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The next step in its big week of announcements, Apple is following up its iMac refresh news from yesterday with a much more substantial redesign. Meet the new, much tinier Mac Mini.
Credit: Apple
There are two big changes here. The first is the upgrade to the M4 series of chips, up from the M2 chip on the previous model. The second is that new, almost Apple TV-esque design. At just five by five inches, down from the nearly eight by eight measurements on the last model, this thing is small.
Part of what enables that design is a new “foot” on the bottom, which both pulls air into the device and vents it out. This improves thermal efficiency, which helps the Mac Mini be so mini.
If you raised an eyebrow at me saying “M4 series of chips” earlier, good eye. Yes, with the new Mac Mini, Apple is also expanding the M4 family with the M4 Pro, which we’ll likely see also hit MacBooks later this week or at least later in the year. While the M4 was initially revealed with an iPad, the M4 Pro is more of a power user chip, bumping the core count from a max of 10 CPU and 10 GPU cores on the base M4 to a max of 14 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores on the Pro. The new Mac Mini has options with both the regular M4 and M4 Pro, so let’s get into performance metrics.
With the regular M4, Apple is promising the new Mac Mini is 1.7 times faster in Excel than a Mac Mini with an M1 chip and 2 times faster with AI speech-to-text. With the M4 Pro, Apple goes as far as saying it can complete 3D renders in Blender 2.9 times faster than a Mac Mini with an M2 Pro can. It also says the neural engine in the M4 Pro is over three times faster than the one in the M1 Mac Mini, which will be a boon to Apple Intelligence.
There are more measurements in the announcement, but it’s best to take these kinds of manufacturer numbers with a grain of salt until reviewers can get their hands on the device themselves.
Beyond benchmarks, both the M4 and M4 Pro give the Mac Mini access to hardware-accelerated ray tracing, which gamers should enjoy, and the M4 Pro finally supports Thunderbolt 5 for speedier data transfer with compatible accessories.
The M4 Pro also brings with it support for up to 64GB of memory, and Apple fans should be able to breathe a sigh of relief: like on the new iMac, even the cheapest M4 Mac Mini starts with 16GB of memory.
Credit: Apple
Speaking of Thunderbolt 5, there are also a few new ports on the M4 Mac Mini, the most noticeable being two USB-C ports and an audio jack on the front. On the back, you get the power connector, an ethernet port that’s configurable to support up to 10Gb of bandwidth, an HDMI port, and three Thunderbolt ports (Thunderbolt 4 on the base M4 and Thunderbolt 5 on the M4 Pro). As far as display connectivity goes, the M4 can use up to two 6K displays (or one 5K display) and the M4 Pro can use up to three 6K displays (but only at 60Hz). Oddly enough, the power button is on the bottom of the device.
As a Mac, the new Mac Mini also comes with all the Apple Intelligence features in macOS Sequoia, which is interesting to note next to Apple’s promise that the new Mac Mini is the “first carbon neutral Mac,” given the high energy cost of AI.
The new Mac Mini is available for purchase now and ships on November 8. It starts at $599 for a model with a base M4 chip (albeit with maxed out cores), 16GB of memory, and 256GB storage. Conversely, it’s configurable up to $5,198, which will get you an M4 Pro chip (with maxed out cores), 64GB of memory, 8TB of storage, 10GB Ethernet, Final Cut Pro, and Logic Pro. Even the most powerful of power users will probably want to pick something in the middle—the starting cost for a model with an M4 Pro chip is $1,399. Unlike the iMac, the Mac Mini is not bundled with a magic keyboard or magic mouse. It also only comes in silver, at least for now.