Apple is gearing up to announce its first Mac models with the M4 series of chips starting this coming Monday morning, and one of them is expected to be the Mac mini. It now looks like the Mac mini is going to be the star of the show for next week’s announcements, and here’s why. But first, let’s dive into the brief history of the machine.
Overview
The Mac mini was originally introduced in January 2005 as Apple’s most affordable Mac, which also serves as an entry gateway in the Mac ecosystem. The purpose of the Mac mini was simple. The mini is a super compact desktop box that you put on your desk, and to set it up, all you need to do is bring your own display, keyboard, and mouse. Although the Mac mini has been sometimes overlooked, that model serves Mac users well, including both first-time users and pro users in designated areas like studios. It got its first redesign with the aluminum unibody enclosure in June 2010, and the Mac mini has since carried that design to this day. It wasn’t until Mark Gurman’s report that Apple started developing an even smaller design for the Mac mini. This would be super exciting as the current M1/M2 logic boards are now significantly smaller, leaving more empty space inside the Mac mini, so Apple can be more efficient with utilizing the space by reducing the footprint of the machine even further.
New Design
With that said, we expect the Mac mini to have a significantly smaller footprint that’s similar to the current Apple TV. It’s also said that the new Mac mini will be slightly taller, possibly to accommodate an active-cooling fan. For comparison, here are the dimensions for both the Apple TV and the current Mac mini:
- Mac mini: 7.75 inches x 7.75 inches x 1.41 inches
- Apple TV: 3.66 inches x 3.66 inches x 1.2 inches
So we may see a significant volume reduction by up to 50%, which will be quite an engineering feat in miniaturization, especially when it’s expected to have an internal power supply inside the machine. As with other Mac desktops, I’d expect the new Mac mini to come in the classic silver finish although I would be surprised if Apple also offers the Mac mini in Space Black.
Possible Specs
Currently, the Mac mini is available in both the M2 and M2 Pro chips, so it’s logical that the redesigned Mac mini will be available in both the M4 and M4 Pro chips. The base M4 model will feature the unbinned M4 chip standard across all the configurations. That’s with a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU. The M4 Pro chip will certainly have several configurations for the CPU, GPU, and unified memory as well as additional higher storage tiers.
For the I/O, it’s expected to have the headphone jack, a Gigabit Ethernet port (maybe configurable to 10-Gigabit), and HDMI. Say goodbye to the traditional USB-A ports as you won’t find any in the new Mac mini. Instead, you will find up to five USB-C ports – two of them will be at the front, similar to the Mac Studio, and three of them will be at the back. It’s also possible that Apple may differentiate the M4 and M4 Pro models when it comes to the USB-C port selection.
Pricing and Conclusion
Currently, the Mac mini starts at $599, so the new models could start at the same price as before; however, since the M4 Mac mini is expected to start with 16GB of unified memory as standard, we may see a price bump of up to $200. For what it’s worth, it’ll definitely be worth the premium as we can always expect sales on the standard models that come with 16GB of memory.
Stay tuned for Monday when Apple will start announcing new Macs then! Follow us on X for the latest news!
