It's been a week and a day since I did my Day 1 hands-on review of the M4 iMac, which means that it's time to do my A Week Later review!
Performance
Performance has been, all in all, much better than the previous Mac we had. The M4 beast in here could handle seven apps open at once sometimes before it ever slowed (although other times it slowed down much earlier, making it hard to start working on blg posts like this one), which made me often forget to close all my apps because of how it didn't affect the performance. Also, when downloading macOS Sequoia 14.1.1 during setup (right before Sequoia 14.2 came!), this computer was lightning-fast (on our old one, we had gave up on updating the software because of was just too slow, so it was still on macOS Sonoma). On that note, I noticed a couple of new macOS Sequoia features, such as Apple Watch unlocking (which was annoyingly slow at first then managed pretty well after a week) and Siri (which I still never use in practice). However, starting Friday, I ran into the problem of not having my iCloud email on the computer (problematic when you're trying to send blog posts!), which took at least an hour to solve plus an extension on Sunday. I think this is more of a problem with how the data got transferred from our old iMac, so it was technically our old iMac which caused the problem.
Design
I got used to the design a bit, but still, the blue color on white bezel could give me a happy feeling as I went to the computer, and the tilt-adjustable stand was so small that I was worrying about it falling through a hole in the desk! I still love the back, by the way, and we still haven't moved it so the back shows (quite frustrating when you think about it).
Camera
I might not have seen the full camera (I put a blurring background whenever I went on Zoom for chess lessons), but of what I could see of it, it wasn't really that much improved (even though it went from 1080p to 12MP!). However, nothing looked pixellated either, which is good. I tried Desk View, but I didn't know how to enable it, and anyway I was in the middle of a chess lesson, so yeah. Oh, and I got used to the initially weird prominence of the camera, too.
Screen
The 2" bigger screen doesn't shock me as much as at first, but there is enough space to do everything at last!!! I think 23.5" is a good middle-ground between the too-small 21.5" and the too-big 27" sizes that used to be available. However, the absence of nano-texture glass is noticeable (though not annoying), as any bright lights in your room shine bright and clear on the screen, and when the screen is off the screen is pretty transparent in its reflection of the surrounding room (although this hasn't changed from our old model).
Verdict
Overall, the M4 iMac is a great computer for blog post work and chess lessons (and for whatever my parents do on there), with a few bumps in the road but overall still good. This is a computer to stay for years (without being slow like our 2019 iMac).
By Leo
