Apple's adorable M4 Mac mini is an absolute beast under the hood

Apple has officially announced the M4 Mac mini. It is the second of three expected announcements with the M4 iMac is revealed first.

The new Mac mini features an M4 or M4 Pro chip, with the base version having a 10-core CPU/10-core GPU. The entry-level model starts at $600, while the higher-end M4 Pro Mac mini starts at $1,400. The release date is set for November 8th.

As for storage, the Mac mini starts at 256GB but can be upgraded with up to 8TB of SSD storage. The RAM starts at 16GB and can be upgraded to 64GB. The Mac mini is still only available in silver and is therefore not nearly as colorful as Apple's recently announced model M4 iMac series.

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The smallest Mac mini yet

Almost as small as Apple TV

Apple

The most significant change in the new Mac mini is its design. Its footprint is less than half of the previous design, which was 5 x 5 inches. That's pretty wild considering the power packed into this thing.

According to Apple, the compactness of the Mac mini is due to the energy efficiency of its silicon and the innovative thermal architecture that allows the system's air to be directed to different areas of the device. All ventilation occurs through the base of the Mac mini. Apple claims the Mac mini is up to six times faster than the best-selling PC desktop in its price range and only one-twentieth the size. To put the size in perspective, the Mac mini is so small that you could easily play with it (although I don't recommend anyone actually do that).

As far as port selection goes, the Mac mini is loaded. There are two USB-C ports and a 3.5mm audio jack on the front. There are Ethernet, HDMI and three USB-C/Thunderbolt ports on the back. The speed of the Thunderbolt ports depends on the M4 chipset selected. The regular M4 chip includes Thunderbolt 4, while the M4 Pro has Thunderbolt 5.

There's also a fun fact: the Mac mini's power button is located on the bottom of the device. This is a very Apple-like and interesting choice, to say the least.

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There's a lot of performance under the hood

Apple's M4 chipset is to be expected

In addition to the redesign of the Mac mini, another notable change is the M4 chipset. The base model's 10-core CPU is an upgrade over last year's 8-core CPU. However, the number of GPU cores is the same at 10.

Apple claims the Mac mini's M4 Pro chip features “the world's fastest CPU core with lightning-fast single-threaded performance.” The M4 Pro can be configured up to a 14-core CPU and 20-GPU, an upgrade over its predecessor's 12-core CPU and 19-core GPU. Apple claims that the Mac mini with M4 Pro renders motion graphics to RAM twice as fast in Motion and completes 3D renders in Blender up to 2.9 times faster compared to the Mac mini with M2 Pro.

Apple

With the M4 chip, the Mac mini can support up to two 6K displays and up to one 5K display. On the other hand, the M4 Pro works with up to three 6K displays at 60 Hz. Of course, the M4 chip supports it Apple Intelligencewhich launched alongside macOS Sequoia 15.1. The previous Mac mini of the M series also supports Apple Intelligence.

I'm very excited to see how the new Mac mini's M4 chip performs given its smaller form factor.

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