As much as I love my gargantuan gaming PC, a large part of me longs for a small, sleek system. In the past, the cost to acoustics, performance, or thermals (sometimes all three) was simply too great to justify sizing down, nevermind the actual price of a tiny rig. In that time, though, Apple Mac Mini has entered the fray. Now, following a recent price cut, it could be just what I and many others are looking for.
Apple Mac Mini
Get blisteringly fast performance at a price like no other with the best Mac Mini M4 configuration.
On Amazon US, you can pick up a Mac Mini with a 22% ($130) discount bringing its final cost to just $469. Meanwhile, UK shoppers can save 12% (£70.02) on the same configuration. Whichever region you’re purchasing from, though, there’s never been a more affordable time to grab this tiny but terrific system.
Mac Mini features the latest generation of Apple Silicon, specifically the base M4 model. This equips the device with 10 (6+4) CPU cores, 10 GPU cores, and a 16-core Neural Engine. While not as powerful as the M4 Pro variant, it’s still plenty fast for general computing and has enough grunt to handle some light gaming and professional workloads.
M4 single core performance is simply fantastic, especially considering the chip only has 22W flowing through it. Lower power consumption means lower thermals and quieter acoustics too, resulting in the system providing a snappy and quiet experience while idle or under load.
Though small, there’s room for big connectivity across the 5x5x2in chassis. Round the front, you’ll find two 10Gb/s USB-C ports alongside a 3.5mm headphone jack. Spin this small silver box around, though, and you have three Thunderbolt 4 (40Gb/s) ports, a full-size HDMI, and Gigabit Ethernet. If you’re looking for the power button, it’s on the underside for some reason.
There’s plenty of value to extract from Mac Mini, but it comes with an important caveat. Whatever RAM and SSD capacity you select on the shelf is all this device will ever have. Of course, you can expand storage through the cloud or external drives, but memory is set in proverbial stone. If you’re comfortable forgoing upgradability, though, there’s little reason not to pick the system up.
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