Mac mini with M4 review – it’s the Yoda of the Mac line-up – small but incredibly powerful

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RATING

• VERDICT

The Mac mini is an excellent computer with a tiny footprint that can offer powerful performance in any situation. It’s ideal for home, for students and creative professionals and researchers. With the Mac mini M4 – as Yoda would say: “do or do not, there is no try.”

The Mac mini is like the Yoda of Apple’s line-up of computers – small but incredibly powerful.

As Yoda the wise and diminutive Jedi Master said: “Size matters not. Judge me by my size do you?”

You can say precisely the same thing about Apple’s latest M4 tiny but mighty computer.

So to complete the analogy the new Apple M4 is the computing version of the Force – it can empower you to do some amazing things.

The Mac mini is less than half the size of the previous model and measures 12.7cm x 12.7cm – now that’s what you call a small footprint.

Tech Guide received the Mac mini for review – the version that arrived was the Mac mini with M4 (10-core CPU, 10-core GPU), 16GB unified and 512GB storage. This version is priced at $1,299.

There is a base model with M4 (10-core CPU, 10-core GPU) with 16GB unified memory and 256GB storage for $999.

Mac mini also comes with the M4 Pro chip (12-core CPU, 16-core GPU) and starts with 24GB unified memory and 512GB – it is priced from $2,199.

Design-wise the Mac Mini looks more like its much bigger brother the Mac Studio than the previous model of the Mac mini.

But despite its small size there are plenty of ports including two USB-C ports and a headphone jack on the front with an Ethernet port, three Thunderbolt (USB-C) ports (these are the latest Thunderbolt 5 on the M4 Pro) and a full size HDMI port.

One thing missing which we would have liked to see is a memory card slot – even a microSD card slot.

And the on button is on the bottom.

The M4 chip offers remarkable power and versatility that can churn through tasks like DNA sequencing.

To give you an idea of the power of the new Mac mini, it can complete this task 26.8 times faster than a Mac mini with Intel’s Core i7 chip.

Personally, we don’t do that much DNA sequencing, but we do run calculations on Excel spreadsheets which is now four times faster and processing audio with Logic Pro is 8.2 times faster.

We also noticed a sharp rise in performance when using Final Cut Pro to edit videos and smoother and faster operation using Adobe Audition to edit audio for our podcasts.

We ran the Mac mini through some benchmark tests on Cinebench to see just how well it can perform.

The benchmark tests put the CPU and GPU to work on some tasks.

In the GPU testing, the Mac mini with M4 was only slightly behind the M1 Ultra – one of Apple’s most powerful processors when it was released in 2021.

In the CPU multi core testing the M4 again slightly trailed the M1 Ultra which topped the list but was well above the M1 Max.

In CPU single core, the M4 topped the list and outperformed both the M1 Max and the M1 Ultra.

Naturally, the Mac mini is ready go for Apple Intelligence when it is available in December so you can create and edit text and images as well as enjoy greater productivity and efficiency.

The Mac mini is a standalone computer which means its BYO keyboard, mouse and monitor. That’s why is offers such impressive value starting at just $999.

Apple can help you here with the Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and the Studio Display.

Mac mini works with a variety of Bluetooth keyboards and mice and it can be connected to up to three external monitors.

It has Wi-Fi 6E onboard, again Apple has not opted for Wi-Fi 7 on its latest M4 range of computers.

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

Mac mini with M4 and M4 Pro are available now.

The Mac mini with M4 starts at $999 (16GB, 256SSD) while the Mac mini with M4 Pro starts at $2199 (24GB, 512SSD).

VERDICT

The Mac mini is an excellent computer with a tiny footprint that can offer powerful performance in any situation. It’s ideal for home, for students and creative professionals and researchers. With the Mac mini M4 – as Yoda would say: “do or do not, there is no try.”