Apple Mac mini base model

5owners with an opinion

80%of verdicts positive

2/1positive/negative since 2024

0happy after 3+ years

Praised for performance and value.

What people wrote

Doesn’t like it

> They have disk space, because most people don’t use terabytes of space, and Macs come with, historically speaking, tons of storage now. A Mac mini base model comes with 256G. It is manageable but barely unless used with an external disk. 22.8G as quoted in the article is about 10% of the available space and it is something that cannot be offloaded to external disk. Many people including myself are going to be furious when their Mac is upgraded.

Likes it

I’m glad I opted to get the base model M4 Mac Mini rather than upgrade the memory for longevity.

Likes it

I use Apple products because they are complements to my other devices. I have a mac mini as well but that doesn't stop me from having other windows and Linux workstations. I do have an iPhone SE that I like very much and the Air pods Pro gen 2 that I love. Really I use Apple products because I don't want to think about if something will be of good enough quality or not. I'm not picky and don't care for perfection, I sometimes just want something that "just werks" and when it comes to my phone and earbuds and a budget desktop (the base model mac mini), Apple does it wonderfully.

Likes it

ARM64 Windows with Windows own built in x86/x64 compatibility layer. It actually runs very well, even on my base model M1 Mac Mini.

Likes it

I have to say, I'm rather concerned for Intel and AMD. The magic of the M1 is not just the hardware, but also the software of MacOS. Putting everything together on the M1 chip, the CPU / GPU / Neural Engine, and allowing all those to share memory, seem to be from where much of the magic comes. The further optimization of MacOS to leverage all that helps as well. AMD already has a lot of experience with high-speed interconnects. They already have a lot of experience with APUs. I wonder if it'd be possible for Microsoft and AMD to enter some sort of partnership whereby the optimize Windows in the same way MacOS has been optimized. I really fucking hate Apple. I hate their walled garden approach. I hate their "trendiness". So I have a small bit of self-loathing that I own the base model new Mac Mini, but I can't allow my seething hatred for the company to cloud my judgment when it comes to using the fastest and most productive platform for my work, and, I'm sorry to say, this little $699 machine outperforms my Ryzen 9 3900X w/ 32 GB of RAM and an RX 5700XT for most tasks. I still game on this machine, but most productivity work has been relegated to the Mac Mini now. Learning MacOS has been frustrating, but also kinda fun.