New Mac mini shrinks down, gains M4 and M4 Pro chips
Apple’s big week, featuring a new iMac and the launch of Apple Intelligence, just got smaller. A lot smaller.
Just in time for Halloween, it’s a Fun Size Mac mini. The redesigned M4 Mac mini has a footprint of five inches by five inches (and two inches high), making it 60 percent less volume than the previous design and easily the smallest desktop Mac ever.
The previous Mac mini design dates from all the way back to 2010, when it was sized to incorporate an internal optical drive! That was terrible timing because of course that was the last generation of the Mac mini to even offer an internal optical drive as an option. Still, all the extra space inside that 7.75-inch-by-7.75-inch footprint was probably helpful in fitting in PowerPC and Intel hardware… and cooling it. Now, fourteen years later, the Mac mini is sized for the tiny, cool Apple silicon era at last.
Following the lead of its larger silver-aluminum cousin, 2022’s Mac Studio, the new Mac mini features two conveniently front-facing USB-C ports (but no SD card slot). On the back are three Thunderbolt ports, as well as Ethernet and HDMI. Apple says the new enclosure uses 85% less aluminum than the previous model, is partially made of recycled aluminum, and is officially Apple’s first carbon-neutral Mac.
The M4 Mac mini starts at the same $599 price point as the previous model, despite the fact that the base model now ships with 16GB of RAM, twice the previous 8GB minimum. (All M4 models come with 10 CPU and GPU cores.) Of course, prices escalate quickly from there, if you want to add RAM or storage capacity or a 10G ethernet option.
While the M4 Mac mini will undoubtedly be quite a bit faster than its M2 predecessor, there are more substantial gains to be made on the higher end. Just as with previous Apple Silicon-era models, the new Mac mini will also be available in a higher-end chip configuration.
The Mac mini with the new M4 Pro chip—which starts at $1399—supports the upgraded Thunderbolt 5 specification, comes with 24GB of RAM (upgradeable to 64GB), offers 14 CPU cores (10 performance and four efficiency) and up to 20 GPU cores, and 75% faster memory bandwidth (!!!) than the M3 Pro. The base model has 12 CPU cores and 16 GPU cores; a $200 upgrade gets you the full 14 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores. As with the M4 mini, the M4 Pro model can very rapidly cost you $2500 or $3000 if you boost RAM, storage, and more.
And keep in mind, the Mac mini was never updated to the M3—its last update was to the M2 in early 2023. So if you’re just looking at the Mac mini, the model-to-model speed boosts will be even more impressive than the gains between this chip generation and the last.
Finally, if you’re afraid Apple has cheated by moving its power supply outboard to make the Mac mini smaller, don’t worry. Just like the previous Mac mini, the new model’s power supply is internal, and it’s connected by the same two-pin power plug used in previous models. (The only difference is that Apple’s now using a braided power cable.)
The new Mac mini models will arrive in stores and customers’ hands beginning Nov. 8.
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