Mac mini M1 review (hands on): The best new Mac might not be a MacBook

Mac mini M1 review (hands on): The best new Mac might non be a MacBook

(Image credit: Apple)

Convergence has been commonplace in the PC earth for years, as desktops have gotten smaller and laptops have gotten more than powerful.

Simply most manufacturers accept struggled to accomplish what Apple managed to do with one savage swoop when it introduced its own proprietary chipsets: making desktops and laptops functionally identical.

The new Mac mini is technically a desktop, but it bears the same processing and graphics hardware as its MacBook Pro and MacBook Air brethren. It's pocket-sized enough and light enough that you can take it with yous anywhere, as long as you can connect information technology to a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Then where fifty-fifty are the boundaries now?

The Apple Silicon Mac mini does not have many boundaries. It will entreatment nigh to those who need (or want) to use those extra peripherals and the flexibility they provide — to say cypher of dongle-free access to classic USB ports — and those for whom perfect portability is not a commanding concern.

There are plenty of those (uh, we) people out in that location, so the Mac mini is probable to satisfy both its built-in user base and the Apple curious with its feature-rich pattern and strong performance. And it will bowl them over once more applications accept advantage of Apple tree Silicon's dazzling new capabilities.

Mac mini M1 design

Like previous entries in its product line, the 2020 Mac mini is no way bulky. Similar its most recent predecessor, seen in our Apple Mac mini (2018) review, it measures vii.7 inches long and broad and 1.iv inches loftier and weighs in at 2.6 pounds, making it light and easy to carry around.

Its rounded corners, matte metallic ("Silverish" in Apple speak) end and glossy black Apple logo on top, and the tiny Power push hidden on the rear corner give it a sleek withal unassuming wait to match its diminutive stature. The pinpoint-size white light in the front corner, which glows when the system is on, remains the merely additional adornment.

Apple Mac mini M1 — (Image credit: Apple)

The black disc on the bottom, etched with the system'due south proper noun, does triple duty equally a cooling vent, an top human foot, and an access panel for getting at the internal hardware. (You will probably not desire to do this, as disassembly is far fussier than with most PCs and you lot have a narrow upgrade path, only the potential is there.)

Mac mini M1 specs and software

	M1 Mac mini	2018 Mac mini
Price	$699 (starting)	$799 (showtime)
CPU	Apple M1 (8-core, eight-Cadre GPU)	Intel Core i3-8100B (4-Core)
RAM	8GB / 16GB	8GB / 16GB / 32GB / 64GB
Storage	256GB / 512GB / 1TB / 2TB	256GB / 512GB /1TB / 2TB
Ports	Thunderbolt/USB 4 (2), HDMI 2.0, USB-A (2), Ethernet, iii.5mm headphone jack	Thunderbolt iii (4), HDMI 2.0, USB-A (ii), Ethernet, three.5mm headphone jack
Dimensions	7.7 x 7.seven x 1.iv inches	7.7 10 vii.7 x i.4 inches
Weight	2.6 punds	two.six pounds
Terminate	Silver	Space Gray

The CPU powering all of Apple's latest Mac releases is the eight-core M1. It's divided into four performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, the former do things faster and the latter do them while drawing less power. (Apparently less of a business concern with a desktop, simply no matter.)

Apple has paired this CPU with an on-board GPU; like those on the MacBook Pro and the top-tier MacBook Air, the Mac mini's GPU offers an boosted viii processing cores of graphics ability. (The lower-end MacBook Air is hobbled slightly past its 7-core GPU, and the lack of a fan on both Airs introduces the possibility of restricted performance on enervating programs.)

The M1 Mac mini comes in 2 default configurations, each with 8GB of RAM: one with 256GB of solid-state storage for $699 and one with 512GB for $899. In either case, you can add together another 8GB of RAM for $200 and/or increment the storage to 1TB for $200 or to 2TB for $600.

A fully loaded Mac mini will run you $i,699, before calculation any additional software too the usual gimmies of Pages, Numbers, Keynote, iMovie, and GarageBand, though Apple gives you the opportunity to add Concluding Cutting Pro ($299.99) and Logic Pro ($199.99) to your cart before you cheque out.

