As part of the company’s week of Mac-focused announcements, Apple has just introduced a smaller, yet even more powerful Mac Mini. It’s now equipped with Apple’s latest M4 silicon, supports ray tracing for the first time, and ships with 16GB of RAM by default — seemingly the new normal in the Apple Intelligence era. The machine still starts at $599 with the regular M4 chip, while the more powerful M4 Pro model has a starting price of $1,399. Like the refreshed iMac announced yesterday, the Mac Mini is available to preorder immediately and will be in stores on November 8th.
The first thing you’ll notice is the new design. As rumored, the Mini has been shrunken down considerably — and it was already a relatively small desktop machine to begin with. Now it’s downright tiny, measuring five inches in both length and width. If you’re wondering how Apple manages to keep things running cool, the company says it’s through the M4’s efficiency and “an innovative thermal architecture, which guides air to different levels of the system, while all venting is done through the foot.”
That’s a big difference.GIF: Apple
Even so, Apple has loaded this thing up with plenty of I/O: on the front are two USB-C ports and a 3.5mm audio jack. Around back you’ll find ethernet, HDMI, and three USB-C / Thunderbolt ports. The USB-A ports are indeed history, but it’s worth noting that the base M2 Mini only had two Thunderbolt 4 ports and two USB-A ports. With the M4, you’re getting five ports in all. So you’re losing native USB-A but picking up an extra Thunderbolt port.
Both models have the same number of ports, but only the M4 Pro Mini gets Thunderbolt 5.Image: Apple
The speed of those Thunderbolt ports will differ based on which M4 processor you choose. The regular M4 chip includes Thunderbolt 4, whereas the M4 Pro gets you the very latest Thunderbolt 5 throughput.
The M4 Pro Mac Mini also delivers greater overall performance with its 14 CPU and 20 GPU cores. RAM can be configured up to 32GB with the regular M4 or 64GB with the M4 Pro. Storage tops out at a whopping 8TB. So while the Mini is quite small, you can make it seriously mighty if you’re willing to spend enough. 10 gigabit ethernet also remains an optional upgrade for those who want it.
We’re likely to see the M4 Pro chip come to the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros that Apple is rumored to announce this week, along with an even more capable M4 Max chip that’s not available in the Mini. But the Pro should be plenty as is for many prosumers and creatives.
The Mac Mini with M4 Pro can run up to three 6K displays.Image: Apple
It’s a busy week for Apple. The M4 iMac made its debut on Monday, and the company also rolled out its first Apple Intelligence software capabilities across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. (More AI features, including image generation and ChatGPT integration, will be released in December.) Tomorrow could see the debut of those upgraded MacBook Pros as Apple rounds out its new hardware. The company is set to report quarterly earnings on Thursday, during which it will no doubt trumpet its latest fleet of Macs.
(Originally posted by Chris Welch)