This is the M4 Mac Mini, and yes, it can fit in your hand, or at least my hand, but what's more impressive is just how much smaller it is than the last one. And it can still be everything from an everyday home office computer to a full-on

professional content creation machine. I got to spend some time with one, so let me give you a quick tour of what it can do. The M4 Mac Mini is considerably smaller than the M2 version, but for reference, it's still bigger than the Apple TV 4K, which it should be

considering what's inside of it. The base model is $599 for an M4 chip, 16 gigs of unified memory, and a 256 gig SSD. The storage capacity is the weakest part of this configuration, and everything costs $200 for an incremental upgrade. So for

example, 24 gigs of memory is an additional $200, 512 gig SSD is an additional $200, and so on. The biggest price jump is moving up from the M4 chip to the M4 Pro though, and that starts at $1,399. Fully loaded is

$4,700, but I'm attracted to the platform's flexibility. So you can start at a reasonable $600 and then load it up for your needs. Also, this is the first Mac Mini to support connecting three displays. If you get an M4 Pro model with

Thunderbolt 5 ports, you can get three displays at up to 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt or HDMI. The standard M4 can also support three displays, but with a mix of lower resolutions. As for the M4 performance, the mini it tested

out was essentially the base model, and it's an improvement on the M3 and a big jump from the M1 as Apple's chips go. Also, after the M4 Mac Mini was announced, there was some chatter about how it could be Apple's game console, and Apple

has continued to push Macs for gaming, but unless you're going to pay for the M4 Pro, the M4 is best for casual gaming. If you caught my video for the M4 MacBook Pro, many of you called out my game choice as well, not the

best, and a couple of you were even polite about it. So this time, I'm going to show you a game that's actually a [Music] challenge. Just kidding. Let me load up a Shadow of the Tomb Raider built-in benchmark and show you what that could

do at 1440p and high graphics quality. It gets around 30 frames per second. You can drop to 1080p and it gets a little smoother, but really, you have to drop the quality to medium for it to be enjoyable.

Yes, it's an older game, but the same was true for Baldur's Gate 3. But this also brings me to the biggest wrinkle regardless of performance, and that is that there's just not a great current game selection for Mac OS unless you

lean toward mobile-friendly indie games. Now speaking of Mac OS, the M4 mini arrived at the same time as macOS 15 Sonoma, and Apple introduced the company's personal, private AI designed to help you with everyday tasks. Sonoma has some interesting new tools like iPhone

mirroring which puts your iPhone on your display giving you access to anything on it Apple's intelligence on the Mac Mini is a bit more exciting to play with and its tools are a good fit if you're considering this for home office use or as a family computer a lot of the tools

are geared toward helping you get through work or tackle an endless to-do list faster two of my favorite features though are in the photos app one is cleanup which lets you quickly remove things like people or objects from photos it's similar to AI tools from Google Adobe and others and Apple's is

pretty good with its fixes but not always perfect which is the case with the competition too the other tool is natural language search for example once my small photo library was indexed I searched for cocktails and found pictures of drinks and people drinking but adding recipe to the search terms

and then whiskey brought up the image I was hunting for a picture of a cocktail recipe and this is all without me ever tagging a single photo with any info if you're more organized than I am and assign names to people the search is even more powerful so is the M4 Mac Mini

worth getting if you're looking for a home office computer a home entertainment machine or a system for live streaming podcasting or other content creation the M4 Mac Mini can do all of that you'll get the best of what Mac OS Sequoia and Apple intelligence

have to offer in a tiny box and at a reasonable starting price and it's so compact that it's highly portable too though uh admittedly the battery life is terrible because well it's a desktop and all you get a good port assortment including two USBC ports in front for

the first time support for three displays is also a first the power button is awkwardly placed on the bottom but not exactly a tragedy though it might make mounting a little trickier the price does ratchet up quickly from $599 though so even doubling the paltry

$256 gig SSD will bring it up to $800 you should definitely consider increasing the amount of memory before rushing to the $1,399 M4 pro model though unless you need the extra graphics performance and better display support anyway that's it

for me let me know what you think in the comments preferably about the Mac Mini but I do appreciate you keeping me honest you can see the full reviews of all the new M4 Max at cnet.com thanks for watching and you'll see me when you see

Apple's M4 Mac Mini Is a Big Surprise

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Small size, versatile for home office or professional use.

Considerably smaller than the M2 version, but larger than Apple TV 4K.

Base model: $599 (M4 chip, 16GB memory, 256GB SSD). Storage upgrades are $200 increments.

M4 Pro model starts at $1399; fully loaded is $4700.

First Mac Mini to support three displays (up to 6K resolution with M4 Pro).

Base model M4 performance is an improvement over M3 and a significant jump from M1.

Suitable for casual gaming (M4); M4 Pro recommended for more demanding games.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark at 1440p high: ~30fps.

Limited current game selection for macOS, except for mobile-friendly indie games.

Released alongside macOS 15 Sonoma, featuring Apple's personal AI.

AI tools are geared towards home office or family use, improving productivity.

Photos app features: cleanup (removing objects/people) and natural language search.

Powerful search functionality, especially with tagged photos.

Suitable for home office, entertainment, live streaming, and content creation.

Compact and portable; poor battery life (desktop).

Good port selection (including two front USB-C ports); awkwardly placed power button.

Price increases rapidly; consider memory upgrades before M4 Pro.

Apple's M4 Mac Mini Is a Big Surprise

Apple's M4 Mac Mini Is a Big Surprise

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