The Intel Mac mini, which starts at $1,099 and offers a broad variety of upgrade options (including up to 64GB of RAM and 10 Gigabit Ethernet), is also yet available for sale.

Mac mini M1 ports

If the Mac mini doesn't hope a massive operation edge, why might you want information technology instead of one of the more convenient laptops?

For one thing, more than screen existent estate. The Mac mini, the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro all offer support for an external 60Hz 6K (six,144x3,160) brandish, just the Mac mini lets y'all also connect a 4K (iii,840x2,160) monitor, whereas the congenital-in screens on the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro top out at 2,560x1,600 and 2,880x1,800, respectively.

The Mac mini'south port option in general is a major plus, also — after all, it actually has room for ports. It's enough to house ii Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports and a headphone jack (just as on both models of M1 laptop), and then add together on Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI two.0 (a must for an external brandish), and two USB Type-A ports.

On the laptops, you lot demand dongles for everything that won't connect to Thunderbolt, and these tin get expensive. Here, Thunderbolt is one connector selection of many. And if you lot're a keyboard and mouse snob (like yours truly), and Apple tree'due south unique designs in these areas are not to your liking, you'll find this a huge, productivity-enhancing benefit.

Apple Mac mini (2018) ports — (Image credit: Future)

It's worth mentioning, though, that this is a come-down from the previous Mac mini — y'all're losing ii Thunderbolt ports — and there's a gamble that could trip up your workflow. Apple may be bold that giving upwardly two ports for expanded monitor space is a worthwhile trade; I would personally hold, but your Mac mileage may vary.

In addition, at that place's forrad-thinking support for Bluetooth five.0 and 802.11ax (aka WiFi 6) that offers more features and speed for your wireless adventures. In any event, you'll still demand to be hooked up to a wall outlet with the typically elegant power cablevision Apple has included, which plugs into a port on the dorsum.

Mac mini M1 performance

As nosotros expected, the performance of our Mac mini unit (the default configuration, with 8GB of Apple's "unified memory" and 256GB of storage) differed very little from comparably outfitted MacBook Air and MacBook Pro units.

	Geekbench v.iii	Handbrake video transcoding (version one.4)	PugetBench Photoshop
M1 Mac mini	7,683	08:11	566
M1 MacBook Air	7,581	09:08	579
M1 MacBook Pro	7,571	07:46	577

The Mac mini's multicore score on the general-purpose Geekbench 5.3 benchmark test (which has been optimized for Apple Silicon) was seven,683 — slightly, statistically insignificantly alee of the 8GB MacBook Air (7,581) and MacBook Pro (7,571).

There was marginally more than variation on our video encoding test in the Apple Silicon–friendly Handbrake one.4. The Mac mini took 8 minutes and 11 seconds to consummate the transcode, whereas the MacBook Pro was just ahead of it at vii:46 and the MacBook Air a fleck backside at nine:08.

Applications that exercise non all the same run natively on Apple'due south chips turned out similar results, as we saw in our tests using PugetBench for Adobe CC, a series of benchmarks that subjects systems to intense, real-earth workloads from major productivity programs.

The Mac mini's score of 566 when dealing with a xxx-minute Photoshop challenge was right on par with the MacBook Air's (579) and the MacBook Pro's (577).

We saw something similar with Premiere Pro, too, though the news there is less encouraging. The Mac mini won the day with a score of 366, but neither that nor the competing scores (329 for the MacBook Air, 336 for the MacBook Pro) were especially good.

For the record, nosotros also ran through our benchmark tests on 16GB models of the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro and found very little variance in performance from the 8GB versions. The chief exception was Photoshop. Both scores — 652.7 for the MacBook Air, 649.3 for the MacBook Pro — were noticeably better, if not disruptively then.

