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Apple M4 Pro Mac mini (2024) Review
Mar 11, 2025
Review on Cult of Mac: https://www.cultofmac.com/reviews/m4-pro-mac-mini-review More Apple news: http://www.cultofmac.com The new #Apple #Macmini with #M4Pro offers incredible power at an unbelievable price. The diminutive desktop computer reaps the rewards of Apple silicon’s trickle-down performance: It delivers capabilities similar to a Mac Studio (or Mac Pro) with an M2 Ultra, at just a third (or a fifth) of the price of those high-end computers. Produced by Extra Ordinary for Cult of Mac Music composed by Will Davenport, arranged by D. Griffin Jones Chapters: 0:00 The M4 Mac mini 2:04 Design 4:06 Connectivity 6:25 M4 Performance 8:38 Conclusion Follow us! Threads: https://www.threads.net/@cultofmac Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@cultofmac Instagram: https://instagram.com/cultofmac/ X: https://x.com/cultofmac
View Video Transcript
0:00
the new Mac Mini with an M4 Pro chip
0:02
offers incredible power at an
0:04
unbelievable price here's my
0:08
review the Mac Mini has been around a
0:11
long time almost 20 years incredibly
0:14
with the addition of the M4 Mac Mini it
0:17
has only ever had three designs Apple
0:21
introduced the Mac Mini with a white
0:23
plastic top in the power PC and iPod era
0:27
the first Intel versions which I have
0:29
here shared the same industrial design
0:31
it was a good value Apple redesigned the
0:34
Mac Mini in 2010 with a Sleek aluminum
0:37
unibody that would last for the next 14
0:39
years this Mac Mini struggled for much
0:42
of its life to be honest the models sold
0:44
between 2014 and
0:46
2018 were bad they were slow the first
0:50
Apple silicon models in what is now
0:52
something of a tradition shared the same
0:54
case as the older models but with the
0:57
incredible efficiency of Apple's new
0:59
processors
1:00
a third of the case sat completely empty
1:03
with the Apple silicon makeover the new
1:06
M4 Mac Mini looks like a baby Mac Studio
1:09
it's just so darn cute I ordered the
1:12
high-end Mac Mini with an M4 Pro chip
1:15
for 13.99 you get 512 GB of Storage 24
1:20
GB of unified memory an M4 Pro chip with
1:24
a 12 core CPU 16 core GPU and 16 core
1:28
neural engine three three Thunderbolt 5
1:30
ports and two USBC ports gigb ethernet
1:34
Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 and for
1:38
reference the peripherals I'm using are
1:40
the Asus Pro art display 5K if you
1:43
haven't heard the good news it's
1:45
comparable in specs to the Apple Studio
1:47
display at nearly half the cost the new
1:49
magic keyboard with Touch ID and the new
1:51
magic Trackpad with USBC which you can
1:54
see your review of in a separate video
1:56
the Otherworld Computing Thunder Bay 4
1:58
this hosts my time machine backups Apple
2:01
archive photo library and Plex Library
2:04
so now let's talk design the new Mac
2:06
Mini is smaller lighter and about 50
2:10
times more adorable not that the Mac
2:12
Mini has ever been big when compared to
2:14
a standard PC Tower but the smaller
2:16
footprint really has a big impact on
2:19
your desk space it's only 5 in by 5 in
2:24
it's actually too small for the Timex
2:26
clock I usually sit keeping on top of my
2:29
Mac Mini so I had to move it to the top
2:31
of the Thunder Bay instead but more
2:33
surprising than that is the weight the
2:36
old Mac Mini was surprisingly heavy the
2:39
new Mac Mini is the lightest Mac ever
2:44
yes even lighter than the 12in MacBook
2:47
1.6 lb versus 2 lb it wears the same
2:52
aluminum dressing but it now wraps all
2:54
the way around to the back there's no
2:56
big plastic back plate the ports look
3:00
really nice like this I can't get over
3:02
that gorgeous perfectly rectangular
3:04
ethernet Jack but I'm sure what you all
3:06
want to hear about is the power button
3:09
on the bottom although the Mac Mini
3:11
doesn't sit flat on the desk the lip is
3:14
just too short to be able to squeeze
3:15
your finger under there you have to lift
3:17
it a little bit it's really not that big
3:20
of a deal I've had to press the power
3:22
button more in the last week than I have
3:24
the entire preceding year just because
3:27
I've been moving these computers around
3:29
so much you can take care of 90% of the
3:32
cases where you have to press the power
3:34
button by going to system settings
3:36
energy and enabling startup
3:39
automatically after power failure even
3:41
if you're old-fashioned and you turn off
3:43
your computer every day I still don't
3:45
think it'll bother you that much because
3:47
the computer is so light it's really
3:48
easy to just lift it up and press in
3:51
fact the new power button is more
