M4 Mac Mini: A “Mini” Review
“BYOKM” became instantly popular in the early 2000s with the launch of the first-ever Mac Mini in 2005. The marketing genius Steve Jobs designed this phrase to attract Windows users at the time to switch to the most affordable Mac just by upgrading their existing peripherals to the sweet side.
It’s been 21 years since its debut, and now the M4 Mac Mini is going to make it popular once again. Here’s a rundown of the all-new Mac Mini…
The “Mini” Design:
The Mac Mini from its launch back in 2005 was a minuscule machine, which was introduced to compete with the affordable Windows computers of the time. Apple designed it, in such a way that it wouldn’t look large in anyone’s dining room and would have a minimal footprint. But 21 years into its lifetime, the Mac Mini didn’t have any major changes to differentiate it from previous generations. While other Apple products had a design change every 6–7 years, it only had its internals bumped up to modern specifications. Even the I/O mostly remained the same till 2023. Heck! Even with the upgrade to Apple Silicon, the Cupertino giant only repurposed the internal space for better cooling.
But now in 2024, the Mac Mini has got its fair share of treatment & here’s even a smaller one. Now, the Mac Mini is a 5' x 5' x 2' cuboid, which is even smaller than an iPhone in overall footprint. It’s updated to look more modern and has better I/O than before. It’s just elevated from the bottom by a fan plate for efficient cooling and is now truly acclimatised for efficiently storing the SoC without any loss in space.
And coming to the I/O, it has got a decent amount. The front is covered with two USB-C ports & a headphone jack, while the back is provided with three Thunderbolt 4 ports (Thunderbolt 5 if you’re upgrading to the M4 Pro SoC), an HDMI port, a Gigabit Ethernet port with the power port completing the set. While all this was on the outside, there’s a meaningful upgrade to the inside as well.
The Performance:
While we all have been hearing the praises of the incredible M1 chip on the internet, the M4 chip, which was first introduced in this year’s iPad Pro, feels like an actual meaningful upgrade from the latter. It is promising to deliver two times more performance on paper & as per synthetic benchmarks & it’s proving its worth. And for those who are looking for a chip upgrade from any M1 Mac, this year will be a great one to do as now with all Macs, you’re getting 16GB as the default RAM option, which was previously an expensive upgrade.
While the M4 might not be the best in terms of GPU compared to the M1 Pro or M1 Max, the M4 Pro, which also comes with the Mac Mini will be great for workflows, which are very dependent on graphic requirements or media transfusion. And the benchmarks are so promising that the smaller Mac Mini with M4 Pro easily beats its larger cousin, the Mac Studio with M2 lineup of SoCs. And talking about performance, this chip can now also drive three 6K 60Hz displays simultaneously, which is a testament to the fact of how well made these are. And if you’re someone who uses Apple apps either for regular or professional use, you might be astonished to see their efficiency as it would be easy on your bills.
A ‘Conspiracy’:
At this point of time in the blog, I’m just going to highlight a conspiracy theory which have been floating a lot over the internet and feels a bit fun to share. If you just wanted to know about the Mac Mini and have time constraints, we will meet next time.
But those are here to read more (well, thanks) here’s the theory for ya…
The internet now thinks that Apple has hired individuals who only has the work to make a product controversial with some unique catch in the product. Take the notch in the iPhone or the bottom mounted charging port in the Magic Mouse for example. Similar to those, the new Mac Mini from now on has a bottom mounted power button. Is it really big deal? Well no. But is it stupid. Yes.
I guess, Apple just wants to be in the meme world by any reason. Until we meet the next time. Bye!
