Editor’s observe: Our testing of the brand new Mac Mini is ongoing and this evaluate shall be up to date with extra take a look at outcomes and a remaining score. 

Now out there in a brand new, extra highly effective model, the Mac Mini desktop is considered one of Apple’s longest-standing product strains, relationship again to 2005 (in a pre-Intel model), a yr earlier than the primary MacBook. All these years later, it retains the identical primary form and appeals to a lot of the identical viewers. Not like MacBook Professional and Air laptops, or the iMac desktop, the Mini is designed to work behind the scenes, becoming into small areas and pairing together with your selection of show and enter units. 

Generally known as the podcaster’s favourite laptop, that description nonetheless applies to this new iteration of the Mac Mini. And, with an optionally available M2 Professional processor from Apple’s chip line, the brand new Mini can tackle extra advanced multimedia assignments on par with the also-new M2 Professional MacBook Professional. 

Learn extra: M2 Professional MacBook Professional 16 Overview: Apple Peps Up Its Artistic Workhorse

At $599 (£649, AU$999) to begin, the Mini additionally stays the least costly method to get a MacOS laptop by a big margin. The comparatively historical M1 MacBook Air from 2020 is the closest competitor price-wise, at $999. The M2 Professional model of the Mac Mini begins at $1,299. 

Mac Mini (2023)

$599 at Finest Purchase

$599 at Apple

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Like

• Low beginning value
• Big selection of configuration choices
• Provides Wi-Fi 6E

Do not Like

• Least costly mannequin has fewer ports, small storage
• RAM can solely go as much as 32GB
• Some element upgrades really feel expensive

As a long-time Mac reviewer, the relative affordability of the Mini line remains to be considered one of its most essential promoting factors. Particularly when you have your personal show and perhaps your personal keyboard/mouse setup, the Mac Mini will get you all some great benefits of MacOS, and its speciality chops in design, audio manufacturing, and picture and video enhancing, for lots much less. 

The final time I examined a brand new Mac Mini was the final time there was a brand new Mac Mini. That was in fall 2020, when the very first Apple Silicon merchandise have been launched. They included the MacBook Air, the 13-inch MacBook Professional and the Mac Mini, every with the unique M1 chip. 

Since then, the Mac Studio from early 2022 provided an even bigger, extra highly effective tackle the small-form-factor Apple desktop, with M1 Max and M1 Extremely chips. And that system, even with out an M2 replace, remains to be extra highly effective in lots of circumstances than the brand new Mac Mini, which solely goes as much as an M2 Professional. 

Apple’s chip-naming system is clearer than some others however nonetheless complicated if you happen to do not comply with it carefully. The M1 household has grown to incorporate the M1, M1 Professional, M1 Max and M1 Extremely (mainly a doubled-up M1 Max). The M2 household began with the inventory M2 and has simply added M2 Professional and M2 Max variations. It is the Professional/Max/Extremely suffix that actually tells you which of them chip is extra highly effective. An M1 Professional remains to be extra highly effective than a base M2 and so forth. However… the variety of CPU and GPU cores out there in some configurations can even juggle the rankings and relative efficiency. 

Meaning the Apple desktop ecosystem could be very thinly sliced certainly. Proper now, the Mac Mini gives M2 and M2 Professional variations, the Mac Studio has M1 Max and M1 Extremely chips, so I would not say there’s direct overlap. The upper-end M2 Professional Mac Mini begins at $1,299, whereas the least costly Mac Studio, with the M1 Max, begins at $1,999. 

A story of two Minis

The 2 new Mac Mini variations differ in each the chip and a few configuration choices. The M2 mannequin begins with 8GB of RAM, which will be upgraded to 16GB or 24GB. Storage begins at 256GB and might go as much as 2TB. The M2 Professional model begins at 16GB of RAM and 512GB storage and is upgradable to 32GB and 8TB. 

