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It also means any upgrades you want have to be made at the time of purchase, including $400 for additional RAM and as much as $2,400 for 8 terabytes of storage. Those are pricey additions to an already expensive computer. There’s a headphone jack on the back of the Mac Studio, but it’d be more convenient if it was right on the front alongside the USB ports. And while there’s plenty of graphics power for editing videos and photos, gamers who want the latest titles should consider a Windows gaming PC instead, since most new games that take advantage of beefy CPUs and GPUs, such as the recent hit “Elden Ring,” simply aren’t available for the Mac.

Apple’s new rivals in the buy now, pay later space have struggled in recent months as consumer spending shifts from goods to services. Other fintech and crypto companies such as Robinhood, PayPal and Coinbase have struggled this year as well. Read more about tech and crypto from CNBC Pro

The picture quality on the Studio Display is good, but it won’t blow you away. I like that text is nice and sharp thanks to the extra pixels, so people who read on their computer for hours per day might want to consider it. And while it might seem expensive, it’s a lot less than the Pro Display XDR Apple also sells, which costs $4,999 before you add in the $1,000 stand. That’s for video professionals who need a bigger, brighter, 32-inch screen and more accurate colors for work.

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5G is nice to have if you care about using your iPad outside of a Wi-Fi network, like on the bus or the train. I usually buy the cellular model because I like having that option. But 5G doesn’t offer consumers all that much yet over the older 4G LTE networks, other than faster downloads, which might be useful if you need to quickly download some movies before hopping on a flight. Just expect to pay about $150 more for the cellular version.

The Mac Studio has an excellent, compact design. It’s focused on practicality with plenty of ports to plug anything in. It’s shaped like an aluminum brick, measuring about 8 inches per side and 4 inches tall, elegantly elevated a few millimeters off the desktop for ventilation. I tested the model with Apple’s M1 Max chip, the second-fastest processor Apple makes. Unlike Apple’s laptops before last year’s models, it has plenty of practical ports: two USB-C ports and a reader for SD memory cards like cameras use on the front, and four USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, and an Ethernet and HDMI port on the back. Most people will be able to connect anything to it without a dongle.