I bought the M1 Max Studio because I got tired of waiting for a 27′ or larger M1 iMac, and I love it. I didn’t love spending more, especially adding the purchase of a Samsung M8 monitor… more on that later… but once it was all up and running – I’m in Macintosh heaven!
It boots quickly, apps open faster than I ever saw before, and since I loaded it up with a 2 TB drive and 64GB RAM, I can push it hard, Photoshop, Topaz apps, browser, iCal, Mail and more can all be open and I don’t see any performance hit.
Photoshop is especially a pleasure with the Mac Studio. I’m not a big user, but recently did a fairly major job for a client taking 70 to 100 year old photographs, scanning and repairing, spotting, and making them as good as possible. Lots of Photoshop work, and both the results and the performance were really rewarding.
The large number of ports is also a plus. Thunderbolt 3 and especially Thunderbolt 4 are incredibly fast, and I’ve also got several USB3 and Thunderbolt 3 hubs connected, so all in all I’ve got a dozen external drives, two inkjet and one laser printer, two label printers and a scanner available full time. It makes for a much more crowded desk than the photo would indicate, but it also means that I can do pretty much anything with this beast.
All in all, if you can manage the budget, the Studio is an amazing tool, silent but incredibly powerful considering the size. Oh, and it stays so much cooler than my 2019 iMac ever did. That’s a plus.