Apple's New Mac Mini: Insane Features and Value

The new Mac Mini impressively combines ultra-compact design with powerful performance at an unbeatable price.

### Apple's New Mac Mini: A Tiny Powerhouse with Incredible Value
* 💻 The new Mac Mini has three standout features that make it an impressive update, particularly as Apple shifts its lineup to **M4 silicon** without a formal event this year.
* 📏 With a footprint of just **5x5 inches** and a height of **2 inches**, the redesigned Mac Mini is **exceptionally compact**, resembling a **shrunken Mac Studio** rather than the previous model.
* 🔌 Despite its small size, it maintains a robust array of ports, including **gigabit Ethernet**, **full-size HDMI**, **three Thunderbolt ports**, and **two USB-C ports**, though it notably lacks an **SD card reader**.
* 💰 Priced at **$599 for the base model**, the M4 Mac Mini offers incredible value, now featuring **16GB of unified memory** and a powerful **10-core CPU and GPU**, making it a strong contender for **everyday tasks and light to medium workloads**.
* 💡 Upgrading the storage or adding features can significantly increase the cost, making the base model a particularly appealing option, especially for students who can snag it for **$499**.
* 🚀 The maxed-out version of the Mac Mini serves as a **highly portable workstation**, allowing users to easily travel with a **powerful M4 Pro chip**, which can support **three 6K displays**.
* 📊 In terms of performance, the M4 Pro Mac Mini boasts the **highest CPU score of any desktop Mac to date**, showcasing the **significant advancements Apple has made with its silicon technology**.
* 🎉 Overall, the new Mac Mini exemplifies Apple's commitment to creating **compact yet powerful machines**, making it a noteworthy addition to their lineup.

[Music] [Music] So usually, one crazy thing about a new piece of tech is enough to get my attention. Just something out of the ordinary about it. But this new Mac Mini has three things about it that are insane. So instead of having an event this year, Apple decided to do a bunch of press releases in a row for the last week of October to update their whole Mac lineup to M4, and one of them was for this new Mac Mini. Now, a lot of us might not give too much thought to the Mac Mini. Like, yeah, maybe it holds an important place as the most affordable Mac, but if you're not buying one, you're not really thinking about it too much. But the number one most insane thing about this refresh is, well, I mean, look at it. It's tiny. It is absolutely tiny. Apple's gone through and redesigned basically all of their computers now that have gotten the Apple silicon update. Well, except this one. This is the same design as a while ago, but the Mac Mini was kind of technically overdue for

a redesign, and the new one it actually kind of looks a little bit more like a shrunken Mac Studio than a shrunken Old Mac Mini, but it's now a 5 in by 5 in footprint and 2 in tall. I'll say that again: a 5x 5x 2 desktop computer. Now, I like small desktops, and yes, you could get a tiny desktop computer before. There's plenty of amazing Mini ITX build videos all over the Internet that I've watched for years. They're sick. There's levels to this. There's small computers, and then there's tiny computers. This Mac Mini is smaller than my R5 with a lens on it. It's smaller than a new roll of duct tape. It's smaller than the footprint of the new iPhone and barely bigger than the absolutely tiny Apple TV. Apple seemingly had this obsession with making certain computers as small as possible even before Apple silicon came along, so this has just kind of unlocked another level for them to push it even further than ever before. Uh, yeah, there

are fans in here, uh, but there are also ports on the back, gigabit Ethernet by default, full-size HDMI still here, and then three Thunderbolt ports on the back, and then there's two USBC 3 ports on the front, front plus a headphone jack, so still no SD card reader, and there's obviously now no more usba. If you tried to build or buy another computer to match this thing, uh, you will either end up building a computer that's just as small but nowhere near as capable, or a computer that's just as capable but nowhere near as small. It's just the hilariously unnecessarily tiny computer. It's great. I would also like to start a new conspiracy theory. I would like to use this video to start a conspiracy theory. I think that there is someone whose job it is at Apple, someone whose sole purpose is to come up with one obnoxious thing to complain about for every new Apple product redesign. Like, this is the person that put the notch on the iPhone. This is the person that put the charge

