burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Article in The Verge today… see next post.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

whfowle Loc: Tampa first, now Albuquerque

I agree that the replacement, depending on your personal needs, is a separate display coupled with either the Mini or the Studio. Apple offers a variety of options within that format.

BebuLamar

If the 24" and 27" have the same resolution then it makes little difference.

MrBob Loc: lookout Mtn. NE Alabama

My wife has 24" downstairs and I have 27" upstairs.... I will do 24" next with M chip. The diff. in size is NO BIG DEAL !

tcthome Loc: NJ

The studio & mini are small enough so that added cables & not being able to add your extra ram at a cheaper price is the only downside. Anyone know if the ram is upgradeable in the 24" imac?

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

I have a Mac Studio and a 27" BENQ monitor--love it!

BebuLamar

I think the new Mac has RAM built in to the CPU and thus can not be upgraded.

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

BebuLamar is correct about the ram. That's why I went with the cube. I ordered it with the ram, memory, etc. that I wanted. It is completely customizable.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Apple no longer makes ANY Macs with user-upgradeable RAM or storage. You can ADD internal storage devices to the new Mac Pro, but they must fit into a PCI slot. All storage upgrades to other Apple Silicon Macs must be external (Thunderbolt 3/4 or USB4 or any USB-C supported protocol).

Buy what you need, upfront!

There are many engineering reasons why they did this. Most of them have to do with SPEED. In the M1, M2, M3... family, memory is SHARED by the CPU cores, the GPU cores, the NPU (neural engine) cores, and all other sub-processors for audio, video, and imaging. That is why the RAM DIMMs are mounted right onto the system-on-a-chip die, directly adjacent to the processors.

The ARM-based architecture of the Apple Silicon family (including all other Apple processors in the iPhone, iPad, Watch, Apple TV, etc.) is based around Reduced Instruction Set Computing and is radically different from x86 architecture used in Intel chips. It uses two thirds less power for the same performance, generates far less heat, and does more work with fewer clock cycles. It's worth doing a little reading on it to understand its strengths.

One of Apple's long-standing issues with warranty claims and board failures had to do with users installing their own RAM. It was impossible for them to control what RAM users bought and installed, or how well the user understood static protection procedures, or whether the user would seat the memory modules correctly, or...

Soldering the RAM and storage modules to the SOC and motherboard solved a lot of reliability problems. And yes, it pissed off a lot of us...

When I bought my 2020 M1 MacBook Air, I configured it with 16GB Unified Memory and 1TB SSD Storage, knowing that I cannot upgrade it. It has proven to be a wise choice. My next Mac will probably come in 3-4 years. Based on the software I use now, I should be comfortable with what I have until then. But if I were buying today, I would get 24GB memory and 1TB storage on an M3 device.

Jagnut07 Loc: South Carolina

Oh bummer, maybe it’s coming time to buy that Mac Studio with a 27” screen to use with my existing 27” LG 5k ultra fine screen.

Photomono

No matter which way I looked at it, the Mac Studio made more sense than the Mini for my main computer. The Studio has many more ports, and the two are about the same in price when the Mini is fully spec’d out. And my M2 Studio absolutely screams with speed.

There are many 27” & 31” display monitors available at a variety of prices. But those displays with specs similar to the Apple Studio monitor also have prices that are similar.

Overall, I don’t think the price was much different—after inflation—than my 2017 iMac 27.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

From a color management standpoint, I'd try to get a second monitor like the one you have. Most calibration kits will let you match them VERY closely.

The Mac Studio line is still using M2. That said, most folks with M2 Pro or Max or Ultra models don't need that much computer. High end users like network TV editors and Hollywood studios and scientific modelers do. But most mortals would be fine with a Mac mini with the M2 Pro chip and plenty of memory and storage.

Photomono

I don’t think you will ever have any need for more “oomph” than the Studio M2 Max. I did a fun speed test of my own making using the Numbers spreadsheet. I created a sheet of 500,000 rows and 6 columns. Column one just counted from 1 to 500,000. Column 2 squared Column 1. Column 3 cubed Column 1. Column 4 multiplied 2 and 3. Column 5 took the square root of Column 4. Then Column 6 cubed Column 5. It was all completed at astonishing speed. I am sure the tech tester would laugh at my little exercise, but it was great fun to do.

Interestingly, if you’re using Adobe as I do, you won’t notice much (any?) performance difference as it seems Photoshop, et al is not yet making much use of new processors.

Frayud Loc: Bethesda,MD

I have enjoyed reading your comments over the years. Thank you for your last sentence! Just the advice I was looking for and could not get (even from Apple). I am a 92 year old replacing a beloved 16GB 27" and cannot waste more time awaiting a 27" messiah. Spend much time copying and retouching travel slides. Most of the "technical" comment so far seems to concern the machine's color with one on You Tube going orgasmic on the the "new" black. (My unasked for advice to that lady: if handling your laptop mucks it up so much perhaps more hand washing is called for instead of a new paint formulation).