Apple Mac mini (M4, 2024): the best gets better

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Two-minute review

The caller Mac mini (M4, 2024) doesn’t conscionable beryllium that bully things travel successful mini packages – it besides confirms nan aged adage that bully things travel to those who wait.

That’s because ever since Apple’s alternatively unusual determination to debut nan M4 spot successful nan iPad Pro successful early 2024, myself – and I’m judge different Mac fans – person been not-so-patiently waiting for Apple devices that tin return afloat advantage of nan M4 chip (as good arsenic nan iPad Pro is, you tin only tally iPadOS apps connected it – which by their very quality are not that demanding).

The truth that Apple has launched a caller Mac mini that not only comes pinch nan caller M4 spot (or nan much powerful M4 Pro), but has redesigned it to beryllium smaller than ever – while besides keeping nan value of introduction nan aforesaid – is incredibly exciting. In my review of nan Mac mini (2023), I gave a uncommon 5 stars and called it nan champion mini PC you tin buy, and moreover earlier nan motorboat I was banging connected astir really immoderate rumored caller Mac mini for 2024 would beryllium much breathtaking than caller MacBooks.

Now that I’ve really sewage nan Mac mini (M4, 2024) successful my hands (and connected my desk), I’m pleased to opportunity that I’ve not been disappointed, and erstwhile again nan Mac mini is nan astir affordable measurement to get into nan Mac ecosystem, while besides proving that if you’re looking for a small shape facet desktop PC, there’s not a azygous Windows 11 PC retired location that tin moreover travel close.

Perhaps nan champion news (apart from nan specified truth that nan M4 Mac mini exists) is that Apple has kept nan value of nan guidelines exemplary astatine conscionable $599 / £599 / AU$999, a invited determination that—combined pinch nan caller creation and improved specs—means nan Mac mini is now amended worth than ever. If you’ve been keen to subordinate nan macOS ecosystem but can’t spend a MacBook aliases iMac, past nan Mac mini remains an fantabulous choice.

For group aft moreover much power, there’s an M4 Pro exemplary arsenic good that costs $1,399 / £1,399 / AU$2,199. Both models travel pinch 16GB unified representation arsenic modular (double nan magnitude arsenic nan erstwhile model), and will person Apple Intelligence AI features arsenic they are rolled out.

Not only do you get nan latest portion of Apple Silicon pinch nan caller Mac mini, but it has besides had a awesome redesign – its biggest successful complete a decade – making it much compact than ever. It’s earnestly awesome really mini nan caller Mac mini is, and it makes placing it successful immoderate room of your location (or office) easier than ever. Thanks to 2 USB-C ports astatine nan front, nan Mac mini (M4, 2024) is an perfect mini PC for your beforehand room – particularly arsenic gaming is simply a renewed attraction for Apple. This could beryllium nan closest we ever travel to an Apple games console – and pinch a value tag beneath nan PS5 Pro, this could beryllium nan commencement of a resurgence for Mac gaming.

From my clip pinch nan Mac mini I was incredibly impressed pinch nan capacity of this mini PC. The latest type of macOS, Sequoia, ran smoothly, and moreover precocious tasks specified arsenic video editing were handled pinch easiness – and nan Mac mini kept virtually silent throughout. The exemplary I reviewed is nan M4 version, and to beryllium honorable it performed truthful good for each nan tasks I utilized it for that I would urge this exemplary complete nan acold much costly M4 Pro iteration.

So, Apple has done it again: it’s released nan champion mini shape facet PC successful nan world, and I can’t spot Windows 11 aliases Linux alternatives coming adjacent to nan build quality, capacity and worth for money of nan caller Mac mini for a long, agelong time. If ever.

Mac mini (M4, 2024) (M4 Pro, 2024) review: Price and availability

• Starts astatine $599 / £599 / AU$999
• Same value arsenic M2 model
• M4 Pro exemplary overmuch much costly astatine $1,399 / £1,399 / AU$2,199

When nan Mac mini (M4, 2024) was announced and pre-orders went unrecorded connected October 29, 2024, 1 of nan astir pleasant surprises was that nan guidelines M4 exemplary comes pinch nan aforesaid value tag arsenic nan M2 exemplary - starting astatine $599 / £599 / AU$999.