port at the bottom of the Magic Mouse, and this person's best work is right here on this new Mac mini. Putting the power button on the bottom of it, like why? There are so many better places to put a power button, like at the front or the side or literally anywhere on the back like all the other small Mac desktops, or at the top. That would have been fine too, but no, they chose behind the back corner, which is just, I mean, I don't use that button very often. I don't really turn the Mac on and off with the button almost ever. Um, I might sleep it and wake it back up, and maybe every couple weeks I'll have to remember that the button's back there, but yeah, it's just dumb enough to get memed on and complained about without actually being an issue. Well played, guy. But yeah, you know the typical consequences of a computer getting smaller are battery, speakers, and thermals. There's just less room inside for those things. Battery, of course, doesn't make a huge difference on

a desktop who cares speakers kind of the same thing who cares and thermals have been redesigned in a way that seemed to be working just fine. This thing hardly gets over a peep if you do heavy stuff. The single fan spins up and you can hear it, but it's always been quiet sitting on the desk. You hardly hear it. So then the number two insane thing about the new Mac Mini is that the base model is kind of an incredible deal now. No, like I don't think you understand. I think it's actually one of the best deals in Tech. It's certainly the best side of any of Apple's new product offerings right now. And I mean I kind of not used to saying it, but it is a really good deal. So this base M4 Mac Mini costs $5.99, right? So for that you get the base computer with the M4 chip, which is quietly doubled to 16 gigs of unified memory instead of eight from before. It's the 10 core CPU and the 10 core GPU. Now we're four

generations into Apple silicon, and the gains are actually kind of starting to stack up versus M1. We already know it was a huge difference from the Intel chips, but I actually want to get a little bit more into that in the MacBook Pro review because I've been using an M1 Max MacBook Pro for 3 years since it came out, and the M4 Max is the first one that's actually tempted me to upgrade between generations of Apple silicon. It's really interesting, so get subscribed and stay tuned for that video when it comes out. But the main thing you need to know is this base M4 chip is great, super solid, and power-efficient at everyday normal activities like web browsing, music streaming, and multitasking like crazy. And it can handle what I think I would call medium-grade activities very easily, not heavy stuff like graphically intensive gaming or heavy video editing, but pretty much anything short of that. This could be a coding and developing machine. This could be a photo editing machine. Pixel Mater runs like a dream, and fun fact, Apple

just bought Pixel Mater interestingly um but yeah just having a ton of Arc tabs open stuff like that like just running around multitasking it runs like a dream it's great it's as good as you'd expect the world's fastest single-core performer to do so yeah Mac Mini you know four years like I said has been the most affordable Mac the sort of entry point for anyone to get into Mac OS but this year with the doubling of the base memory it just feels like a particularly good deal think of it this way the M4 iMac that also just got refreshed is basically the exact same computer but just in an upright desktop with a non-replaceable display that starts at $1,299 so you can use that $700 difference to kind of get whatever screen you want now you can obviously also upgrade from the base Mac Mini but I don't think you should and I'll explain why see Apple is known for building what I've called a price ladder and I'm just trying to get

you to climb as high as possible. They do this across all their products, but there's basically always a really tempting upgrade sitting right above the base model. And then when you spend that money, you're kind of right underneath another tempting upgrade. Then they kind of walk you up, trying to get you to spend as much money as possible. It's really smart. They do it with iPhones and with iPads and with everything else. This Bas Mac Mini, I'm telling you, is a good deal, but it only has 256 gigs of storage. And many people are fine with that, and they can live with that. That's great. But if you know you're going to be working with a lot of media, a lot of video, then you start looking at upgrades to the storage. And that's where you'll find that walking it up to a terabyte costs $400 more. Or if you plan to do some wired networking, bumping it up to 10 gig ethernet costs $100 more on top of that. For the price of just those

upgrades. You can almost get an entire another Mac Mini. It's crazy. Like basically across the board, Apple's upgrade pricing is pretty crazy with this computer, which is why I'm specifically saying the base model is such a good deal. And actually, if you're lucky enough to have an edu email address right now, the student discount drops it down to $4.99, which is sick. But once you know you're going to be doing upgrades to the pre-purchase spec, which you have to know before buying it because you can't upgrade it after the fact, all the memory, everything is built in. Um, then it becomes more of a normal deal. I do want to say this though, so the third and final crazy thing about this Mac Mini is that the maxed-out version has a case for the best portable workstation Mac. Now, this doesn't apply to everybody. This is coming from me, someone who used to drag an iMac Pro in a Pelican case through the airport to events because it was the fastest editing machine that I

