Quick review
The good
The not-so-good
Macs may well be high-end devices, but the M4 Mac Mini shows how a company can achieve pint-size performance and perfection.
It probably goes without saying that the fastest computers in the world are likely to be among the most expensive, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen a push from manufacturers to get high-speed tech into more economical hardware, and that’s definitely the case with what Apple has been doing in the “mini” range.
Small in size and price, the Mac Mini is a bit of an underdog. Sure, you need to bring your own display, keyboard, and mouse, but for the past few years, it has also been basically a desktop version of a MacBook.
In this year’s update, Apple is keeping things the same, while reinventing the look and feel so that the Mini is truly miniature in size.
Design
It’s been a few years since Apple redesigned the Mac Mini, but it’s time for something new, and what a redesign this new model is.
Instead of taking a computer with the same footprint of the Mac Studio but slimmer, the 2024 Mac Mini is different, wedged somewhere between the smaller Apple TV and the larger Mac Studio.
All metal and just as clever as you’d expect a Mac design to be, the 2024 Mac Mini is basically what happens when Apple decides to follow-up on the naming convention of a so-called “mini” device, and actually do that.
This is a miniature Mac, make no mistake of it. Measuring 12.7cm by 12.7cm (5 in x 5 in) with a height of just under 5cm (4.97cm or 1.96 in), it’s smaller than 19.7cm square of the original, and manages to weigh less, too. The M4 Mac Mini standard we’re reviewing is 670 grams compared to 1.18kg of the original.
In short, the new Mac Mini is roughly half the weight of its predecessor. That is truly mini by comparison.
Features
The design might be smaller, but the feature set seems just as big and impactful, delivering a lot of hardware in a tiny package.
You’ll find a choice of either an M4 or M4 Pro in the 2024 Mini, with up to 64GB RAM and a starting amount of 16GB, plus up to 8TB of storage, though it starts at 256GB. For the purposes of this review, we’re looking at the 16GB M4 with 512GB storage.
On the processor side of things, there’s a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU, as well as a 16-core Neural Engine, though those who opt for the M4 Pro will find up to a 14-core CPU and up to a 20-core GPU.
Support for wireless is covered with Bluetooth 5.3 and 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax WiFi 6E in this computer, while wired is delivered using three Type C Thunderbolt 4 ports on the back alongside an HDMI port and a Gigabit Ethernet port. The front offers two USB-C ports.
If you manage to get the M4 Pro edition, those three rear Thunderbolt 4 ports become Thunderbolt 5, handy if you need the extra bandwidth with newer gadgets.
In-use
Unlike most of Apple’s other Macs, there’s no display that comes with the Mac Mini, so you’ll need to bring that yourself.
Very much a BYO Mac, the Mac Mini needs you to have a screen nearby, be it HDMI or something made for the modern Type-C DisplayPort technology. Fortunately, the choice of either means most screens from the past decade should be fine.
Plugging it in and turning it on is pretty easy, too: grab the figure-eight cable, plug it into the computer and the wall, and from there you really just need a keyboard and mouse to get going.
We use a Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad (actually Lightning models, we’ve not yet upgraded to the newer USB-C versions released this year), and you can actually sync them with the new computer without plugging in a cord. Switch the keyboard and mouse off and then on as the Mac Mini is starting up (or just after), and it will search for the devices even without a cable being plugged in. It’s that easy.
From there, you’re ready to start setting up your Mac, which will be used with all of these peripherals.
It doesn’t take long, either. Connect it to your WiFi (or don’t), and then start using the computer. It’s a cinch.
Performance
Testing the M4 Mac Mini with a variety of applications, we found its performance was unsurprising in the best way possible: it’s fast.
You wouldn’t expect a new computer from Apple to be slow, and the M4 Mac Mini certainly isn’t. Testing it with both some image editing and AI processing, we saw the system handle its own, and it was ready for us to give it plenty of Xcode love in our app development processes, as well.
Putting the M4 chip inside to the test with our benchmarks also showed the hardware has what it takes to really take over from the previously excellent M2 Mac Mini, which was originally found in a larger shell.
Before this, you wouldn’t have exactly called the M2 Mac Mini a large computer, but Apple has some how made the M4 equivalent smaller and equally more capable. It’s the same chip used in the M4 iPad Pro, and understandably, we already know it’s no slouch.
