M4 Mac mini Review 3 Months Later: The Good and the Bad!

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The M4 Mac Mini (base) is incredibly small yet fierce, at a very comfortable price.

The Good

1. Unbeatable value for money
2. It now starts at 16GB
3. It's Apple's BEST Mac

The Bad

1. The Pro is expensive
2. Gets a bit warm

• User Ratings (75 Votes)
  4.3

The M4 Mac mini remains, in my humble opinion, the best product Apple has ever made. That may not be a popular opinion. What about the iPhone? The original Macintosh? The AirPods?

It’s a nice problem to have if you’re an Apple fan; your favourite tech brand, if not exactly hitting out of the park regularly these days, has made some incredibly transformative products over the years.

The M4 Mac mini is different, though. It opens the door for so many people and is the most affordable way to get into macOS if you want the latest, brand-new Mac. What’s more, it’s ultimately personal; you can build any kind of setup you like around that little box of joy.

But it’s those doors it opens which is why I think it deserves such high praise. Never before have we had access to computing power in such a small and affordable form factor. As you’ll have seen from my own stress tests and those of others, the stuff you can do with the base model alone is mind-blowing.

I’ve had my M4 Mac mini for around three months now, and, yes, it’s the M4 Pro version. More on that later.

My Thoughts on the OG M4 Mac Mini (base model)

The latest entry-level M4 Mac mini could become one of Apple’s best-ever Macs. Scrap that – it could become one of their best-ever products.

Ever since the M1 Mac mini, which I got rid of, arrived on the scene in November 2020, I’ve been obsessed with Apple’s tiny little desktop powerhouse. Just like the MacBook Air, it was clearly waiting for the Apple Silicon generation of chips to really show what it was capable of, and it didn’t disappoint.

The new version takes things several steps forward thanks to a comprehensive redesign and the shedding of several excess pounds. The big question is: will that size reduction have an impact on the Mac mini’s party trick, which is the ability to deliver incredible performance at a very un-Apple-like starting price?

Spec and pricing

The base model M4 Mac mini comes with 10 CPU cores split between four performance and six efficiency cores. A 10-core GPU joins them and, for the first time, 16GB of unified memory as standard.

That’s right – the 8GB version has been scrapped completely. It is impossible to buy a brand-new Mac from Apple now that ‘only’ has 8GB of unified memory. That should stop the squabbles in the comments sections of my videos, eh?

Who am I kidding? This is the internet.

You get 256GB of storage as standard with the entry-level Mac mini, but it can be taken up to a maximum of 2TB if your budget can stretch that far. Oh, and if you’re wondering, the maximum unified memory is now 32GB (it was 24GB, previously).

On the back, we have three Thunderbolt 4 ports, gigabit ethernet, and HDMI. Swivel the little guy around and you’ll find two additional USB-C ports and a headphone input on the front. It is quite the redesign.

The starting price for the new Mac mini is £599/$599. Inside the box, you’ll find a power cable and nothing more, which means you must budget for a mouse, keyboard, and monitor to complete your setup. But it’s still one hell of a starting price for what should be an epic desktop computing experience.

5 things I love about the M4 Mac mini

It won’t surprise you to hear that this wasn’t a particularly tricky list to compile. Here are five things I love about the M4 Mac mini.

1. The ease of buying guidance

A big part of my job is to guide people towards the right tech purchase. I do this a lot with the Mac and every week I receive a bunch of questions on YouTube about whether or not someone should buy this Mac or that Mac. Or maybe that one.

Rarely is there an easy answer. The right Mac for you depends on a whole host of factors – not least what you’re actually going to do with it.

The M4 Mac mini breaks the mould here and this is another thing which makes it so special. It is abundantly easy to recommend the right spec, because for most people, it’s the same one.

When my dad messaged me a few weeks ago stating that he needed to replace his ageing 27-inch Intel iMac, I told him immediately to buy an M4 Mac mini with 512GB of storage and add a Studio Display to his basket before checking out. Monitor aside (unless you want to spend that much, of course – more on that later) it’s probably what you should do, too.

2. The size

Look at it. No, seriously, look at the M4 Mac mini. It is comically small – and even more so when you get one in your hands.

Before its release, the rumours were pointing towards an Apple TV-sized computer. With hindsight, that would have been ludicrous, but what we’ve ended up with isn’t actually that far off Apple’s set-top box in terms of its footprint.

You can slot this thing anywhere, and it always looks great. Sure, we’ve lost USB-A, but in its place, we have far more conveniently located USB-C ports, which is a win for most people in 2025.

The only slight downside relating to the size of the new Mac mini is that it is rather inclined to move around on the desk if you so much as connect a USB-C cable to one of those front ports. For someone who is as anal as me about desk conformity, that does get unreasonably irritating.