The M2 Mac mini already represented fantabulous worth for money – it would beryllium highly difficult to find a compact Windows 11 PC astatine that value scope that offered nan aforesaid level of capacity – truthful nan truth that you’re getting an upgrade successful some capacity and creation for nary other costs is thing to applaud – though if you precocious bought an M2 Mac mini, you mightiness consciousness a spot aggrieved.

The M4 spot wrong nan Mac mini is nan aforesaid arsenic nan 1 successful overmuch much costly devices, including nan iPad Pro (starting astatine $1,299 / £1,299 / AU $2,199), iMac ($1,299 / £1,299 / AU$1,999) and 14-inch MacBook Pro ($1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,499). Sure, pinch nan Mac mini you don’t get a screen, nor do you person nan expertise to activity connected it while traveling, but offering nan aforesaid magnitude of powerfulness for astir half nan value still represents unthinkable worth for money.

The M4 spot features up to a 10-core CPU (4 capacity cores and 6 ratio cores) and a 10-core GPU, up from nan 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU of nan guidelines M3 spot (Apple ne'er released a Mac mini pinch nan M3, it should beryllium noted), and supports up to 38 trillion operations per 2nd (TOPS) successful its 16-core neural motor (Apple's type of an NPU) - truthful erstwhile Apple Intelligence, nan company’s generative AI (artificial intelligence) characteristic does travel to macOS, nan M4 Mac mini will beryllium much than prepared.

It’s not conscionable nan M4 spot that brings a capacity upgrade, arsenic nan guidelines exemplary now comes pinch 16GB of unified memory, doubly that of nan M2 Mac mini’s guidelines model. Not only does this mean nan caller Mac mini is overmuch amended astatine multitasking (as there’s much representation to support aggregate apps moving astatine once), but it’s besides much future-proof.

You tin besides get nan caller Mac mini pinch nan much powerful M4 Pro chip, which starts astatine $1,399 / £1,399 / AU$2,199. That’s rather a value jump, and while nan M4 Pro is surely a promising spot of silicon connected paper, it’ll person to really outperform nan M4 to warrant nan value difference.

We’ve been sent nan M4 type to review, and for nan mostly of people, that should beryllium much than tin capable for nan benignant of tasks they’ll request this mini PC to perform. Having nan M4 Pro action is nice, contempt nan value hike, arsenic you are getting a earnestly powerful PC successful a mini and almost silent shape factor.

There was besides a little infinitesimal betwixt Apple announcing nan caller Mac mini and it revealing nan caller MacBook Pros pinch M4 Pro wherever nan M4 Pro Mac mini was arguably nan astir powerful Mac instrumentality ever. Remarkable.

• Value score: 5/5

Mac mini (M4, 2024): Specs

Mac mini (M4, 2024): Design

• Brilliant, smaller design
• Front USB-C ports are welcome
• Power fastener placement is simply a spot awkward

The Mac mini (M4, 2024) has received its biggest redesign since arguably 2011, and it’s now what Apple calls its “smallest machine ever”.

Where nan erstwhile exemplary had dimensions of 197 x 197 x 35.8 mm (7.75 x 7.75 x 1.41 inches), nan caller Mac mini (M4, 2024) measures conscionable 127 x 127 mm x 50 mm (5 x 5 x 2 inches). When taking it retired of nan box, it’s earnestly awesome really mini it is, easy fitting successful nan thenar of your hand. Placing it connected apical of nan M2 model, nan older Mac mini looked large and bulky – thing I’d ne'er person imagined, arsenic that was an impressively mini spot of kit erstwhile it launched.

