You’ll need at least one of those for the Mac Mini setup to even nudge ahead, but you need both for it to work.

You see, because you only get the computer in the box - and don’t get a keyboard or mouse - things can be a little awkward, because you need either a wired keyboard or mouse, or one of Apple’s optional keyboard or mouse extras for setup to work… and that is genuinely maddening. With the features out of the way, it’s time to set up the Mac Mini, and that’s where Apple kind of throws a bit of a spanner in the works. That is by and large the feature set of the Mac Mini, which is pretty much just a computer without the screen, ready for you to plug in and get cracking. On the Intel editions, you had Intel Core i5 or i7 models, while on the M1 Mac mini, you’ll get the same Apple M1 chip with either 8 or 16GB RAM, and an amount of storage starting at 256GB but configurable to 2TB if needed. There are other changes, such as support for 802.11a/b/g/nac/ax WiFi 6, up from the WiFi 5 ac technology on the Intel model, plus a totally different set of chip hardware underneath. It means you’re getting a silver aluminium softened square with a black polycarbonate back, and a design that says merely “I’m a smallish computer made for your desk”, or really anywhere else you need a fairly small Mac.Ī slight shift from what’s found on the Intel model, there are only two Thunderbolt 3 Type C ports on this fairly small Mac, down from the four on the Intel Mac mini, accompanying two USB 3 ports, a single HDMI, one Ethernet, and a headphone jack, the same rough load out as was found on the Intel edition of the Mac Mini before it. Our guess is sometime in 2022, but for now, this is a similar design to the old Mac Mini with Intel hardware under the hood, but with Apple chips used.

This isn’t the latest M1 Pro or M1 Max, as there’s no Mac Mini with that onboard quite yet. Is the most wallet friendly Mac as good as the rest? DesignĪ positively pint-sized Mac measuring a little bigger than an Intel NUC, but seemingly still quite small, the Mac Mini brings a metal compact desktop style to last year’s introduction of M1 chip and set of specs found on the MacBook Pro 13, released alongside it in 2020. Of all the Macs we’ve reviewed, we realised we hadn’t reviewed Apple’s least expensive desktop, so with this Mac Mini review, we’re correcting just that. There’s a fair bit to look at in the least expensive Mac, the M1 Mac Mini, but value may not be as readily apparent unless you have check some boxes.

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