Apple Announces Redesigned Mac Mini With M4 and M4 Pro Chips, Two Front USB-C Ports, and More

[Defender Stargate]

Been waiting for one of these as my 2017 27" iMac no longer supports any software upgrades. I currently run a 2TB SSD external hard drive with MacOS on it and all of my work files are held in Dropbox.

Would the 256GB for all the apps (Adobe Creative Cloud + MS Office mainly) with the 2TB plugged in for my files be fine do you think or pay the £200 extra for the 512GB?

I also have 40GB RAM in this iMac (i5 3.8 2017) but presumably the faster Apple Silicon M4 chip and 16GB RAM will still be loads faster?

I would definitely get at least the 512 SSD. I have 256 on my older Mini now and frequently run into space issues and have to move things to other drives, including the downloads folder. And you want this new machine to last you for years.

I also would be quite wary of dropping your RAM like that, and would go with the next step up 24GB or 32GB.

 

[adampao]

Aren't you afraid of having all power coming from one power outlet?

I will mount mine under my desk if I get one, there will be mounts made for this little thing in days I expect. My work laptop is mounted under there already, add one more under there. With a nice cable tray my standing desk is crazy clean for having 6 screens on it and two full keyboard and mouse setups. I have about 200 feet of cables hidden under there... Only one wire headed to the power outlet coming off my desk.

Then the power button will be simple to hit at least

 

[Jamie0003]

Really want one, but only if it’s possible to upgrade the storage like you can with the studio.

Also, I was kinda hoping it could be powered using its usb c ports, bit of a shame

 

[cocoua]

Wait M4 is just 1.8x faster than M1?..

 

[Kendo]

Wait M4 is just 1.8x faster than M1?..

Thats 80% faster. Most CPU upgrades (particularly the Intel days) would be a 10-15% increase between generations. After 3 generations, M1 went from a 2200 Geekbench 6 to 3600 for the M4. What were you expecting?

 

[Paolo T]

When will we finally see a phone as small as a desktop computer???

 

[Takeo Apple]

No 32GB RAM option on the Pro, 24GB as standard, or £400 more for the next upgrade. Typical apple ********...

View attachment 2443733

no this is not comparable AT ALL with RAM on PCs - this is fully addressable RAM for AI LLM training etc. - like VRAM on NVIDIA cards.

 

[Takeo Apple]

Wait M4 is just 1.8x faster than M1?..

"just"? seriously?

 

[HiVolt]

I still balk at paying £200 for 256GB of extra storage... I find that criminal and I'd like to have words with the specific person at Apple who signs off on that level of gouging.. but I do want one.

For that reason i used the education store to order my M4 Mini 16/512. they are gouging for this, so i don't feel bad of gouging them back just a little.

 

[Paolo T]

Bottom. Odd place to put the power button.

We use the Power button so rarely, today, that it is the right place where to hide it.

 

[Takeo Apple]

We use the Power button so rarely, today, that it is the right place where to hide it.

Apple used to have the button on the keyboard - I miss that.

 

[Cod3rror]

"just"? seriously?

To be honest, "1.8x" really does not sound impressive "on paper".

Thats 80% faster. Most CPU upgrades (particularly the Intel days) would be a 10-15% increase between generations. After 3 generations, M1 went from a 2200 Geekbench 6 to 3600 for the M4. What were you expecting?

80% faster. That is impressive sounding. That means they made 20% gain in performance from generation to generation. Again, very impressive.

A rookie mistake by Apple? Or they are too honest (which is also a mistake)?

 

[mansplains]

Convenience. Most people don't use headphone amps or DAC's.

Especially as they become less necessary, as the included headphone jacks have improved since Mac mini M2:

 

[darkmatter343]

Why is it that Apple isn’t releasing these immediately? What’s with the pre-order wait of almost 2 weeks? While I can understand them doing that for iPhone drops, you’d think they’d just start selling the new Mac’s day of announcement or least this Friday.