On a benchmark level, the M4 Mac Mini sees nearly twice the CPU performance of its M2 sibling entirely, and it’s much the same when checking out the graphical bencmarks.
Unbelievably, that’s still with the same amount of memory: 16GB RAM. It’s not as if Apple is cheating with memory, the M4 really sees close to double the performance of its M2 predecessor. It is staggering.
For folks curious how the pint-sized Mac Mini compares against different Macs, particularly the Studio or MacBook Pro variety, we’ve tested that, too.
The most recent incarnation of the M2 Max Mac Studio shows the M4 Mac Mini can handle nearly identical CPU benchmarks, though doesn’t quite have the guts to compete in a graphical prowess battle.
Showing just how different the Pro and Max variants of Apple Silicon hardware, the M2 Max, M3 Max, and M4 Pro chips all have more going for them in graphical grunt than the standard M4 on the Mac Mini, even if the CPU performance isn’t entirely far off.
What does this mean for most people? Probably not a lot, to be honest.
We doubt the M4 Mac Mini will replace a Studio or MacBook Pro setup, and if you need it to, you can find a slightly more expensive M4 Pro variety of the Mac Mini, which will likely pack in the necessary form of grunt, at least until an M4 Max Mac Studio arrives possibly sometime in 2025.
Value
One thing Apple gets completely right with the Mac Mini, continually so, is the price.
Starting from $999 for a 256GB Mac Mini with 16GB RAM, Apple’s least expensive Mac is now one of the most capable compact and inexpensive computers on the market.
Granted, you’ll need to spend over $2K if you want the more impressive M4 Pro with Thunderbolt 5, the latter of which is one of those extras you only get on the M4 Pro version, but for most people, the standard model is plenty.
The design is solid, the inclusion of five USB/Thunderbolt ports is handy, and you get one of the most impressive sets of performance you can find on a computer this size. We’re not sure any other computer maker has anything remotely able to compete.
What needs work?
Despite this, there are two points worth talking about. Neither is a deal breaker, but they are worth mentioning, and neither is the power button on the bottom of the computer.
Contrary to commentary online, the power button’s position on the bottom of the Mac Mini is a non-issue. These days, Macs (like most computers) are largely designed so you don’t have to turn them off.
A power button on the bottom might be a touch inconvenient the few times you might need to touch it, but when was the last time you turned off your computer? If you’re anything like most people, the answer is rarely. It’s not an issue.
What might be an issue is the lack of upgradability, which isn’t new for Apple, and certainly not for the Mac Mini range, but can still pose a problem for some.
When you buy the Mac Mini, that’s the way it will be configured for the life of the hardware. All Macs come with a minimum of 16GB RAM due to the requirements of Apple Intelligence, but if you need more, you need to configure that in the very beginning, and the same is true with storage.
Sure, you can technically upgrade storage using USB-C and Thunderbolt, but it will only ever be external storage. If you need more than 256GB, you need to configure that when buying the Mac Mini. There are no internal upgrades in this computer; every upgrade past purchase is an external expansion.
You may as well include speakers in that, too.
Like the previous Mac Mini range, the included internal speakers are not fantastic, and basically beckon you to replace them with something else.
That might be a solid external two channel wired system you can plug into the headphone jack on the front (which will look weird, but whatever), or it could be a wireless option such as a pair of HomePods. It might even be that you skip the speakers and just send audio from the Mac Mini to a pair of AirPods Pro or AirPods Max: wireless audio works a treat with Apple AirPods, much like it does on any other Mac, iPad, or iPhone.
None of these are deal breakers per se, either. Just things worth being aware of before you check out Apple’s least expensive Mac.
Final thoughts (TLDR)
However, as Apple’s least expensive Mac, it nails a brief in ways you may not expect.
Sure, the Mac Mini is relatively inexpensive Mac provided you bring with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to the package yourself, but it’s also the totality of what it brings that makes the Mac Mini so damn magical.
For the price of admission, you get a computer that is:
- Fast
- Compact
- Capable, and
- Surprisingly ready for anything.
The redesign is clever and the feature set better than it probably should be. It’s a mini but mighty computer and an example of pint-size perfection. Highly recommended.
