Apple announces redesigned Mac Mini with M4 chip — and it’s so damn small
More power than ever in a downright tiny package.
As part of the company’s week of Mac-focused announcements, Apple has just introduced a smaller, yet even more powerful Mac Mini. It’s now equipped with Apple’s latest M4 silicon, supports ray tracing for the first time, and ships with 16GB of RAM by default — seemingly the new normal in the Apple Intelligence era. The machine still starts at $599 with the regular M4 chip, while the more powerful M4 Pro model has a starting price of $1,399. Like the refreshed iMac announced yesterday, the Mac Mini is available to preorder immediately and will be in stores on November 8th.
The first thing you’ll notice is the new design. As rumored, the Mini has been shrunken down considerably — and it was already a relatively small desktop machine to begin with. Now it’s downright tiny, measuring five inches in both length and width. If you’re wondering how Apple manages to keep things running cool, the company says it’s through the M4’s efficiency and “an innovative thermal architecture, which guides air to different levels of the system, while all venting is done through the foot.”
Even so, Apple has loaded this thing up with plenty of I/O: on the front are two USB-C ports and a 3.5mm audio jack. Around back you’ll find ethernet, HDMI, and three USB-C / Thunderbolt ports. The USB-A ports are indeed history, but it’s worth noting that the base M2 Mini only had two Thunderbolt 4 ports and two USB-A ports. With the M4, you’re getting five ports in all. So you’re losing native USB-A but picking up an extra Thunderbolt port.
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