One other distinction is that the M2 Professional mannequin has 4 thunderbolt 4/USB-C ports on the again panel, whereas the M2 model has solely two. And whereas the M2 Professional can assist as much as three shows, or one with 8K/60Hz decision, the M2 mannequin can assist two shows and tops out at 6K/60Hz. 

The 2 fashions examined listed below are the bottom $599 Mac Mini with the 8-core CPU/10-core GPU M2 chip, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage; and an upgraded model with the 12-core CPU/19-core GPU M2 chip, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, for a complete of $1,799. 

A podcaster’s dream

The place different Apple merchandise have had their second within the solar and pale into extinction, just like the 27-inch iMac or 12-inch MacBook, the Mac Mini has all the time floated just below the radar. It isn’t the primary Mac you consider, but it surely’s all the time there. I attribute that to its second life, maybe initially unintended, as the proper laptop for small manufacturing studios. 

That might imply a small to midsize recording studio for music and voice-overs, or a house workplace setup for audio or video podcasts. That is an space the place devoted computer systems are in peril of turning into out of date, as well-liked new platforms like TikTok are constructed round capturing and enhancing straight out of your cellphone. 

However as an occasional social media poster, and podcast visitor and host, through the years, there’s nonetheless no comparability between even superior phone-based enhancing and utilizing one thing like Ultimate Reduce or Premiere Professional on a desktop or laptop computer to provide your creator content material, even when it will finally find yourself as a small vertical social video. 

And particularly for audio, the Mac Mini nonetheless appears like a wonderful all-around answer. I recorded some video voice-over on the Mac Mini for this evaluate, utilizing Audacity and an exterior mic. As anticipated, I had no issues, even working a number of sound-shaping plugins (though for a really primary job like this, a normal finances Home windows machine may do the identical). 

I requested considered one of my workforce’s video editors to throw a decently chunky Premiere Professional challenge on each the M2 and M2 Professional variations of the Mac Mini. 

Video producer-editor Bobby Oliver loaded up a 4K/24 Premiere challenge with some graphics/titles and coloration correction. He stated on the bottom $599 Mac Mini with the M2 chip, “It was doable, however whereas enhancing I needed to play the video in this system window on the lowest high quality setting to keep away from stuttering, however even then I obtained some minor stuttering.” He stated the system can be fantastic for normal FHD video, however he thought the 8GB of RAM within the base mannequin was a efficiency impediment. The bottom-model Mac Mini with the 256GB SSD additionally has probably slower learn/write speeds than different configs, much like the M2 MacBook Air, due to how the storage is both break up into two NAND chips, or makes use of only one. We’ll do extra drive velocity testing within the coming days. 

Then he tried the identical challenge on the M2 Professional model, which had 16GB of RAM. In that case, he stated, “That one felt virtually flawless. I may preview the video at full decision and solely had some minor stuttering once I hit the graphics. I may transfer simply across the timeline with none delay. Coloration correction did not appear to be a difficulty. I’d undoubtedly use it as an enhancing machine.” 

In our benchmark assessments, the completely different ranges of M1 and M2 chip efficiency are additionally clear, partly as a result of the CPU and GPU core counts and clock frequencies have risen generation-over-generation. Usually, the Mac Studio desktop with the M1 Max chip from 2022 is the general strongest Mac we have examined – in conditions the place it has probably the most cores. The Mini and Air with M2 chips outperformed their predecessors with M1 chips, and equally, the M2 Professional techniques beat the M1 Professional techniques. Apple’s well-marked strata of chip variations usually tells you what to anticipate as soon as you determine the language, however it may nonetheless be difficult.

General, I recognize how one can get related efficiency in both a desktop or laptop computer by selecting the identical chip/RAM combo, making for simpler comparability procuring; however observe that the desktops and bigger laptops have some inherent thermal benefit with higher cooling that may add a small efficiency increase. 

Is the Mac lastly a gaming machine?