could reasonably travel with, and it actually made sense for me. So, coming from that perspective, this new Mac Mini is sick. So, looking at the Mac Studios, those aren't upgraded to M4 yet. They've all got the M2 generation, and it's also not going to be the Mac Pro, which is also still on the M2 generation and obviously not portable. The iMac is on M4, but there's no Pro chips, so it's just the base M4 chip. So, this Mac Mini is the easiest way to pack an M4 Pro chip with you and just throw it in a travel bag super easily. An equivalent spec MacBook Pro with M4 Pro starts at $2,000, which is actually another decently good deal as far as performance. But if you don't need a laptop or if you just want to plug and play into monitors wherever you go, $1,399 gets you the M4 Pro Mac Mini. And that upgrade also gets you the back Thunderbolt ports being Thunderbolt 5 instead of Thunderbolt 4, so it can

support three 6K displays instead of two. So, I've had and been testing the M4 Pro here with 48 gigs of memory. And fun fact, if you run through some synthetic benchmarks, this runs up the highest CPU score of any desktop Mac ever. That includes the Mac Pro and the Mac Studios and all of them. This is by far the most powerful single core we've ever seen by a lot. And then multi-core just barely tops Geekbench's all-time Mac list. Though, as we know, CPU doesn't really bump up all that much when you go from base to Pro to Max to Ultra. It's way more GPU stuff. And so, when you look at GPU benchmarks, the most powerful Mac Mini here with the M4 Pro, it was putting up M1 Max numbers. Which again shows how much these generations over time have been improving and stacking on top of each other. I've been editing videos on an M1 Max laptop for 3 years now on the MacBook Pro. So, this Mac Mini feels like one of those impossibly small

computers. Apple's like always kind of wanted to make even before APPA silicon. Like you probably remember some of their earlier attempts like the trash can Mac Pro. No doubt they wanted to do something crazy. They wanted to put a workstation class computer on the desk cooled by a single fan. We saw how that went with the Intel chip inside or even some of those razor-thin I9 MacBook Pros that started having overheating issues. But now that Apple silicon has gotten this good and this efficient over time, they're actually able to make tiny powerful computers like the Mac Studio and now like this Little Mac Mini over here. Nobody was asking for the Mac Mini to be even smaller except for those people in The Spaceship Campus somewhere in California. Well played, well played. Thanks for watching. Catch you guys in the next one. Peace. [Music]

The M4 Mac Mini is Incredible!

Marques Brownlee

The new Mac Mini has a tiny footprint of 5x5x2 inches, making it smaller than an iPhone and a roll of duct tape.

It features a unique design, with the same exterior as its predecessor, but now offers gigabit Ethernet, full-size HDMI, three Thunderbolt ports, and two USB-C 3 ports.

The Mac Mini's compact size and impressive capabilities make it a standout in Apple's lineup, pushing the boundaries of what a desktop computer can be.

The power button's placement on the back corner of the new Mac Mini has drawn criticism, but it hasn't been a major issue.

The computer's smaller size has not significantly impacted its performance, with the fan quietly handling heavy tasks.

The base model, now priced at $599, offers an impressive deal with the M4 chip, 16GB of unified memory, and the ability to handle medium-grade activities like coding and photo editing with ease.

The Mac Mini's Great Deal and Apple's Pricing Strategy

The Mac Mini has been the most affordable entry point for Mac OS, and this year's refresh with doubled base memory makes it an even better deal.

The $700 difference between the Mac Mini and the M4 iMac offers flexibility in choosing a screen.

Apple's pricing strategy creates a tempting upgrade path, encouraging customers to spend more as they seek additional features like increased storage and 10 gig ethernet.

The Mac Mini's Impressive Value and Portability

The Mac Mini's upgrade pricing is notably high, making the base model an excellent deal, especially with a student discount.

The maxed-out version of the Mac Mini offers the best portable workstation option, ideal for those who need to travel with powerful computing.

With the M4 Pro chip, the Mac Mini provides a cost-effective alternative to the MacBook Pro, offering similar performance for a lower price and with the added benefit of Thunderbolt 5 ports.

The M4 Pro Mac Mini supports three 6K displays and has the highest CPU score of any desktop Mac ever.

Its GPU performance matches that of the M1 Max, showcasing the improvement and stacking of power across generations.

Apple's silicon has become so efficient that they can now create tiny, powerful computers like the Mac Mini and Mac Studio.