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This was a week of Mac releases, kicking off with a new iMac on Monday. It has a 24” display and is powered by the M4 chip. Note that there are two chips, both called “M4” – one with 8 CPU cores and 8 GPU cores and one with 10 CPU cores and 10 GPU cores.
The 24” display is the same 4.5K panel as the previous model, but now you can have it with nano-texture glass (but it’s a $200 upgrade). If you need more displays, the Thunderbolt can drive two 6K 60Hz external displays or one 8K 120Hz display.
That’s on the pricier variant, anyway, which has four Thunderbolt 4 cores. The cheaper one has only two ports and supports only a single 6K 60Hz external display. One last thing – the built-in camera has been upgraded to 12MP 1080p with support for Center Stage.
Another option for the desktop is the new Apple Mac mini. It’s tiny but mighty – it’s 5” square and you can have it with an M4 chipset (10 core CPU, 10 core GPU) or an M4 Pro (12 core CPU, 16 core GPU).
These two options come with 16GB of RAM and 256GB storage or 24GB and 512GB storage, respectively. Note that the vanilla M4 comes with three Thunderbolt 4 ports, while the M4 Pro is upgraded to Thunderbolt 5.
Apple also upgraded the MacBook Pro 14.2” and 16.2” with M4 chips. You have a choice between an M4 (the 10 core variant), M4 Pro (note that there are two versions 12c/16c and 16c/20c) and the beastly M4 Max (14 CPU cores, 32 GPU cores or 16 CPU and 32 GPU cores).
Again, the version of Thunderbolt you get depends on the chip: TB 4 on the M4 and TB 5 on the M4 Pro and Max. The smaller 14.2” model now has three ports. The displays are 120Hz Liquid Retina XDR and have 12MP cameras with Center Stage.
The new Macs are currently on pre-order and will be released on November 8 (next Friday).
By the way, Apple also bumped up the older Mac models to have 16GB of RAM in their base configuration. And retailers that have 8GB variants stocked up are looking to get rid of them.
The 2022 MacBook Air 13.6 (with an M2 chip) can be had for as little as $700 after a $100 discount and a $200 coupon. The 8/256GB configuration is limiting, but if you can make it work, this might be the best $700 laptop right now.
The 2024 MacBook Air 13 (this one with an M3 chip) can be yours for $850 if you click on the coupon. Again, 8/256GB isn’t perfect, but a 16/256GB M2 model from Apple.com is priced $1,000 and the M3 model is $1,100.
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