Six months later - how does everyone feel about 16GB of RAM on the base M4 Mac Mini?

[Astrohunter]

Luckily I was able to get an amazing deal on eBay.

M4 Pro Mini 14 cores, 64GB, 1TB, 10GBe with 11 months of warranty for 1800£.
Now I should be fine for another 5-10 years.

 

[Luke MacWalker]

Last I looked, Apple laptops started at $999, so you’ve wasted your time there. Even in your price range you found a few 32GB RAM options, and 256GB SSD machines were a minority. Of course, laptops are extra-tricky to compare because of the screen - but if you shop around in the $900-$1300 price range of the MacBook Air, looking at retina-like screens you'll find a few 32GB options, almost universal minimum 512GB SSD. More to the point, you'll be able to find 32GB/1TB models for a lot less than a 32GB/1TB Mac.

As for the Mac Mini - looking somewhere like minisforum.uk which specialises in Mini PC, the minimum spec on £600-£800 machines (if you order them with RAM and SSD) is 32GB/1TB, whereas putting that spec in a Mac Mini famously doubles the price.

Upping the base ram to 16GB has kept the Mac range credible, but certainly hasn't kept it ahead of the game - and SSD capacities are still pathetic - and the problem is a mixture of the rather modest base specs and the horrendous price of BTO upgrades.

There are lots of other factors in choosing a PC, so the Mac Mini may have lots of other ticks in the "plus" column, but you can't get around the massive "minus" of overpriced/under-spec RAM and SSD.



You can't throw a brick on these forums without finding someone agonising over whether or not they need to pay $200 for an 8GB RAM upgrade and/or $200 for a SSD upgrade - when, anywhere else, either the base specs would cover that or a <=$200 option would get you both upgraded.

Potential customers should be agonising over whether they wanted to spend extra to get more cores, a Pro, or Max chip, - not whether they wanted to spend $400 on $100 worth of bog-standard LPDDR5x RAM and PCIe x4-grade Flash. Unfortunately - especially with the Mini range - Apple don't have the "discriminators" they used to get from different clock speeds, TDPs and iGPUs on Intel CPUs, so they have built an artificial pricing structure around RAM and Flash.

As for customer satisfaction - you can't satisfy someone until you've made them a customer. Try selling the virtues of a Mac Mini M4 (which should be a pretty impressive machine) to a PC user and then watch it all come to a shuddering halt when you tell them that matching the 32GB/1TB spec that their PC probably already has will double the price.

I don’t mind the base specs, they are fine, even though the SSD is rather on the small side. But the upgrade prices are crazy. For me the problem is the upgrades prices. I’ve been with Apple since the Apple //e, I know I will pay more than what I would if I chose to buy a PC, I’m fine with that, because I prefer what I get for this extra money.
Before Apple Silicon, the “best value” in the Mac lines was always the “better” option (remember the “Good”, “Better” and “Best” choices?) if your needs were a little over the most basic ones. Not any more.
If the prices of the upgrades were like 20-25% higher than the market prices for the parts (RAM and SSD), I would not think twice and buy the upgraded model. But when it is like 100% more, it’s crazy.
I know people have complained about Apple upgrades prices even before Apple Silicon. But at that time, it was possible to buy RAM and hard disks or SSD from 3rd parties, which kept Apple prices in check: they were higher than market prices, but not outrageously higher. Not anymore.

 

[theluggage]

I don’t mind the base specs, they are fine, even though the SSD is rather on the small side. But the upgrade prices are crazy. For me the problem is the upgrades prices.

Agree - if the base Mini does meet your needs and you must have a Mac then it sounds like a reasonable deal. However, for the extra money, the “better” version should be 24G/1TB - there’s no way to justify $200 for 256GB of extra Flash.

But at that time, it was possible to buy RAM and hard disks or SSD from 3rd parties, which kept Apple prices in check: they were higher than market prices, but not outrageously higher.

Actually, it’s been $200-per-8GB of extra RAM since forever (it was already bad in 2017 when I bought an 8GB iMac, and got a 3rd party 16GB kit to upgrade it to 24 for less than Apple wanted for an extra 8GB). Apart from the loss of DIY upgrades, Apple did nothing to address the falling cost (and increasing need for) RAM and SSD for the best part of a decade. The bump to 16GB base was long overdue, but wasn’t accompanied by any significant change in upgrade costs (some upgrade steps have gone down a bit, but not in general).

Part if the problem now is that the M4 is capable of much more than just entry-level “personal productivity” and the base Mini would be suitable for quite a lot of content creation and development work were it not for the limited RAM and storage.

 

[dubiousgif]

Luckily I was able to get an amazing deal on eBay.

M4 Pro Mini 14 cores, 64GB, 1TB, 10GBe with 11 months of warranty for 1800£.
Now I should be fine for another 5-10 years.

I got a secondhand 12 core, 1TB, 10GBe for $500USD.

…But it turned out to have an MDM lock.

 

[dubiousgif]

Agree - if the base Mini does meet your needs and you must have a Mac then it sounds like a reasonable deal. However, for the extra money, the “better” version should be 24G/1TB - there’s no way to justify $200 for 256GB of extra Flash.

