Review: M4 and M4 Pro Mac minis are probably Apple’s best Mac minis ever
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I have a stupid question: does this mean we can't plug in a ~100W external battery / power bank to make it portable? It'd be cool to combine it with VR headset/AR glasses if it could.
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A few things strike me:
1. Not sure what the point of the Snapdragon X Elite is at this point. I could see Windows users sacrificing x86 compatibility if that gained them the performance of the M4 Pro, but moving to Snapdragon really just gains you the performance of the ~M2 Pro, which isn't worth the trouble.
2. The M4 Pro is a freaking monster. To have that much power in such a small package is mind blowing.
3. Imagine if Apple tried as hard with AAA games as they try with AAA content for AppleTV+. I suspect games is the main thing holding back Mac marketshare at this point.
1. Not sure what the point of the Snapdragon X Elite is at this point. I could see Windows users sacrificing x86 compatibility if that gained them the performance of the M4 Pro, but moving to Snapdragon really just gains you the performance of the ~M2 Pro, which isn't worth the trouble.
2. The M4 Pro is a freaking monster. To have that much power in such a small package is mind blowing.
3. Imagine if Apple tried as hard with AAA games as they try with AAA content for AppleTV+. I suspect games is the main thing holding back Mac marketshare at this point.
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I think the power button is a hassle no matter where it is when the machine is attached to the back of a monitor. As long as there is physical space to get your finger in there it shouldn't be that much worse than the back (bottom?) button.
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Mine arrives tomorrow. $270 after EDU discount and trade-in of M1 mini. Absolutely insane… 
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Great article. This is the one that's going to bring me over to getting a Mac. Those benchmarks are absolutely incredible. Now I have to decide if I want the base model (which looks like a great buy) or go absolutely bonkers. Would love some input from a Mac person!
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The power brick for the iMac is, however, inline. It doesn’t take up extra space at the outlet.
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It's also Apple's first carbon-neutral Mac, which no one actually cares about.
I plan to buy one after I redo my ethernet cabling later this month.
I plan to buy one after I redo my ethernet cabling later this month.
Right, the power button placement is weird but the scattered leaves on the desk are not.
Ironic, as some would consider it more aesthetically pleasing.Andrew Cunningham said:
Bobby Womack said:
I would say get the base model. Then it can only go up from there.
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According to the specs Apple provides, the power supply inside the unit can provide up to 155W of power --> https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/specs/
Most external USB-C power adapters currently available top out at 140W, although there are some that offer 180W and even a recently announced 240W unit.
However, those external power adapters are relatively expensive.
I presume it is simply much cheaper for Apple to build in a 'traditional' power supply and then tout that you only need a simple power cable to power the unit (which also makes the setup nice and 'clean' as Apple is often wont to do).
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I don't care if I get downvoted for this, but my pet peeve response has been activated: Does the word "probably" really need to be in the headline? Is it ever possible to definitively state something without hedging? If this isn't the best Mac Mini ever, I'd like to know what is.
I especially love when reviews say something is "probably one of the best", which is just about the most non-committal pronouncement you could make.
I especially love when reviews say something is "probably one of the best", which is just about the most non-committal pronouncement you could make.
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BobbyBobberson
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Adding 16GB more RAM and 256GB more storage doubles the price?
You could get 2 of the base model for the same price as an upgraded version???
You could get 2 of the base model for the same price as an upgraded version???
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Likely headroom to support the USB/Thunderbolt power output specifications and not so much to drive the M4 chip.
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I'd guess they don't, but when you buy that many it makes your supply chain easier to have fewer SKUs - then you underuse it and run in a nice calm, clean power environment.
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Never pushing the power button on the Mac Mini would still work fine if you use your smart power strip. Just shut down the Mini from the menu option and then have the power/energy setting set to wake up on power connect. This way it will turn on when the power strip gives it power.
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Yeah the upgrade prices are heinous, as is usual for Apple. The base model is really good for $499 on the edu store, though.
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I'm waiting on my Mini M4 Pro1 to be delivered, and in the meantime I ran some basic Geek bench tests on my 2014 Intel Mini. Depending on the tests, the M4 Mini is 10 to 20 times faster than the Intel mini. I'm not sure if I can comprehend those numbers in comparison to my day to day activities.
