Today, Apple announced a radical new Mac mini, now powered by the M4 and the new M4 Pro chip. It features a new design with convenient ports on the front and back, faster speeds in an ever-smaller case, and for the first time, Thunderbolt 5 connectivity and a carbon neutral guarantee.
“The new Mac mini delivers gigantic performance in an unbelievably small design thanks to the power efficiency of Apple silicon and an innovative new thermal architecture,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering.
The faster Mac mini is available for preorder now for a release on November 8.
A big new design for the little Mac mini
Photo: Apple
Despite being nearly 20 years old — starting on PowerPC, then Intel, and now Apple silicon — the Mac mini has only had two major designs. Its white polycarbonate and aluminum dressing matched the aesthetic of the PowerPC and iPod era it debuted in; a shorter, wider silver aluminum unibody has been its dressing since 2010.
This new design is far more mini than ever before. Taking advantage of the energy and thermal efficiency of Apple silicon, it’s more comparable in size to an Apple TV, though still milled out of bead-blasted silver aluminum. Taking a cue from the Mac Studio, some of the ports are available around the front, for easier access.
Coming with M4 and the new M4 Pro
Photo: Apple
The Mac mini doesn’t get updated with every chip; sometimes it skips a generation. The new Mac mini jumps straight from M2 and M2 Pro to M4 and the new M4 Pro.
The M2 came with 8/10/16 CPU/GPU/Neural Engine cores; the M2 Pro came with either 10/16/16 or 12/19/16 CPU/GPU/Neural Engine cores.
The new Mac mini with M4 bumps that up to 10/10/16 CPU/GPU/Neural Engine cores, and doubles the memory on the entry-level model from 8 GB to 16 GB. According to Apple’s press release, when compared to the older M1 model, performance in apps like Microsoft Excel is 1.7 times faster; AI-powered speech-to-text is twice as fast; image editing in Adobe Lightroom Classic is a whopping 4.9 times faster. And compared to “the best-selling PC desktop in its price range,” the mini is “up to 6× faster one-twentieth the size.”
The M4 Pro features “the world’s fastest CPU core” — up to 14 of them. The GPU has a modest bump up to 20 cores; it’s twice as fast as the base M4 chip. Built for Apple Intelligence, the Neural engine performs 3× faster than the old Mac mini with M1. The M4 Pro now comes with up to 64 GB of unified memory.
Next-generation connectivity
Photo: Apple
Although Apple axed the USB-A ports — a sacrifice necessary for its smaller footprint — the Mac mini has more ports than ever before. All models come with power, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, five USB-C ports and a headphone jack. On the entry-level Mac mini, those three ports on the back are Thunderbolt 4, for powering high-resolution displays, fast external storage, docks for legacy ports and much more.
The Mac mini with M4 Pro brings it forward to the next generation of connectivity, with three Thunderbolt 5 ports on the back. It can power three 6K displays at 60 Hz, or transfer data at 120 Gb/s — twice the speed. The headphone jack on the front supports high-impedance headphones for studio-quality audio.
Pricing and availability
Image: Apple
The new Mac mini is available for preorder now. The entry-level M4 version starts at the same $599 price, while the M4 Pro version will run you $1,399. Orders will arrive, and the Mac mini will be available in stores, on November 8.
The new Mac mini is the first carbon neutral Mac. According to the press release, it is “made with over 50 percent recycled content overall,” and manufactured using 100 percent renewable energy. It’s even shipped primarily by ocean freight, to reduce the carbon footprint of the supply chain. To offset the energy usage of all the computers over their expected lifetime, “Apple has invested in clean energy projects around the world.” As icing on the cake, “the packaging is now entirely fiber-based.”
The Mac mini ships with macOS Sequoia, now featuring Apple Intelligence. The AI features built into the system include writing tools, object removal in photos, notification summaries and more.
Tune in tomorrow for one more exciting announcement
It seems Apple has skipped a big event in lieu of a series of press releases and shorter videos. A few weeks ago, Apple introduced the iPad mini with A17 Pro. This week brought new M4 iMac, new Magic Keyboard, Trackpad and Mouse accessories and now the Mac mini with M4 and M4 Pro. Tomorrow, Apple is expected to release new MacBook Pros with the M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max.