Fortunately the M4 mini has user swappable internal storage and third party options are available for quite a bit cheaper. One 2TB is $350 vs $800 from Apple. Still quite a bit more than an NVMe SSD though.

 

[drrich2]

Actually, it’s been $200-per-8GB of extra RAM since forever

Part if the problem now is that the M4 is capable of much more than just entry-level “personal productivity” and the base Mini would be suitable for quite a lot of content creation and development work were it not for the limited RAM and storage.

Which brings up a probably unknowable, highly varied question. There seems to be a majority consensus a 16 gig RAM M4 MacMini would do fine for the new year years, perhaps even several. Experience teaches that eventually old computers get 'glitchy,' slow down, etc..., for a variety of reasons, with limited RAM often being a factor.

So 2 people with mainstream home user use cases buy these, one with 16 gig RAM and one with 24. 7 Years from now, the first guy notices when he was multiple app.s open and/or a bunch or browser windows open it bogs down, but he's pretty okay if he doesn't run much at ones. The 24 gig guy maybe doesn't have that problem, or not as much.

The 16 guy feels some pressure to upgrade; how much longer will the 24 guy keep his Mac before upgrading compared to the 16 guy.

There's no one answer and it's probably unknowable, but for people who like to keep their systems a long time, anybody care to venture some guesses? Trying to get a sense of what that $200 8-gig extra RAM upgrade buys you in real world use.

 

[theluggage]

Fortunately the M4 mini has user swappable internal storage and third party options are available for quite a bit cheaper. One 2TB is $350 vs $800 from Apple. Still quite a bit more than an NVMe SSD though.

That's a good thing, but many people will be put off by the idea of taking their shiny new Mini apart to fit an unofficial upgrade.

Still, the people making those have an excuse for the price - they're making relatively tiny batches of "boutique" circuit boards & buying small-fry quantities of flash chips. What's Apple's (4th/5th largest personal computer manufacturer in the world, probably one of the biggest buyers of flash RAM) excuse for their price?

The 16 guy feels some pressure to upgrade; how much longer will the 24 guy keep his Mac before upgrading compared to the 16 guy.

Except, Apple stuck at 8GB RAM base on the Mini from 2018 to 2024, so unless they do more to keep up in the future, you're gonna have the same "do I need more than 16GB" dilemma when you "upgrade" 4-6 years from now...

 

[Astrohunter]

I got a secondhand 12 core, 1TB, 10GBe for $500USD.

…But it turned out to have an MDM lock.

Do you mean it wasn't signed out of previous Apple ID?
When things are that cheap it's usually a red flag lol.

 

[Astrohunter]

Fortunately the M4 mini has user swappable internal storage and third party options are available for quite a bit cheaper. One 2TB is $350 vs $800 from Apple. Still quite a bit more than an NVMe SSD though.

I looked at some of the videos on how to replace SSD.
In some of the recent comments I've seen people mentioned having some issues with their Macs after latest updates.

Whether that's true I don't know.

 

[Boyd01]

Do you mean it wasn't signed out of previous Apple ID?

I think this is what they meant...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/any-way-to-wipe-corporate-mdm-rights-from-my-computer.2308871/

 

[Astrohunter]

I think this is what they meant...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/any-way-to-wipe-corporate-mdm-rights-from-my-computer.2308871/

Maybe you can ask them and work for them then. 😂

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Which brings up a probably unknowable, highly varied question. There seems to be a majority consensus a 16 gig RAM M4 MacMini would do fine for the new year years, perhaps even several. Experience teaches that eventually old computers get 'glitchy,' slow down, etc..., for a variety of reasons, with limited RAM often being a factor.

So 2 people with mainstream home user use cases buy these, one with 16 gig RAM and one with 24. 7 Years from now, the first guy notices when he was multiple app.s open and/or a bunch or browser windows open it bogs down, but he's pretty okay if he doesn't run much at ones. The 24 gig guy maybe doesn't have that problem, or not as much.

The 16 guy feels some pressure to upgrade; how much longer will the 24 guy keep his Mac before upgrading compared to the 16 guy.

There's no one answer and it's probably unknowable, but for people who like to keep their systems a long time, anybody care to venture some guesses? Trying to get a sense of what that $200 8-gig extra RAM upgrade buys you in real world use.

I just don’t think 8gb of ram is going to make that much of a difference in that case. Maybe 16 vs 32 I could see…16 to 24? Meh. And by then the base might be 128gb and 24gb is just as silly as 16gb?

 

[drrich2]

And by then the base might be 128gb

Not with Apple... 😁

As the theluggage's comment from earlier:

Except, Apple stuck at 8GB RAM base on the Mini from 2018 to 2024, so unless they do more to keep up in the future, you're gonna have the same "do I need more than 16GB" dilemma when you "upgrade" 4-6 years from now...

If history is a teacher, and Apple Intelligence doesn't create high additional RAM demand, in 7 years the base will likely be in the 24-32 gig range (and with Apple, it could even be 16, but let's hope not).

I just don’t think 8gb of ram is going to make that much of a difference in that case. Maybe 16 vs 32 I could see…16 to 24? Meh.

That may be. Got a feeling we might be finding out in 7 years...