Nicely, no. Though in its promotional supplies, Apple leans just a little extra closely into selling the gaming chops of the M2 chips. The corporate calls out efficiency for the upcoming Mac model of Resident Evil Village, saying the M2 Mac Mini has 35% quicker efficiency in that recreation over the 2020 M1 model, and that the M2 Professional model is 2.8x quicker. 

However your recreation expertise goes to be tremendously impacted by many components, together with selection of show, both the Apple Studio show, Apple’s favored LG shows or one thing else; and by the still-limited recreation choice on MacOS, largely constrained by the desktop-friendly video games in Apple Arcade, video games within the Mac App Retailer and the MacOS part in on-line recreation shops like Steam. 

Proper now, the top-selling MacOS video games on Steam embrace Civilization VI (2016), Rust (2018), Challenge Zomboid (2013) and, after all, Baldur’s Gate 3 (2020 in beta, however formally releasing summer time 2023).

Whereas there’s nothing particularly new on the gaming entrance for this {hardware} or the brand new M2 chips (in addition to quicker efficiency), I made a decision to offer it one other shot as a recreation machine. Pre-Apple-Silicon, you could possibly no less than dual-boot into Home windows to play PC video games on Mac {hardware}. Now, you are largely restricted to native Mac video games or cloud streaming – Nvidia Geforce Now could be nice paired with a giant 24-inch iMac show, for instance. 

Connecting a normal Xbox controller by way of Bluetooth (a Sony DualSense controller will work, too), I spent a while with Baldur’s Gate 3 and Hades. The excessive display decision of the Mac Studio Show I used added some additional problem, and I turned up the in-game graphic settings as excessive as attainable. Mac variations of video games usually have fewer graphics choices than the Home windows variations. 

On the M2 Mac Mini, Baldur’s Gate Three wanted to get its decision pulled all the way down to 2,560×1,440 pixels and graphics settings set to medium to really feel playable. On the M2 Professional model, I used the identical decision however may play at Extremely settings. Hades ran nice on even the bottom Mac Mini. In each the GPU-intensive 3D Mark and the GeekBench Steel take a look at, we are able to see some extra daylight between the M2 and M2 Professional, as indicated within the charts under. 

Who should purchase this?

A MacBook Air is straightforward to visualise in motion – stick it in your backpack or shoulder bag and hit the espresso store or airport. An iMac is a superb centralized household room laptop or a house workplace command heart, particularly if you happen to spend a variety of time in Zoom or different video conferences. The Mac Mini is extra specialised in some methods, but additionally has probably broader attraction due to its low beginning value. 

The bottom M2 model of the Mac Mini, beginning at $599, feels prefer it’s for entry-level consumers who desire a MacOS system on the lowest attainable value; audio and video producers who’re already dedicated to a set of exterior shows, enter units and storage drives; or anybody who wants a conveyable mini desktop that may be thrown in a bag and connected at an workplace or recording studio. Additionally value noting, the Mac Mini has an Ethernet port, HDMI output and USB-A ports, that are nice for enlargement and arduous to search out in another Macs, even very costly ones. 

The principle draw back to that base mannequin is the relative skimpy RAM and storage. Not like a Home windows machine, MacOS can really get alongside fantastic in most mainstream circumstances with 8GB of RAM, however the included 256GB of storage feels prefer it’ll get crammed shortly. Leaping as much as 512GB provides an additional $200, which is a giant premium for a finances laptop (but additionally gives probably quicker learn/write speeds). 

The M2 Professional model gives a large uncooked efficiency soar, plus higher RAM and inside storage choices, however if you happen to’re contemplating that, then the MacBook Professional and even the Mac Studio also needs to be a part of your comparability procuring.

I feel the bottom M2 Mac Mini goes to be a wise, clear selection for lots of people. The extra highly effective, dearer M2 Professional model is not as clear minimize, however I recognize the flexibleness having each the M2 and M2 Professional variations provides, permitting you to spend anyplace from $599 to $4,499 on a brand new Mac Mini that meets your particular wants, whether or not that is creating pro-level YouTube movies or recording and producing the following nice true crime podcast.

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