Mac mini plenty, accessing the rear ports is annoying. The M4 Mac mini has two front USB-C ports. Yes, USB-C, not Thunderbolt. Don't worry, there are three Thunderbolt ports on the back, all of which are Thunderbolt 5 on the M4 Pro-equipped Mac mini I tested and Thunderbolt 4 on the base M4 version. The front USB-C ports are USB 3 Gen2, supporting up to 10Gbps transfer speeds. As for the three Thunderbolt 5 ports on the back of the Mac mini, these support speeds up to, wait for it, 120Gbps. The Mac mini's front also has a 3.5mm audio jack, which is a much more useful placement when using headphones than the prior generation's rear audio jack. Moving to the back of the Mac mini, from left to right, it has a power port, an Ethernet jack (upgradable to 10 Gigabit for an extra $100), an HDMI port, and three Thunderbolt ports. When it comes to displays, the Mac mini offers a lot of flexibility. The standard M4 Mac mini can support three displays at once, including two with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and a third panel with up to 5K/60Hz over Thunderbolt or 4K/60Hz over HDMI. The M4 also supports DisplayPort 1.4 output over USB-C. The M4 Pro version can display three 6K displays at 60Hz simultaneously over Thunderbolt or HDMI. It can also power two displays when one of them is 8K resolution (60Hz) over Thunderbolt or HDMI. It can also support a 4K display at up to 240Hz. The M4 Pro's Thunderbolt 5 ports support native DisplayPort 2.1 over USB-C. Finally, the M4 Pro's HDMI port is better than the standard M4's, supporting 8K (60Hz) and 4K (240Hz) over HDMI. At this point, one might reasonably wonder where the power button is. If it's not on the front (where I'd like it to be), and it's not on the back (where it used to be and where it is on the Mac Studio), then where is it? Well, in what I can only describe as baffling, the power button is located on the bottom of the computer and is not reachable without lifting the computer off a desk or sliding it so that its butt hangs over the edge. There's a thin gap between the computer and whatever it sits on to make space for the fan, but there's not enough space for me to fit my finger underneath. This quibble means little to those who never shut down their computer, which I suspect is most people, but for some like me who occasionally does turn my computer off, turning it back on requires me lifting the Mac mini. Listen, I'm no strongman but I'm plenty capable of lifting the Mac mini, but I don't think I should need to. If I could turn the computer on using the keyboard, it'd be no problem. But alas, that's not an option. You can wake up your Mac mini with a connected keyboard, though, so most people will find the power button placement a complete nonissue. Besides the power button complaint, I love everything else about the Mac mini's redesign. The smaller footprint, front ports, front audio jack, and Thunderbolt 5 inclusion are home runs across the board. Overall, and by a large margin, Apple's design changes are improvements. As mentioned, our Mac mini test unit has the top-end M4 Pro chip and 48GB of unified memory. The 14-core CPU and 20-core GPU deliver excellent performance across the board, demonstrating improvements compared to the M2 Pro Mac mini -- there was no M3-generation Mac mini refresh. The M2 Pro also generally performs favorably against older Max chips, although the M2 Ultra continues to be an absolute beast. While the M4 Pro is great, it cannot compete against 24 CPU cores and a whopping 76-core GPU in certain situations. I know I just got done saying the M4 Pro is not as good as the M2 Ultra, but the M4 Pro starts exceptionally well in Photoshop. Aside from the M4 Max MacBook Pro that Jaron Schneider tested for his in-depth MacBook Pro with M4 Max Review, the M4 Pro Mac mini is the fastest machine we've tested in Photoshop. It was, by virtue of being tested before the M4 Max, technically the first computer to ever eclipse the 2,000 overall score mark in Puget Systems' Photoshop benchmark (version 0.8) -- a short-lived but impressive achievement. Breaking it down into categories, the high overall score of 2,004 is primarily driven by fantastic Photomerge performance. While the Maingear MG-1 Ultimate and its NVIDIA RTX 4090 GPU retain the title for GPU performance, the M4 Pro is no slouch there or anywhere else. It also shreds the Photoshop benchmark and is