	Civilization 6: Gathering Storm	Resolution
M1 Mac mini (@ 4K)	17.3	3840 x 2160
M1 Mac mini (@1080p)	31.5	1920 x 1080
M1 MacBook Air	37	1440 ten 900
M1 MacBook Pro	38	1440 10 900

Gaming prowess is harder to compare, as the Mac mini allow united states practice better testing at more than standard resolutions than the laptops. Merely for the record, its frame rates of 31.5fps and 17.3fps in Civilization Half dozen: Gathering Tempest, respectively at 1080p and 4K, represent pretty solid playability for that game at midrange settings.

Its frame rates in Rise of the Tomb Raider at Very High settings, 20.2fps at 1080p and five.7fps at 4K, testify that more than serious 3D gaming is not ideal for this machine.

The laptops did have slightly higher frame rates at their generally lower resolutions (at ane,440x900, around 36-38fps for Civilization Half dozen and 25-29fps for Rise of the Tomb Raider; at 2,880x1,800, about 8-9fps for Ascent of the Tomb Raider), but remained little to text habitation nearly.

	Geekbench 5	Handbrake video transcoding (via Rosetta 2)	PugetBench Photoshop
M1 Mac mini	6,005	12:38	566
Lenovo ThinkCentre M90N	3,265	20:23	n/a
Intel NUC ix Pro Kit (w/ Inel Xeon CPU, Nvidia Quadro GPU)	7,986	08:23	849.seven

How does the story change when the Mac mini is assessed confronting PCs or the previous-generation version of itself?

Again, it depends. The born caveat here comes dorsum to the M1 flake, and benchmarks that currently use it don't readily compare to those running on Intel processors. Loading Rosetta 2, withal, does requite us a general, if imperfect, basis for comparison.

The recent Lenovo ThinkCentre M90N, for example, earned a multicore score of 3,265 in Geekbench 5, against the Mac mini's vi,005. It took twenty minutes and 23 seconds to plow through HandBrake, a task the Rosetta-filtered Mac mini wound up in 12:38. The Lenovo's Photoshop score and Culture Six frame rate (xiii.6fps, at 1080p) were lower, also (390).

Opposite the Xeon Quadro version of the Intel NUC ix Pro Kit, the Mac mini faltered more visibly, getting vanquish past it in Geekbench 5 (7,986), Handbrake (viii:23), Photoshop (849.7), and Civilization VI (100.13fps).

Mac mini M1 outlook

No, M1-equipped Macs are not always a slam dunk. They offer dizzying punches for both processing and graphics on the low end, but the versions we've seen aren't withal fully competitive with, say, higher-end Intel offerings and moderate-or-improve discrete graphics systems.

This may change in the not-too-distant time to come — rumors are already flying about how Apple volition adapt its chips for the next version of the 16-inch MacBook Pro — but for now, some of the onetime rules all the same apply. The Mac mini's price is undoubtedly attractive for what you become, but you lot'll even so have to beat out out a bit more coin if y'all want more than impressive performance.

Simply if the Mac mini has never been a major operation offering, these updates bring it a lot closer to that territory. For a organization that can drive two big monitors, information technology has few equals on the PC side, and its port-forrad desktop setup ways you tin utilise a lot of the hardware y'all already ain and dearest, which is not an instantly set up pick with Apple's laptops.

If your computer seldom needs to go anywhere, the Mac mini makes a lot of sense, and fifty-fifty its pricier configurations will notwithstanding cost y'all hundreds of dollars less than an equivalent MacBook Air or Pro if yous already have a monitor (or 2), keyboard, and mouse to use with it. For that reason, this Mac mini could be a superb entry point into — or extension of — the Apple ecosystem.

Information technology will be a while earlier you run into all the speed Apple has promised from programs that run natively on its ain silicon, but what nosotros've seen so far is a tantalizing glimpse into what might exist possible one time companies are writing everything for Apple Silicon rather than Intel. That could be well worth waiting for considering how formidable the deceptively modest Mac mini already is.

Matthew Murray is the head of testing for Future, analogous and conducting product testing at Tom's Guide and other Future publications. He has previously covered technology and performance arts for multiple publications, edited numerous books, and worked every bit a theatre critic for more than than 16 years.