The new Mac Mini gains the M4 CPU and loses about half a liter in volume. It's so tiny! But I would guess it's got the muscle of my M2-era Mac Studio, at least at a sprint.
When compared to the best-selling PC desktop in its price range, Mac mini is up to 6x faster at one-twentieth the size.1 For a wide range of users, from students to aspiring creatives and small business owners, the Mac mini with M4 is a tiny powerhouse. Mac mini with M4 features a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and now starts with 16GB of unified memory. Users will feel the performance of M4 in everything they do, from multitasking across everyday productivity apps to creative projects like video editing, music production, or writing and compiling code.
Very glad there isn't an 8GB model—those barely cut the mustard four years ago, let alone now.
The tragedy of most Mac Mini-esque mainstream mini PCs (e.g. ThinkCenter Tiny, HP Elite Mini) is that they all come with enormous power bricks. True alternatives are are few on the ground. The Beelink EQ13 Mini is the best best right now, I think, though performance would be modest, even with the N200 upgrade. If you're OK with bus power, the Minisforum EM680 wants 65W and claims "Alt PD" on the port, which implies displayport alt mode and power on the monitor cable.
Prices start at $600, $500 with educator discount. The top configuration on offer is a Mac Mini with an M4 Pro chip (with 14‑core CPU and 20‑core GPU), 64GB unified memory, 8TB SSD storage and 10 Gigabit Ethernet. That'll cost $4,700! Lose the storage and ethernet upgrades and that drops to $2,200.