3. The power

My stress test of the base model M4 Mac mini revealed a computer that is capable of dealing with massive projects in both Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro without so much as breaking a sweat.

The power-per-weight ratio of the M4 Mac mini is akin to a 1990s hot hatchback; it shouldn’t be capable of the things it can do. But it is. And that means you really don’t need to spend too much money on yours, as previously mentioned.

It’s even better news if you’re running a business that’s going to rely on this little machine. You can spend more on it if you want and take it up to even more ludicrous levels of power for such a diminutive computer – and it still won’t cost as much as what you’d have paid for a similarly capable Mac three years ago.

4. The lack of any kind of noise at all

I’ve seen some YouTube comments that report fan noise from the M4 Mac mini under extreme load. Each time I’ve spotted such a comment, I’ve asked what the extreme load was, and I never get a response. Annoying? Suspicious? Maybe.

Regardless, I’ve never heard a single murmur from my M4 Pro Mac mini, and I didn’t from the base model version I ran my stress test on.

In fact, I can’t remember what the world was like before we had silent Apple Silicon-powered Macs. Although, it definitely involved Windows.

5. What it means for creatives

Contrary to what some people seem to think, creating content is bloody hard work. It’s also expensive if you’re serious about turning the output into a business.

I wish the M4 Mac mini had existed when I started my business. Back then, I was stuck using the woefully underpowered ‘escape key’ MacBook Pro from the Intel generation. I couldn’t justify anything more, which meant I was saddled with a crippled engine room for my business.

If I started my business now, I’d buy that base model M4 Mac mini and it wouldn’t hold me back at all. I’d get stuff done faster and without hassle. I’d be happier and, probably, more profitable.

5 things I don’t love about the M4 Mac mini

No product is perfect – even if you believe it to be the best thing the brand in question has ever made. The M4 Mac mini certainly isn’t without its faults, and as much as it pained me to do so, I’ve picked out five that are the most annoying.

1. The lack of an SD card slot

If I had to pick just one downside about the M4 Mac mini, it would be the lack of an SD card slot.

I don’t understand why Apple deems this a premium feature. And if you argue that they don’t, or that no one uses SD cards anymore, then why on earth can it only be found on the far more expensive Mac Studio? And people do use SD cards by the bucketload – trust me.

Every time I need to load something from my camera into my M4 Mac mini, it annoys me. And it annoys me even more when I have to plug an ugly dongle into one of those front-facing USB-C ports.

Thankfully, there are a fair few third-party solutions for this, such as the elegant Satechi dock for the M4 Mac mini, but we shouldn’t have to do this, Apple.

2. The power button placement (but not for the reason you think)

If you’ve been living under a rock since the new Mac mini was unleashed into the world, you’ll have missed the biggest controversy: the placement of the power button.

You read that right. During the intense hunt for something to moan about which follows every Apple product launch, the sweaty-palmed mob of Apple detractors settled on the power button as being the most ludicrous thing they’d ever seen in their lives, evs.

Their reasoning was simple: Apple had, in its infinite wisdom, decided to place the power button for the new Mac mini on the underside of the device, which means you have to lift it up slightly to turn it on and off.

The trouble with this line of criticism is that it is quite possibly the biggest non-event in modern tech. Lifting the Mac mini to access the power button isn’t exactly a hardship and, once it’s turned on, you’re unlikely to need to reach for that button again. I can’t remember the last time I touched mine, and I use it every day. Stop laughing at the back.

The reason the Mac mini power button makes this list is that it annoys me how much it became such a focal point of the commentary about Apple’s best-ever product.

3. The lack of colour options

I do wonder how many other people feel like this – if it’s only me, then I guess there’s our answer – but I deeply wish we could buy the M4 Mac mini in different colours.

Imagine an orange version in the same shade as the new Powerbeats Pro 2. Ooh. Just think about that for a minute.

Actually, give me a minute, too.

Ahem, anyway, I don’t understand why Apple didn’t add a touch of iMac-inspired colour to its tiny little desktop powerhouse. It wouldn’t make any difference to the performance or capabilities, obviously, but if there’s one company on this planet who knows how to sell more stuff just because of the colour choices available, it’s Apple.

Next time, Tim?

4. The absence of a cheaper Apple display

As noted earlier, one of the best things about the M4 Mac mini is that you can create your own setup around it. One of the biggest expenses, however, is likely to be the monitor you choose.

The problem is that the M4 Mac mini looks amazing when placed alongside a Studio Display. The problem with that is the fact the Studio Display hasn’t been updated for quite a while and still costs an arm and a leg.