The caller Mac mini is simply a spot taller than nan older models, but if that’s nan sacrifice that had to beryllium made successful bid to shrink nan wide footprint of nan PC, while packing it pinch nan latest tech, past it’s 1 I’m happy with. It’ll easy fresh down a monitor, and moreover successful beforehand of a screen, it’s unobtrusive capable that you’ll hardly announcement it. Its mini size besides intends you tin plug it into your TV and it won’t look retired of spot successful your lounge. For anyone holding retired for an Apple games console, nan Mac mini (M4, 2024) could extremity up being arsenic adjacent arsenic you’re going to get.

As if to beryllium that nan caller Mac mini tin beryllium conscionable arsenic astatine location successful a lounge arsenic successful an agency aliases studio, it now comes pinch 2 USB-C ports astatine nan front, alongside a headphone jack for easy access.

At nan rear there’s a powerfulness larboard (impressively, contempt nan mini size, there’s nary bulky outer PSU), an Ethernet larboard and an HDMI that’s tin of up to 8K astatine 60Hz, aliases 4K astatine 240Hz.

There are besides 3 further USB-C ports. While nan beforehand USB-C ports are constricted to USB 3 speeds (10Gb/s), nan 3 connected nan backmost are overmuch faster. With nan M4 model, nan rear ports are Thunderbolt 4, pinch speeds of up to 40Gb/s. If you spell for nan M4 Pro model, those are upgraded to Thunderbolt 5, pinch speeds of up to 120Gb/s.

While it’s a shame that nan beforehand USB-C ports are slower than nan rear ones, if you’re chiefly utilizing them for plugging successful and charging peripherals, they’ll beryllium fine, leaving nan rear ports for tasks that request faster information transportation speeds – specified arsenic outer difficult drives aliases further screens.

While nan caller creation is simply a triumph connected nan whole, 1 constituent of nan redesign has caused contention – nan placement of nan powerfulness button. Rather than being connected nan rear right-hand area of nan Mac mini, arsenic pinch erstwhile models, it is now located connected nan bottommost of nan Mac mini by nan rear left-hand corner. While nan Mac mini is raised from nan aboveground you spot it connected by a information aerial vent bottom-center of nan PC, you still request to assistance it up to scope nan button. As nan caller Mac mini is truthful mini and light, and location are nary moving parts inside, this isn’t excessively overmuch of a problem, though if you’ve placed nan Mac mini successful a TV furniture aliases location wherever it’s difficult to reach, it could beryllium frustrating.

There are workarounds – you could conscionable put nan Mac mini to slumber alternatively than shutting it down, and waking it up by moving nan rodent aliases tapping nan keyboard, but moreover Macs request to beryllium afloat powered down each now and again. You could besides usage nan Wake-on-LAN characteristic of macOS, which allows you to move connected nan Mac mini by sending a bid complete nan internet, though again you’ll request nan Mac mini to beryllium asleep, not afloat turned off.

It’s surely not nan extremity of nan world, but it’s not 1 of Apple’s amended creation choices. Placing nan powerfulness fastener connected nan apical aliases beforehand of nan Mac mini mightiness ruin nan aesthetics, but would person been easier to scope – aliases moreover having nan powerfulness fastener still connected nan bottom, but connected 1 of nan beforehand corners would person helped.

The caller Mac mini only comes pinch nan instrumentality itself and a powerfulness cord. Any different cables aliases peripherals will request to beryllium bought separately (though if you’ve already got, say, an HDMI cablegram and a rodent and keyboard, past that shouldn’t beryllium excessively overmuch of a burden).

If you request peripherals to spell pinch nan Mac mini you tin bargain nan Magic Keyboard for $99 / £99 / AU$149, nan Magic Trackpad for $129 / £129 / AU$209, and nan Magic Mouse for $79 / £79 / AU$149. These person had flimsy creation changes arsenic they now usage nan cosmopolitan USB-C cablegram to plug successful and charge, alternatively than Apple’s proprietary Lightning cable, which is bully to see.

Sadly, Apple didn’t return nan opportunity to move nan charging larboard of nan Magic Mouse – it’s still located astatine nan bottommost of nan mouse, which is simply a baffling creation prime arsenic it intends erstwhile you plug it successful to complaint you can’t proceed utilizing it.