exceptionally swift during real-world use. Another weapon of choice for photographers, Lightroom Classic, is a rather demanding application, and we really put it to the test using our standard collection of more than 100 RAW files from the 61-megapixel Sony a7R IV and a 100-megapixel Phase One medium-format camera. Our testing includes importing all the images, generating 1:1 previews, applying a custom preset, and exporting JPEG and 16-bit TIFF files. It's a good, repeatable test of everyday photography workflows. The M4 Pro Mac mini handles import tasks with aplomb, showing a slight but meaningful improvement for both cameras compared to the M2 Pro. We never saw an M3 Pro device here, but the M4 Pro isn't that far off the pace compared to the top-end M3 Max we tested. The M2 Ultra still reigns supreme, which is no surprise given Lightroom's ability to utilize GPU acceleration. Regarding exporting, the M4 Pro Mac mini is considerably faster than the M2 Pro, although still not as swift as the M3 Max. Sony JPEG exports are nearly two and a half minutes faster on the M4 Pro than the M2 Pro, while Phase One JPEG exporting is over four minutes quicker. For 16-bit TIFF exporting, the M4 Pro is, yet again, demonstrably superior to the M2 Pro, as expected. However, the gains here for the more intensive task are more significant. The M2 Pro exported the Sony files in a hair over six minutes and the Phase One files in 12 minutes and 15 seconds. The M4 Pro slashes those export times to under three minutes and about five and a half minutes, respectively. While the M4 Pro isn't the best we've tested in Lightroom Classic, and we didn't think it would be, it is impressive how much it has improved compared to the M2 Pro in Lightroom. That aside, overall, the new Mac mini with M4 Pro is an absolute beast in photo editing. As a quick note, you may have noticed in our M4 Max MacBook Pro Review that Jaron ran into consistency issues with Lightroom Classic. After speaking to the parties involved, we are confident this bug will be squashed quickly and doesn't reflect expected performance. During my M4 Pro testing, I never experienced the bug or any other odd results during any benchmarks. Many photographers are not only photographers these days. Modern creators often do video editing, sometimes with 4K and even 8K RAW video files. Those push a machine to their limits, so we return to Puget Systems' benchmarking application for Premiere Pro testing. The M4 Pro Mac mini is good here, too, although the relative lack of GPU cores compared to some of Apple's other silicon is readily apparent. The M4 Pro is better than the M1 Max, but not as good as the M2 Ultra, M3 Max, or M4 Max, all of which have more under the hood than the M4 Pro. Breaking it down further, the M4 Pro delivers the worst GPU Effects Score in our test catalog, which notably lacks the M2 Pro due to a change in benchmarking we did recently. The M4 Pro ups its game in the Intraframe Score and RAW Score compared to the M1 Max, which helps put it over the edge overall. While the M4 Pro may not look that impressive on these charts, keep in mind that two of the included computers, the Asus ProArt PD5 and MG-1 Ultimate, are tower PCs, not tiny desktop Macs. Further, the MG-1 Ultimate has an RTX 4090, a graphics card that by itself is bigger than the new Mac mini (by a lot). There's plenty of performance on offer here for video editors, even those working in RAW and high-resolution workflows. This is as good a time as any to note that the Mac mini, which has a fan, never gets loud, even under extreme duress. I could hear the fan while running the benchmark tests, but it never rose above a faint hum. During typical use, the machine is entirely silent. Given that video is a significant part of many modern visual creator's workflow, we wanted to expand our video software benchmark testing to include a very popular video editing app, DaVinci Resolve. Using Puget Systems' DaVinci test, we can get a complete picture of how the M4 Pro compares against some of its Apple Silicon peers regarding GPU performance. The M4 Pro can't hold a candle to the M4 Max for high-end video performance. This is readily apparent when looking at the RAW and GPU Effects scores in particular. That said, our DaVinci Resolve test results library is relatively thin at the moment, so it's hard to draw too many broad conclusions here. We can say that