Choosing between 2022 iMac and Mac mini with external monitor for research purposes

I agree that you should not get the intel iMac. It will be limited much quicker than a new Mac Mini M4. If you're not doing any high end video or photo editing than most 4K monitors will suit you very well.

Consider this: a 10 Core Mac Mini M4 with 16 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD ($999 + tax) with a 32" LG 4k monitor ($331+ tax from Amazon.com)  is $1249 + tax which is $500 less than a similarly configured new 24" iMac ($1799 + tax)  re 07/2025. Keep your keyboard and mouse from your current Mac for use with the Mini. 

You can get additional RAM, 24 GB would be good for most any operation, and a more powerful CPU for about $500 more than above. I doubt you'd need the higher end CPU but you know better they kind of processing power you need than I.

I would not get any SSD less than 1 TB so you can keep a minimum of 100 GB free to facilitate optimum system and application performance.

I also have the top end 2017 iMac with an i9 CPU and my Mini configured as above runs rings around it.

I got the 32" 4K monitor as I'm losing sight and wanted to run it at a lower resolution for larger text and still have some decent screen real estate. LG is a good brand.

Just some food for thought.

Disclosure: I'm a really big fan of the new Mac Mini M4 so says Capt. Obvious.

I would not get an old 27" they use intel cpus which mean the support for newer macOS version has ended, would be silly to buy a dead platform

with a mac mini you can also replace the monitor if it become defect, can't do that with an imac really

most monitors and mice and keyboards works really, never really used the apple made stuff myself

and using adaptors just about any monitor worked fine from an asus 27" pretty new one to an old old old samsung 19" non widescreen from 2005.

Your tag line indicates that your 27" iMac is running Catalina, and you say that you can't update the OS any more. Based on that, I'm guessing that your iMac has a 2560x1440 pixel screen – not one of the 5120x2880 pixel ones (a.k.a. Retina 5K screens) that Apple used starting in Late 2014.

Monitors that have pixel density and sharpness similar to Apple's Retina screens – like the ones on 27" 5K iMacs, current Mac notebooks, and the 24" Retina 4.5K iMac – are relatively expensive and hard to find. (The Apple 27" Studio Display costs $1599+, and by the time you add in an Apple keyboard and mouse, you've spent an amount that once would have bought you an entire 27" 5K Retina iMac. Except that you still need to buy the computer!)

There are some 27" 5K monitors these days from LG, Samsung, BenQ, Asus, and ViewSonic, but I believe they're still priced much higher than most 27" 4K ones.

So a lot of people settle for 27" and 32" 4K monitors. There is a very wide selection of these out there, and some basic (but decent) 27" 4K monitors go for as little as $300 - $400 USD. That is, you could buy several for what it would cost you for a single 27" Apple Studio Display. You give up some sharpness relative to a 27" 5K monitor … but you're still talking about a monitor that has 2.25x as many pixels as a 2560x1440 one.

There are even still 27" 2560x1440 pixel monitors out there.

I'm currently using a 27" 4K monitor running in Retina "like 2560x1440" mode. Since this monitor has 2.25 times as many pixels per square inch as a real 27" 2560x1440 monitor, the Mac can draw letter shapes more precisely, and it can fill in photo areas in greater detail.

I also have the option of running the monitor in other modes – "like 1920x1080" and "like 3008x1692" being the two that are most practical.

+1

The last 27" was the 2020 Intel iMac model.

see > Identify your iMac model - Apple Support

I recommend a new M4 Mac mini with 512GB or 1T of storage space.

see > Buy Mac mini - Apple

Then get 1 or 2 non-apple 27" or 32" external display(s) to use with the new Mac mini.

see > Connect a display to Mac mini - Apple Support

Things to look for in a monitor:

• IPS panel, to support wide viewing angles
• 100% or near-100% coverage of sRGB. If the manufacturer's technical specifications do not list sRGB coverage, this is often a Bad Sign as to basic color accuracy.
• Modern inputs: DisplayPort, HDMI, and/or USB-C (DisplayPort). Many third-party monitors provide two or more inputs of two or more types. This lets you share one monitor between two computers and can also make it more likely that you can connect a monitor to your next computer.
• A height-adjustable stand that attaches to the computer via a standard VESA mount. (Most third-party monitor vendors provide this.)

Optional:

• The ability to rotate the monitor to portrait orientation (e.g., for working on long word processing documents).
• 100% or near-100% coverage of wide gamuts (DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB). DCI-P3 is from the motion picture / TV world; Adobe RGB is from the print publishing one. They overlap but are not identical.

If you were doing photography or videography for a living, there are some monitors that have very advanced color accuracy features, like the ability to store calibration profiles in the monitor, or a bundled hardware calibrator, etc. But with those, you might be talking about monitors even more expensive than the Apple Studio Display. I do not believe you are going to need those features for graduate school.

KiltedTim wrote:

Do NOT buy an intel based Mac.

To underscore this, for the benefit of the OP:

• Only a few Intel-based Macs can run the current version of macOS (macOS 26 Tahoe).
• Apple has said that Tahoe will be the last major version of macOS that will run on any Intel-based Mac.

Do NOT buy an intel based Mac.

(deleted accidental duplicate reply)