 

[Tagbert]

Why is it that Apple isn’t releasing these immediately? What’s with the pre-order wait of almost 2 weeks? While I can understand them doing that for iPhone drops, you’d think they’d just start selling the new Mac’s day of announcement or least this Friday.

They have started sending more devices over from China on ships rather than on planes. It’s better for CO2 but it does slow down the initial pipeline fulfillment.

 

[heyyoudvd]

This is pretty tempting, especially at the edu pricing.

I just wish Apple didn’t engage in such blatant price gouging with SSDs and RAM. I’d expect the ‘Apple tax’ to be 50%, maybe even 100% markup. But Apple is charging over 500% markup on RAM and storage upgrades. That’s just obscene.


For anyone who uses an external SSD, how is it? Are there any limitations or performance issues?

I’ve never owned a Mac before but I’m considering getting a Mac mini to complement my gaming pc.

Can I place my iTunes library on an external SSD? What about photos?

Also, is it possible to use the same external SSD for both a Mac and a PC? For example, can I load both my iTunes Library for a Mac mini and my Steam library for my gaming PC, and then use the same external SSD for both machines, or is that not possible?

 

[ender78]

Y'all finally got TB5. Now we can move on.

This is a potential game changer for external storage expansion. Too bad there are no peripherals yet, CES2025 is gonna be busy for releases of TB5 storage.

 

[ThomasJL]

Tim Cook probably wanted the Mac mini to be smaller in order to justify his corporate greed/environmetally unfriendly/anti-consumer practice of making computers with non-upgradable RAM and non-upgradable SSDs.

 

[ender78]

$800 to go from 256gb to 2TB

That's about a 5x markup

Just incredible that they won't relent on that in the slightest

You and I don't agree often, but we do here. SSD pricing is my biggest gripe with Apple's pricing.

 

[ender78]

Hopefully we see some nice matching TB docks that slot under or on top and have an NVMe slot(s)

All the ones out today kinda suck, limited to 10Gbps. I want someone to make a dock that will take 3-4 M.2 SSDs and have active cooling (all my external enclosures with M.2 driver run much warmer than I'd like). I'll pay $600-800 for the enclosure if it can sustain TB4/5 speeds on the M.2 drives. There is no 40Gbs (TB4/USB4) external drive enclosure that I have found in a dock form factor.

 

[SousVide]

I was quite surprised when I saw that cooling design. I’m sure they have thought it through but it does look a bit odd having the in and out airflows so close together on the same base because it’s almost certainly going to suck in some of its hot air.

Excellent point. I look forward to thermal performance testing. Previous Mac Mini has the air intake along the base but exhaust is out the back. Mac Studio air inflow is also around the circular base and outflow out the back. The new Mini thermal design is completely new as both the inflow and outflow rely on the small perforated circular base.

 

[840quadra]

When will we finally see a phone as small as a desktop computer???

Others already do this. Samsung has had DEX on their devices for quite a few years now.

Really wish Apple would implement something similar. it is well overdue.

Really want one, but only if it’s possible to upgrade the storage like you can with the studio.

Also, I was kinda hoping it could be powered using its usb c ports, bit of a shame

A small M.2 enclosure and Thunderbolt cable can quickly expand storage. Not as clean as internal, but if you tuck your mini away like many of us do, the little extra cable + device is a non issue.

 

[bp1000]

Their upgrade pricing is crazy but I've found my iMac and MacBook Pro lasted so long I'd have purchased 2 or maybe 3 PC's in the sane timeframe. Long term, they have been value for me.

 

[ender78]

It's poor design. The audio jack and power button should both be on the back, there is room.

Why would you put the headphone jack on the back, it's meant to plug in headphones, why would I reach around to the back of the unit to plug in headphones.

 

[ender78]

That doesn't sound like it's worth upgrading from an M2 mini.

We should start treating computers like cars. Know many people that buy a new car every year? The base performance of computers for many people today is fine. I know plenty of people that upgrade their computers every 7-8 years and could care less. They see zero need to upgrade.