Apple Mac Mini 2024 Review: A Button Push Away From Flawless

I had precocious expectations for this year’s Apple Mac mini. Compared to past year’s offering, the Mac Mini with M4 is astir flawless. Apple reduced the size of the tiny signifier origin strategy by astir half, making it lighter than ever before.

But the existent prima of the amusement is the caller M4 spot that’s exponentially much almighty than thing Apple has enactment retired implicit the past 4 years. Plus, you’ve got a clump of nifty updates done macOS Sequoia, and a big of Apple Intelligence features designed to marque your enactment oregon play into a much streamlined experience. Best of all, you tin get each that awesome for $600 (starting). The lone happening I tin truly nitpick is the powerfulness button, which is successful a genuinely unusual location.

Apple Mac Mini 2024 Review: Design and Features

The Mac Mini comes successful 4 flavors. The $599 basal exemplary has an M4 spot with a 10-core CPU and GPU with 16GB of unified representation and 256GB of onboard storage. My reappraisal portion is simply a measurement up, costing $799 with treble the storage. Next is the $999 model, which increases the unified representation to 24GB portion retaining the 512GB SSD. And finally, you person the creme de la creme that costs $1,399 and has an M4 Pro chipset with a 12-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 24GB of unified memory, and 512GB of storage.

You tin besides configure the Mac Mini M4 with up to 32GB of representation and a 2TB SSD, which volition outgo you $1,799 oregon $1,899 if you adhd a gigabit Ethernet port. You tin instrumentality retired the Mac Mini M4 Pro with a 14-core CPU, up to 64GB of unified memory, an 8TB SSD, and a gigabit Ethernet port. However, it volition acceptable you backmost a whopping $4,699.

This Mac Mini was already a tiny, wee thing, but somehow, Apple recovered a mode to marque it adjacent smaller. At 5 x 5 x 2 inches, it’s fractional the size of the last-gen Mac Mini (7.75 x 7.75 x 1.4 inches). It’s besides lighter, astatine 1.5 pounds compared to 2.6 pounds. The caller dimensions marque the Mac Mini highly portable and mean that it volition instrumentality up little abstraction connected a desk.

However, that’s not the lone difference, arsenic Apple has added rather a fewer ports. You get a brace of USB-C ports and a headset jack connected the beforehand of the instrumentality with a trio of Thunderbolt 4 ports connected the backmost with an HDMI port, Ethernet jack, and powerfulness input. If you opt for the M4 Pro Mac Mini, you get 3 Thunderbolt 5 ports for immoderate futureproofing.

The caller Mac Mini has the aforesaid iconic minimalism that you’ve travel to expect from Apple. The apical and sides of the lawsuit are made of metallic anodized aluminum. There are nary crisp edges, arsenic each the corners are mildly rounded. The ample glossy Apple logo connected the apical of the instrumentality finishes the look.

But it’s the bottommost of the Mac Mini that has radical talking. In the rear-left corner, you’ll find the powerfulness button. It’s an inconvenient placement, but Apple’s betting that you’ll lone beryllium turning the strategy connected once. At best, they deliberation you’ll enactment the Mac Mini to slumber occasionally. It’s a beauteous harmless bet, but I privation Apple could person recovered a mode to spot it connected the backmost of the instrumentality similar past year’s version.

Both versions of the Mac Mini tally connected macOS Sequoia, which brings a big of features designed to amended productivity, video conferencing, security, and adjacent gaming. One of the slicker features is iPhone Mirroring, which allows you to entree your iPhone connected the Mac Mini’s desktop. After a comparatively abbreviated setup, I could entree each app connected my iPhone. It chopped down connected maine perpetually checking my telephone arsenic I could interact with the phone’s notifications close connected the Studio Display’s surface and get backmost to work.

Notes, 1 of my favourite productivity apps, besides has immoderate caller tricks. The app present supports audio transcription, which is useful during meetings and briefings. It tin besides enactment arsenic a calculator successful a pinch. Type successful the equation with an adjacent sign, and Notes volition crunch the numbers for you.

Safari besides got immoderate caller updates, bringing a redesigned Reader and a caller Viewer. The machine-learning-powered Highlights diagnostic tin besides glean adjuvant accusation specified arsenic a speedy summary, directions to a location, oregon accusation astir a song, TV show, oregon movie. Distraction Control has besides been added to let much focused web browsing.

If you’re an app hoarder similar me, you cognize that it doesn’t instrumentality agelong for your surface to go cluttered. Apple’s got the remedy with easier model tiling, allowing you to easy put each your errant windows. You tin spot them side-by-side oregon drawback them into corners for easier surface navigation.

Video conferencing has besides gotten immoderate polish. When it’s clip to leap connected a Zoom telephone oregon FaceTime, beryllium definite to usage the caller Presenter View to get a preview of what everyone volition spot earlier you spell live. Like galore different web conferencing apps, you tin swap retired your inheritance with 1 of Apple’s integrated options oregon usage your ain images. Messages besides got a large update, bringing caller substance effects and emojis. There’s besides sticker Tapbacks to explicit yourself successful a amusive way,

As scammers go much sophisticated, keeping assorted passwords is adjacent much important. But remembering each of them is simply a situation successful itself. The Passwords diagnostic keeps each your passwords successful 1 place, protected by end-to-end encryption.