1. I went with the M4 Pro because I have a lot of heavy image editing in my future. My new favorite film camera (Fuji GX617) can produce scans up to 900GB for a single image
1. I went with the M4 Pro because I have a lot of heavy image editing in my future. My new favorite film camera (Fuji GX617) can produce scans up to 900GB for a single image
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Wow- my shipment had been scheduled for the 18th, then this morning it was the 15th... I saw your comment and reloaded the tracking page and now apparently it's tomorrow:
China at noon with delivery the next day- that's a pretty tight margin. What a strange world we live in!
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(Warning: Anecdata ahead) I'm not too fussed about the location of the power button. It's something that I only touch very very rarely. Maybe less than 5 times a year.
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I would be fine with leaves, but they aren't leaves from an apple tree. Andrew missed an opportunity to build his PR art design portfolio
Great article, though. I'm sorely tempted to upgrade my M1.
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Apple's warehouse to house logistics is pretty amazing.
Yeah it's UPS or it's FedEx but Apple is paying for it to be this good, as opposed to some places where their logistics is "lol whatever".
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Because we don't want to use power when we don't have to? If We only use the thing for 40 hours a week, that's 6680 hours a year we're not using it, so why keep it using even standby power for the vast majority of the time?
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BTW Regarding the Dell Monitors mentioned (S2722QC) apparently lots of people have had good success with them. We got 4 for the office that all had horizontal lines- not in the LCD but it looked like the light panel had a fresnel lens with roughly horizontal shadow lines in front of it. They were mild but annoying so we returned them...but 3 of the replacements had the same issue so we ended up returning them.
The return process wasn't burdensome and didn't cost money, but the whole ordeal took almost 2 months and in the end we were left shopping for other monitors. YMMV.
The return process wasn't burdensome and didn't cost money, but the whole ordeal took almost 2 months and in the end we were left shopping for other monitors. YMMV.
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RAM is on a subcarrier bolted on the SoC package-- Nothing is going to beat that for pure access speed.
The SSD is another story. 256Gb is anemic these days, but you can install & boot off an external SSDs- so buy the $599 add an external 1Tb and you'll be set.
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I'm not going to downvote you for it, but I disagree. We live in a world of overly confident (or in some contexts, alarmist) declarations and hyperbole. The result is that people become desensitized to extreme statements, which means that when something genuinely extreme/important comes along, it's hard to communicate that. So I'm fine with erring on the side of a little bit too much caution/nuance.
Regarding the merits of this Mac mini, it's not unambiguously better than the previous version in every possible way. The power button being on the bottom is a drawback. Moving to a new form factor does make it harder for people to upgrade rack-mounted minis (they probably would have preferred Apple keep the old form factor). Those are small or irrelevant issues for most people, but it matters to some people, and so there are substantive caveats here.
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Same reason my TV isn't on when I'm not using it
That'd be too easy. I gotta go contemplate life for a while.
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Close? The handbrake charts (perhaps not the best benchmark for such things) put it at the same performance as an M4 while using twice the energy? Or you can use an M4 Pro and get it done in half the time with 25% less energy?
Doesn't seem anywhere near close to me.
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The base model here is just a fantastic machine for the money, it's such a shame that the storage upgrade is a such an incredible scam that it ruins the value proposition.
Are there any external SSD enclosures that aren't bigger and uglier than the machine itself?
Are there any external SSD enclosures that aren't bigger and uglier than the machine itself?
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I have a base model Mini coming tomorrow. Thanks to an educational discount it was only $499. I think it’s a lot of computer for $499. I have been living off my M1 Air ever since I gave my old 27” iMac to my 11 year old, and I almost bought a first gen Studio to have a little more horsepower for PhotoShop. I think Apple saved me a little money; I’m sure the M1Max is faster, but I don’t know if it’s $500 faster.
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Then you'd need a power brick. With it taking standard AC power, it becomes the power brick for other USB-C devices.
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I think there’s a bit of “under-promise, over-deliver” going on as well. I was fine with a delivery of next week, but I’m really happy it’ll be here tomorrow!
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We rack-mount these as presentation devices, so the changes are frustrating. The height increase means it won't fit in a 1U space anymore, and the power button is incredibly annoying once this is strapped into a shelf. Unlike hosting services, we're not trying to squeeze a bunch into one rack. The 3rd monitor is wonderful for us though, adds a presenter view without needing to step up to the next processor. We're stuck on Mac since Windows Update strikes at the worst time, and often disables audio or BT until the computer restarts.
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