Review: Apple's M4 Mac Mini is the Best Desktop Mac

Apple refreshed the Mac mini back in November, adding M4 chips and increasing the base memory. We did a hands-on impressions video at the time, but we thought we'd follow that up with a more in-depth review now that we've had more time to spend with Apple's cheapest desktop machine.


Priced starting at $599, the ‌Mac mini‌ offers the most affordable way to get access to Apple's new M4 chip, plus the machine got a design overhaul with the 2024 refresh. The ‌Mac mini‌ now measures in at 5 inches by 5 inches, and it's more than two inches smaller than the prior-generation model. It takes up much less space on a desk, and while it isn't quite as small as the Apple TV, it offers impressive performance in a super compact package.

With Apple Intelligence and the M4 chip, Apple stopped using 8GB as the base amount of memory that Macs ship with, and upped it to 16GB. The $599 ‌Mac mini‌ has an M4 chip and 16GB of RAM as a result, and it is an excellent deal for a desktop machine. Of course, you're going to need to supply your own display, keyboard, and mouse, but it's so small that you can easily move it between desktop setups at home and work.

The base ‌Mac mini‌ comes with an M4 chip, but there is an option to upgrade to the faster M4 Pro for those who need more power. The M4 models have three Thunderbolt 4 ports, but choosing the M4 Pro nets you three Thunderbolt 5 ports with faster transfer speeds. There are also two USB-C ports with 10Gb/s transfer speeds at the front of each machine. Compared to the prior-generation M2 ‌Mac mini‌, the M4 models are up to 55 percent faster in terms of CPU speed.

If you're looking for a desktop Mac, the base ‌Mac mini‌ is the best deal that you're going to get. The performance is more than enough for day to day tasks and even gaming, photo editing, and video editing, and that $599 price tag really can't be beat.

Related Roundup: Mac mini
Buyer's Guide: Mac Mini (Buy Now)
Related Forum: Mac mini

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Top Rated Comments

brofkand Avatar
16 weeks ago
It may in fact be the best computer ever made.
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
justperry Avatar
16 weeks ago
Have one, low power use, I have several servers running on it, 4 watts only.
Had a 2012 Mac Mini, served me well.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ItsGavinC Avatar
16 weeks ago

Terrible. The placement of the power button will go down as one of, if not the biggest, tech failures of all time. I've actually lost sleep over it.
Bizarre.

I access the power button maybe, and that's a strong maybe, once a year. No reason to ever hit that button.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Altis Avatar
16 weeks ago
Picked up the base M4 Mini and so far so good. Quiet, pretty quick, and macOS finally has features like window snapping that make it decent to use as a desktop.

Only annoyances are that Apple Intelligence, even disabled entirely, downloads and uses about 5GB of the 215GB you have on a fresh first boot. It would have been nice to include one or two USB-A ports for mouse, keyboard, thumb drives, etc.

Great computer for the price -- so long as you don't need to upgrade through Apple with their eye-watering upgrade prices.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
poofdadz Avatar
16 weeks ago
Terrible. The placement of the power button will go down as one of, if not the biggest, tech failures of all time. I've actually lost sleep over it.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
HJM.NL Avatar
16 weeks ago

Picked up the base M4 Mini and so far so good. Quiet, pretty quick, and macOS finally has features like window snapping that make it decent to use as a desktop.

Only annoyances are that Apple Intelligence, even disabled entirely, downloads and uses about 5GB of the 215GB you have on a fresh first boot. It would have been nice to include one or two USB-A ports for mouse, keyboard, thumb drives, etc.

Great computer for the price -- so long as you don't need to upgrade through Apple with their eye-watering upgrade prices.
You should be able to change the amount of ram and ssd storage. If Apple took their environmental stance seriously they should enable that for all their devices. There are other ways to collect your money by them. Hope greediness is something from the past and 2025 will be the one of innovation.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)