the M4 Pro is solid, but its GPU performance lags behind the M2 Ultra and M4 Max, which makes perfect sense given the relative deficiency of GPU cores. I will also note that the M1 Max MacBook Pro I tested struggled to stay cool during this test, with its fan ramping up to never-before-heard decibels. It sounded like it was preparing for liftoff. Meanwhile, the M4 Pro stayed silent during the test. The Mac mini is an extremely powerful machine across photo and video applications and workflows. It will perform very well for all but the most demanding situations and rarely miss a beat. It offers occasionally significant improvements compared to the M2 Pro, which is not even two years old. While some improvements are best described as incremental, others are easily noticed during use. The Lightroom performance is especially good, as it's easy to see when everyday tasks take less time by multiple minutes. As someone whose daily driver is an M1 Max MacBook Pro, I find everything about using Lightroom and Photoshop on the new Mac mini to be snappier, sometimes by a lot. There's not necessarily enough here to warrant an upgrade from an older Apple Silicon machine, at least not based on performance alone. However, that doesn't take away from the fact that the M4 Pro offers tremendous performance at a reasonable price. And in the case of the Mac mini, the screaming-fast chip comes nestled inside an impressively tiny computer. A small computer like this chewing through professional imaging workflows will always be impressive, even if it's been done before. Apple's move to in-house silicon has paid huge dividends in performance. The Mac mini has benefited from these advancements for the last four years but did so with an old design. Many of Apple's other computers got facelifts while the Mac mini sat on the sidelines, waiting its turn. Well, its time has arrived, and was worth the wait. The M4 Pro Mac mini is powerful enough for intensive photo and video editing, and its redesign also makes it an extremely usable machine at a very palatable price point. Users can get in on the M4 Pro for $1,399, which is a steal. Granted, you must spend extra on a keyboard, mouse, or trackpad and display, provided you don't already have those. Even still, a fully-kitted Mac mini with the top-end M4 Pro chip and 64GB of unified memory, starting at $2,199, may be overkill for some, but it is also a solid value. The standard M4, which starts at just $599, will likely be sufficient for photographers. However, I recommend that power users move up to the M4 Pro version because not only is it more powerful, but it also has three Thunderbolt 5 ports on the back, which will make the computer more future-proof and able to take better advantage of external storage and peripherals. Yes, for those who require even better performance, the Mac Studio and Mac Pro are options, albeit significantly more expensive ones. These computers aren't yet on the M4 platform -- or even the M3, actually -- so they are "outdated" in that regard but still more powerful than the newest Mac mini. A pound-for-pound alternative is the iMac, which is less powerful than the M4 Pro Mac mini but identical in terms of performance to the base Mac mini. The iMac has the distinct advantage of being an all-in-one machine thanks to its built-in 24-inch 4.5K Retina display. The iMac also comes with a color-matched keyboard. The base model is $1,299, but photographers should look at the mid- and high-tier choices, starting at $1,499. These include four Thunderbolt 4 ports instead of two (plus two USB 4 ports). The iMac is a straightforward and affordable option for those looking for a plug-and-play solution and don't do a lot of high-end video editing. It can't match the Mac mini's performance, but for some people's requirements, it doesn't need to. Yes. The M4 Pro Mac mini is an amazing machine for photographers and videographers who prefer the desktop experience but don't want to spend the extra money for the Mac Studio or Mac Pro. Those options exist for the most demanding users, but for everyone else, including most photographers and many video editors, the M4 Pro Mac mini has performance to spare. Its predecessor was already an exceptional computer for photographers, and thanks to the performance gains and improved design, the newest Mac mini is even better. The Mac mini may be small, but it packs a hell of a punch.