Key Takeaways
The M4 Mac Mini is smaller and faster, with a new cooling system, more ports, and the same $600 price tag as the outgoing model. It’s awesome. So why would you buy the old model instead?
Do You Really Need the Latest and Greatest?
You should always buy the right tool for the job, as long as it fits in your budget. So if you’re buying a MacBook, we recommend getting enough storage for the entire life of the MacBook. This is a less pressing issue when it comes to the desktop Mac since you can easily expand storage with static solutions like external drives.
The big benefit to the 2024 Mac Mini is in its raw power: a more powerful chip, with more cores, higher clock speeds, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, a better GPU and AV1 encoding. It’s a $599 masterpiece.
But if all you want is a Mac on which to browse the web, answer emails, and do a bit of office work, the M4 is overkill. There’s nothing wrong with having plenty of grunt under the hood just in case you need it, but you should ask yourself whether you’d rather have the cash in your pocket instead.
The Mac Mini Is a Hobbyists Dream
There are plenty of people who depend on the Mac Mini as their primary computer. It fits just about anywhere and it does anything an iMac or a MacBook can do. It runs macOS, pairs exceptionally well with an iPhone or iPad, and allows you to bring your own peripherals and displays.
It’s arguably the most customizable Mac experience because it forces you to consider what you really need to get started. For that reason, it’s also the perfect “hobby” Mac.
The Mac Mini is a headless wonder. It’s far smaller than an iMac or even a MacBook, since it has no built-in display. It doesn’t take up as much room as the Mac Pro or its more capable cousin the comparably chunky Mac Studio. It’s great for set-and-forget projects, or putting a Mac somewhere unusual.
Best of all, you don’t need an M4 with 16GB of RAM and Thunderbolt 5 to get creative with a Mac Mini. An older model with an M1 or M2 processor will do the job just fine (you might even find that an Intel model fits the bill, though we’d argue the time to go Apple silicon is now).
So what exactly is a “hobby” Mac? It’s a file server that you can configure once, then throw in your office or put next to your router to access all of your files across the entire network. It’s a computer that's ideal for use as a Plex or Jellyfin server to broadcast media over the entire network, to virtually any device thanks to uPnP.
With an HDMI connector, you can plug your Mac Mini into your living room TV and install XBMC or Stremio for use as a media center. Unlike the laggy software on your smart TV, these apps will absolutely fly on a Mac with a desktop-class processor. An old Mac Mini also makes for a powerful Home Assistant server.
There’s enough overhead for you to install emulators like RetroArch or OpenEmu so that you can emulate systems from 8-bit classics through to modern 3D platforms like the Xbox and PlayStation 3. You can even play “real” games if you want to get creative with DirectX to Vulkan translation as part of Asahi Linux.
Speaking of Asahi Linux, this bold open-source continues to make progress so that you can install a native ARM-based version of Linux on your Mac directly. You won’t find a better machine for dabbling with Linux support than an old M1 or M2 Mac Mini.
Since the M1 and M2 chips in these older machines are still excellent performers, there’s no reason you can’t perform several of these tasks on the same machine. Run a Home Assistant server, share files, serve media, and play Marvel vs. Capcom 2 from the same machine.
Your Perfect First Mac
The Mac Mini has always been seen as a great entry point, especially for PC users. You already have a display and a set of peripherals, and a Mini gets you in the door for around the price of an iPad.
So what could be better than a cheap small form factor desktop computer? An even cheaper one, of course! Hitting the second-hand market to indulge your Mac curiosity makes for an even lower-risk investment.
M1 and M2 models may be bigger and slower, but the existence of a newer model doesn’t suddenly make them obsolete. They’re perfect entry points into Apple’s desktop ecosystem, especially since they’ll likely get macOS updates for years to come.
What’s more, all you need for Apple Intelligence is an M1 processor. So if you want to dip your toes into Apple’s vision of the future, an old Mac Mini is the cheapest way to do so.
Watch Those Prices Tumble
By launching the new M4 Mac Mini with the same $599 price tag as the last generation, Apple has set expectations on what to expect from the second-hand market. The company could have easily pumped up the price as it did with the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air redesigns of 2021 and 2022, but instead made the excellent decision to stay put.
Though Apple computers are rarely described cheap, the Mac Mini has always represented the best value for money. Now that you can get a Mac Mini with a 10-core CPU M4 chip and 16GB of RAM on the base model; resellers are going to need to price their wares accordingly.
The one caveat here is that it could take some time to filter through to the second-hand market. There’s no harm in approaching resellers, making an offer, and kindly pointing out that their list price is way too high considering what Apple is now offering.
Things are only worth what people are willing to pay for them, and with Apple exerting downward pressure on prices with such a reasonably-priced upgrade, expect prices to come down fairly quickly.
Taking Advantage of the Upgrade
Prior to the company’s October 2024 announcement, the smaller and faster M4 Mac Mini felt like one of Apple’s worst-kept secrets (which is becoming a bit of a theme). In reality, the machine had been anticipated for months, if not years.
The old Mac Mini had been largely unchanged since the first unibody designs of 2010. The 2024 M4 Mac Mini is the first major redesign to take place in the Apple silicon era, and there’s plenty for faithful Mac Mini owners to get excited about.
The upshot here is that the M4 Mac Mini feels like a worthwhile upgrade (unlike Apple’s USB-C Magic accessory refresh). There should be no shortage of Mac Mini owners who have been waiting for this update, which is great news for second-hand shoppers hoping for an influx of cut-price machines to choose from.
Apple has stopped selling the M2 Mac Mini on its U.S. storefront, but you can still find them on Apple Refurbished for a lick over $400 for a base model. Expect Best Buy and other retailers to discount the older models as new stock starts trickling through.
But the best place to look is local reseller websites like Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or even eBay.