Of course, you don’t request these caller peripherals arsenic immoderate Mac-compatible rodent aliases keyboard (which is immoderate rodent aliases keyboard, basically) will activity – though there’s nary full-size USB A larboard anymore, truthful if those peripherals aren’t USB-C aliases Bluetooth, past you mightiness request to bargain an adapter.

• Design score: 4.5/5

Mac mini (M4, 2024) review: Performance

• Excellent performance
• Virtually silent
• Can moreover play immoderate games

Once upon a clip I was alternatively worried that Apple had fallen retired of emotion pinch Macs, and particularly nan Mac mini, arsenic nan institution seemed acold much enamored pinch its iPhone and iPads, leaving its Macs to make do pinch incremental hardware updates wrong progressively outdated designs.

Then Apple dumped Intel and made its ain chips, starting pinch nan M1 successful 2020, and my doubts person beautiful overmuch vanished, arsenic each awesome Mac instrumentality has not only been upgraded to an M-series chip, but they’ve besides had noticeable redesigns arsenic well, proving that Apple is committed to its Mac lineup. So, it’s pinch immoderate alleviation that nan Mac mini has not conscionable sewage nan latest M4 (and M4 Pro) chips, but besides a awesome redesign arsenic well, arsenic it’s apt to beryllium 1 of Apple’s much niche products.

It shouldn’t beryllium – since getting M-Series chips, nan Mac mini has go nan champion mini shape facet PC you tin buy. Small PCs pinch either Windows 11 aliases Linux simply cannot lucifer nan build quality, performance, and value of Apple’s mini machine, and pinch nan M4 chip, that spread has go moreover wider.

Along pinch nan 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU of nan M4, nan spot contains 28 cardinal transistors, up from 25 cardinal successful nan M3, but is still built connected nan aforesaid 3nm process node from TSMC, truthful a generational leap is retired of nan question.

In synthetic benchmarks there’s astir a 20% summation successful CPU capacity erstwhile utilizing Geekbench 6, though GPU capacity upticks are much modest, pinch betwixt 5% - 14% increases successful benchmarks.

While immoderate summation is ever welcome, those benignant of numbers mean if you person an M3 Mac mini, you won’t really spot immoderate awesome differences successful performance, truthful upgrading mightiness not beryllium worthy it (unless you perfectly person to person nan smaller creation of nan newer Mac mini, which I wouldn’t blasted you for).

Where things do get absorbing erstwhile comparing capacity betwixt nan M3 and M4 Mac mini is erstwhile it comes to AI – some artificial intelligence and Apple Intelligence. With nan M4, Apple has included different 16-core Neural Engine dedicated to instrumentality learning and AI tasks, and successful AI benchmarks nan results are beautiful remarkable, pinch astir a 35% summation successful capacity complete nan M3. Whether aliases not Apple Intelligence, aliases AI successful general, will usher successful nan computing gyration we’ve been promised by galore manufacturers has yet to beryllium seen, but astatine nan very slightest you cognize that if you bargain an M4 Mac mini (or immoderate M4 device), you’ll beryllium successful bully stead should you wish to usage early AI tools.

According to Apple, nan M4 spot is tin of 38 TOPS - that's 38,000,000,000,000 operations per 2nd – which is incredibly awesome and intends on-device AI tasks should tally well. However, nan Snapdragon X Elite, for illustration nan M4 an ARM-based spot built for Windows 11 devices, offers 45 TOPS. That quality successful operations per 2nd isn’t huge, and it mightiness not moreover beryllium noticeable, particularly erstwhile comparing Windows 11’s Copilot AI instrumentality to Apple Intelligence, but it’s worthy noting.

Apple Intelligence is introduced to Macs successful macOS Sequoia 15.1 – and you’ll request to update nan caller Mac mini to get that type – thankfully, it’s speedy and easy process.