I totally get the premium thing that Apple often leans on with its products and pricing strategies, but I have a feeling there’s a significant market for a £999 (or lower) Apple display. Who knows – maybe we’ll see one in 2025.

5. I didn’t need the M4 Pro version (my fault)

This isn’t the fault of the M4 Mac mini – it is totally my fault and I’m an idiot for making it so, but I really didn’t need to buy the M4 Pro Mac mini.

Funnily enough, I bought both a specced-up M4 Pro Mac mini and the base model, but returned the latter, believing that I needed all of the power provided by the M4 Pro.

I don’t. This is mainly because I don’t do that much production work anymore for this business, bar wielding a camera occasionally. I have plans (still) to put my little Mac mini to use in a music production environment, but even that doesn’t require the spec I have. I’m not Peter bloody Gabriel.

This is how Apple gets you. You always want more. Just please try and avoid the temptation when buying your M4 Mac mini. I wish I had!

M4 Pro Mac mini vs M2 Pro Mac mini

Once again illustrating my limitations as a benchmarker, My M2 Pro Mac mini isn’t as specced-up as my M4 Pro machine (the former has 16GB of unified memory and fewer cores). Still, it’s the only comparison I have to hand and should show us how far we’ve come from M2 to M4 Pro.

Starting with Final Cut Pro, I took a 10-minute YouTube video I’d already edited and published and plonked a few extra graphical elements onto the timeline for good measure.

One immediate oddity was the fact that I couldn’t screen record on either Mac mini while exporting from Final Cut Pro – they both flat-out refused to export until the screen recording was cancelled. Answers on a postcard for that one, please.

The M4 Pro Mac mini took three minutes and 27 seconds to export the video to an MOV file. During that time, the CPU averaged 20% usage, while the GPU topped out at around 80%. It was untroubled, basically. The fan? Silent.

By comparison, the M2 Pro Mac mini hit similar CPU and GPU usage levels but took four minutes and 12 seconds to complete the task. Once again, it was silent during the export, but the gap between the two is a clear indication of how much more powerful the M4 Pro is, graphics-wise (I’m sure the additional memory helped, too).

Onto Lightroom and an export of 100 photos in large JPEG format. The M4 Pro Mac mini whizzed through the process in just 23 seconds, while the M2 Pro eventually crossed the line in one minute and seven seconds. This is yet another illustration of how much faster the M4 Pro Mac mini is. And, no there wasn’t a hint of fan noise from either machine.

The final comparison test involved Logic Pro, and I decided to really go to town with this one. Using the M4 Pro Mac mini, I built a four-minute project containing 128 tracks. Those tracks were a mixture of audio, MIDI, and AI drummers (no, really) with a whole host of effects thrown onto the signal chain for most of the tracks. It sounded horrendous, but the M4 Pro Mac mini didn’t murmur; it remained immediately responsive both with playback and the graphical feedback from the countless plugins and soft synths that were running.

The fan? Silent.

I then exported the entire project to an MP3 file – a process which the M4 Pro Mac mini devoured in 53 seconds (this only troubled the CPU by 50%). Once again, zero fan noise.

The M2 Pro Mac mini performed just as smoothly on the Logic Pro timeline, although its export time was one minute and 39 seconds – once again, revealing the gap between the M2 Pro and M4 Pro. However, it too was silent during this entire process.

Conclusion? There is clearly a difference in speed between the M2 Pro and M4 Pro Mac mini, but the thermal efficiency of both machines and the amount of headroom available is simply bonkers.

I’ve written a buying guide for the Mac mini’s already, but I appreciate people want some more first-hand experience to guide their decision.

M4 Pro Mac mini vs M3 Max MacBook Pro

For kicks, I decided to run the same tests through my specced-up M3 Max MacBook Pro. This has the same amount of unified memory as my M4 Pro Mac mini but should be significantly more capable in the CPU and GPU stakes.

The Final Cut Pro export on the MacBook Pro took three minutes and 57 seconds – a good 30 seconds slower than the M4 Mac mini.

The Lightroom export was identical to the M4 Pro Mac mini at a blisteringly fast 23 seconds.

As for that massive Logic Pro project, the MacBook Pro took 56 seconds to complete the export to MP3 – three seconds slower than the time achieved by that little M4 Pro Mac mini.

What can we draw from this? Well, that M4 Pro chip is, clearly, on par with the M3 Max for video, photo, and audio work. In some case

Conclusion

My mind hasn’t changed – the M4 Mac mini is still the best thing Apple has ever made, and I can’t see it being topped for quite a while.

The takeaway today is simple: don’t spend too much on your M4 Mac mini, because you almost certainly don’t need as much power as you think you do. Spend little, build your own setup around it and enjoy that computer. Because it’s impossible not to.