M4 iMac with 32GB RAM.... silly, or is it a nice upgrade to a decent machine?

[theluggage]

Apple Care essentially pays for itself if you need to use it on your £1000-£5000+ hardware.

The "if" is doing a lot of work in that sentence!

Electronic hardware is extremely reliable. The odds are that your hardware won't fail in the first 3 years - and if it does that's most likely to happen in the first few months when it's covered by the standard warranty. Esp. when you factor in the usual exceptions like "wear and tear" or "mishandling".

Bathtub curve - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Extended warranties are a nice little earner for companies that sell them because they cover hardware during the period when they are least likely to fail. The average customer is going to lose money - the company sure as heck isn't going to risk losing out. General rule is "never insure that which you can afford to replace/repair".

Maybe it seems to be worth it for "peace of mind" if you focus on a single purchase... but if you add up the cost of extended warranties across all of your gadgets and appliances over time, they are a waste of money unless you are very unlucky.

Warranties with accidental damage/loss/theft coverage are a bit better (esp. for people who can't seem to avoid dropping their iPhones) - but even then you'd probably get a better deal by adding the item to your home insurance.

 

[theluggage]

If you are talking about a cost of 2 grand for a M4 Mini with 32 gigs RAM, then you really should look at the Studio Max instead. It has more to offer. Otherwise, look at the iMac as you mentioned. The Studio Max I recall would be 36 gigs RAM with 512 SSD. You can up the drive size or add externally.

Not sure where @Turnpike got their prices from (non-US $?)
M4 Mini with 32GB/512GB is US$1200. It's absurd that it is 2x the cost of an otherwise identical 16/256 model, but if you stop worrying and learn to love that, the M4 chip is certainly powerful enough to warrant 32GB of RAM.

$2000 Mac Mini would be M4 Pro, 14/20 core, 48GB RAM (it's that or 24GB for $1600, no 32GB M4 Pro)
vs
$2000 Studio 14/32 core, 36GB RAM (& more RAM bandwidth, 10Gb ethernet, more TB ports etc.) but to get 48GB RAM on that needs the 16/40 core CPU option and takes it to $2500...

...with the previous Mini range it used to be pretty clear that the base Studio beat the maxed out Mini Pro, and the Mini only made sense if you were going to hold back on some of the options. I think that's still the case - but not as clear cut and rather workflow-dependent. Unless you know that extra 12GB of RAM is going to be more important to you than the other features of the Max I'd still say that the real alternatives are the Studio vs. the cheaper Mini configurations.

Still - this mess is the consequence of Apple using $50 worth of RAM to justify $200 price-point steps.

 

[Turnpike]

Not sure where @Turnpike got their prices from (non-US $?)
M4 Mini with 32GB/512GB is US$1200......

The maxxed out RAM option for the M4 iMac is $2K. Not the mini. The maxxed out RAM option for the mini is $1,000.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I haven't had an iMac (2017 model) since 2018-2019. I got rid of it because I was going to set up a Plex server and it just wasn't practical to do with the iMac at the time. I ended up getting a NAS at 4 years ago after previously using a Mac mini for the server.

I just bought a new M4 mini from Amazon and received it yesterday. It is very nice. I am still in the process of setting it up. After ordering from Amazon, I got to looking around the Apple site and landed on the new iMacs. Part of me said you don't really need one since you just got a Mac mini. I jumped from the Apple site back to Amazon and then B&H. After seeing the wait time for a Nano iMac would be early September, I saw B&H had several Nano models in stock. I ended up with a fully specced blue model arriving tomorrow. Looking toward to seeing the 24" 4.5k screen not to mention how light and thin it will be.

 

[ADGrant]

If you are getting the iMac, then 32gb is a good idea. That said, if it was me I would buy a 27" 5k display either from Apple or a third party and a Mac mini.