The exemplary I reappraisal present is nan Mac mini pinch M4 chip, 16GB of unified memory, and a 512GB SSD. For day-to-day tasks, wherever I utilized nan Mac mini for penning this review, browsing nan web and wide admin, it worked brilliantly. The operating system – macOS Sequoia – booted quickly, and each app I utilized loaded speedily and ran smoothly.

We’re now 4 years connected from erstwhile Apple made nan awesome move from Intel-based hardware to ARM-based, and that has allowed beautiful overmuch each awesome Mac exertion to make nan move arsenic well. This intends it’s now very uncommon to person to usage Apple’s Rosetta 2 tool, which allows apps made for Intel Macs to tally connected modern Apple Silicon Macs. That instrumentality was basal successful nan early M1 days, and it meant you could still tally your apps pinch minimal effect to performance.

Now that almost each Mac app, including those from 3rd parties, runs natively connected Apple Silicon intends they tin afloat return advantage of nan powerfulness of nan M4 spot (though Steam, nan celebrated shop and launcher for PC games, still requires Rosetta to run).

One of nan champion things astir Apple’s M-class chips is that nan institution has made a large committedness to making them arsenic power-efficient arsenic possible, and while this mightiness use MacBooks more, arsenic it intends they tin bask longer artillery lives, nan Mac mini besides benefits, arsenic nan much businesslike M4 spot runs cooler, which allowed Apple to shrink nan assemblage of nan Mac mini – and it besides intends nan built-in fans that are utilized to expel basking aerial erstwhile nan components are being utilized seldom footwear in. For almost each of my clip utilizing nan caller Mac mini, it was virtually silent. This is awesome erstwhile utilizing it successful an agency aliases studio, and it besides makes it an perfect mini PC for nan beforehand room.

Even erstwhile switching to much intensive tasks, specified arsenic editing videos successful Adobe Premiere Pro, nan Mac mini kept gait brilliantly arsenic I added 4K footage and scrolled betwixt scenes. When it comes to gaming, nan Mac mini (M4, 2024) was amazingly bully – connected precocious graphical settings, it ran Shadow of nan Tomb Raider astatine 44fps, good supra nan 30fps I see to beryllium minimum for a crippled to beryllium playable, and pinch a spot of tweaking I deliberation you’d get to 60fps.

Running Total War: Warhammer 3 astatine Ultra scored conscionable 22.1fps, however. This crippled is much strenuous connected nan CPU alternatively than nan GPU, though erstwhile I group nan ocular settings to debased it deed 55.4fps. These are modern and eager games, truthful for a compact PC that’s not designed for gaming astatine this price, that capacity is beautiful darn great, and you person entree to a immense room of Mac games done Steam and different platforms. Throughout playing, nan Mac mini remained wholly silent.

While nan M4 exemplary isn’t going to problem nan PS5 Pro immoderate clip soon erstwhile it comes to playing games, nan truth that specified a mini instrumentality tin still springiness a decent acquisition is beautiful cool, and I presume nan M4 Pro exemplary is an moreover much competent gaming device, though for nan value that is simply a batch steeper than immoderate console - and moreover galore gaming laptops.

Apple has besides made a large woody astir nan M4 spot and its AI abilities, and from my tests it's... fine. Apple Intelligence is successful its infancy, truthful I could not effort retired each nan features that are coming, but I was capable to edit a photograph successful nan included Photos app and usage nan AI-powered Clean Up characteristic to region elements from a photo. It worked arsenic good arsenic you mightiness expect these early AI features to execute - it was speedy and easy to do, but nan inheritance nan AI generates successful bid for nan objects you prime (by coating complete them pinch a brush) near mistakes and errors that mean it's acold from perfect, and you tin easy show AI has been used.

From nan AI devices truthful far, they are absorbing yet not basal - bascially nan aforesaid problem galore AI devices person astatine nan moment. For nan Mac mini's part, it performed those AI feats each on-device, and they were done quickly and speedily. This is an area wherever I tin spot nan Mac mini improving.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

Mac mini (M4, 2024): Should you bargain it?

Buy it if…

Don’t bargain it if…

First reviewed November 2024