On the gaming front, Apple’s caller Game Porting Toolkit 2 gives developers useful caller tools to bring games to each Macs and iOS devices. This is important arsenic Apple has large plans to bring much console and PC games to the platform.

Apple Intelligence

©Photos: Sherri L. Smith / DreamSmith LLC

Although it’s inactive successful beta, Apple Intelligence is 1 of the much breathtaking features coming to the Mac Mini. The AI-powered exertion introduces a much conversational mentation of Siri that tin prime up connected discourse cues. That means you tin notation backmost to thing you oregon Siri said successful a caller request, and the integer adjunct volition respond successful kind. My favourite portion astir the new, improved Siri is that it doesn’t get tripped up erstwhile you stutter oregon person a lawsuit of encephalon freeze. And for questions that you’d alternatively not inquire retired loud, you tin benignant successful your query.

Are you often astatine a nonaccomplishment for words connected that important email oregon paper? Writing Tools tin adhd immoderate razzle dazzle to your work, whether it’s proofreading, summarizing, oregon rewriting. The diagnostic is not constricted to Apple tools and tin beryllium accessed crossed third-party apps.

©Photo: Sherri L. Smith / DreamSmith LLC

Apple Intelligence tin besides beryllium recovered successful the Mail and Messages apps and Notifications, summarizing accusation down to its astir salient points. The Smart Reply diagnostic volition trade an due effect successful Messages and Mail. Apple Intelligence volition make a glanceable summary if you get aggregate notifications from the aforesaid app.

Apple is hoping to springiness Google a tally for its wealth with its photo-editing features. Searching for images and videos is easier than ever with enactment for earthy connection queries. Finding and enhancing your photos is easier than ever. Plus, you tin hunt for circumstantial spots successful videos. The Clean Up diagnostic tin region objects and radical from photos taken with an iPhone and DSLR images, akin to Google’s Magic Eraser.

The last diagnostic to sermon is Reduce Interruptions. When it’s clip to initiate Focus mode, Apple Intelligence volition lone nonstop notifications that it deems important. It understands the content. If you alteration the Intelligent Breakthrough & Silencing enactment connected immoderate Focus, your Mac volition determine if the notification is important capable to interruption through.

Apple Mac Mini 2024 Review: Performance

©Photo: Adriano Contreras / Gizmodo

Another year, different Apple spot was designed to stroke the contention retired of the water. This time, it’s the M4 chip, which Apple claims is 1.8 times faster than the company’s m1 spot with 2.2 times faster GPU show and an NPU that’s 3 times faster. I tried slowing down the Mac Mini by launching 60 tabs successful Google Chrome with a premix of Docs, Presentations, and Sheets. The tabs besides had respective YouTube videos and societal media sites. I besides worked connected a 10-minute video successful DaVinci Resolve 18, but I couldn’t travel up the Mac Mini.

To spot conscionable however overmuch amended the caller Mac Mini is, I pitted it against past year’s model, which has an M2 spot with an 8-core CPU, a 10-core GPU with 8GB of unified memory, and a 256GB SSD. And the M4 Mac Mini bushed the brakes disconnected its predecessor. I started with Geekbench 6, which tests CPU performance, and got a people of 3,822 connected the single-core information of the trial and 14,622 connected the multi-core part. Compare that to the M2 Mac Mini, which posted results of 2,599 and 9,740.

During the Blender representation rendering test, the M4 Mac Mini’s CPU took 2 minutes and 46 seconds to implicit the task, portion the GPU finished successful 0:36. The last-gen Mini CPU took overmuch longer, astatine 4:28, and the GPU completed the render successful 1:27.

On the Cinebench 2024 test, the M4 Mini achieved 175 connected the single-core benchmark and 974 connected the multi-core. Meanwhile, the M2 Mini lone notched 588 and 122, respectively.

Finally, I played done 10 minutes of “Myst” with the settings connected High astatine autochthonal solution (5120 x 2800) connected the M4 Mini. The small powerhouse produced an mean of 64 frames per second, portion the M2 Mini lone managed 42 fps connected the aforesaid settings.

Apple Mac Mini 2024 Review: Verdict

At this point, I’m not definite however Apple does it. Year aft year, it importantly improved connected the erstwhile year’s wins. For the M4 Mac Mini, that means stuffing the caller M4 chipset into an adjacent smaller lawsuit than past time. The effect is simply a instrumentality that blows its predecessor retired of the water. Apple adjacent managed to enactment much ports connected a container with smaller dimensions. And with macOS Sequoia, Apple brings Apple Intelligence into the mix, bringing a adjuvant premix of AI-powered features to the table. Plus, Apple added a big of caller features designed to amended productivity, security, web browsing, and video conferencing.

The lone flaw I tin find with the newest Mac Mini is that bottom-mounted powerfulness button. I don’t attraction what you say, Apple; determination had to beryllium a amended spot to enactment that thing. But it’s a insignificant interest successful the expansive strategy of things.