3:54
concave than the old one which used to
3:56
sit flush against the back so although
3:59
it's an slightly less convenient spot
4:01
it's actually easier to find and press
4:05
without looking now let's talk
4:06
connectivity if you're coming from an M2
4:09
proom Mac Mini you previously had four
4:11
Thunderbolt 4 ports and two usba ports
4:14
now you have three Thunderbolt 5 ports
4:17
and two USBC ports it's a loss of one
4:20
connection but the capabilities are so
4:23
much greater Thunderbolt 5 lets you
4:25
transfer data at twice the speed 80 GBS
4:29
per per second and for driving an
4:31
external display you have new options
4:34
for super high resolutions at super high
4:36
frame rates I haven't been able to push
4:39
Thunderbolt 5 to the limits because this
4:41
is actually one area where apple is
4:43
broadly ahead of the curve there aren't
4:45
a lot of Thunderbolt 5 accessories yet
4:48
but if you want more ports including a
4:51
legacy usba a port owc's first
4:54
Thunderbolt 5 dock is already for sale
4:57
personally my biggest cribble with the s
5:00
is the headphone jack moving to the
5:02
front and it's a logical move because I
5:04
can imagine most people plug in
5:06
headphones or use the speakers coming
5:08
out of their Studio display but my sound
5:11
system is a Roland Cube 30X amplifier
5:15
that sits underneath my desk and makes
5:18
for a good foot rest so I just have a
5:21
headphone cable running up the back of
5:23
my desk and plugging into the headphone
5:25
jack in the back of my Mac now I would
5:27
either have to run the cable up and
5:28
around to the front front of the Mac an
5:31
ugly sight even if the cable were long
5:33
enough or run it through the headphone
5:35
jack on my display which is what I
5:37
settled on but that presented its own
5:40
issues lots of people have cheap
5:42
external displays that don't have pass
5:45
through audio like I did until just a
5:47
few weeks ago and if you want to run
5:49
your display over HDMI because you want
5:52
to reserve your Thunderbolt ports for
5:54
peripherals then you lose the ability to
5:56
control the volume level from the Mac
5:59
but I I have to concede that I'm in the
6:00
minority most people plug in wired
6:03
headphones rather than use desktop
6:05
speakers much less a guitar amplifier
6:08
and it's much easier being able to see
6:10
the headphone jack rather than plug it
6:12
in blindly from behind through your mess
6:15
of all your other cables oh and I
6:17
suppose I should also mention that the
6:19
built-in speaker still sounds like
6:21
absolute dog but hopefully no one
6:23
is actually using that now let's talk
6:25
performance appos silicon's M3
6:28
generation was the first first to use a
6:30
new 3 nanom manufacturing process and
6:34
according to reports it was hard to
6:37
manufacture performance tests also
6:39
showed that it wasn't as significant a
6:41
leap as expected the M3 generation was
6:45
another similar jump as M1 was to M2 the
6:49
pro chip was also a little nerfed the M3
6:52
Pro had six performance cores and six
6:55
efficiency cores bringing its
6:57
performance closer in line to the entry
6:59
level chip the M4 family is made with an
7:03
enhanced 3 Nom process the M4 Pro also
7:07
got promoted to eight performance cores
7:10
and two efficiency cores and for an
7:12
extra $200 you can add two more
7:15
performance cores trickle down
7:17
performance is real in most situations
7:20
the M4 chip outperforms my old M2 Pro
7:23
Mac Mini and the M4 Pro is a Powerhouse
7:28
in some benchmarks it's shown as
7:30
outperforming the M2 Ultra which is
7:33
previously the best money could buy that
7:36
means that for the time being this
7:39
$1,400 Mac Mini in some cases
7:43
outperforms the
7:45
$7,000 Mac Pro in my tests I timed the
7:49
Mac Mini doing some of the tasks that I
7:51
do on a regular basis Apple usually
7:54
cherry-picks its stats for the best
7:56
numbers and benchmarks don't show the
7:58
whole story
8:00
but even in these real world tests I
8:02
noticed significant Improvement
8:04
rendering a video was 22% faster
8:07
exporting an episode of the cultcast was
8:10
a whopping 49% faster upscaling of 48
8:14
megapixel Pro raw image in pixel Mater
8:17
was 35% faster and that's all in the
8:20
neural engine so you know that a lot of
8:22
Apple intelligence features are going to
8:24
run that much faster too compiling some
8:27
apps in xcode and running some Python
8:30
scripts were 6% and 22% faster
8:33
respectively those are some big
8:35
improvements for two short years the Mac
8:38
Mini was previously the king when it
8:40
came to getting your bang for the buck
8:42
it was an incredible value before now
8:45
it's a steal it's making a lot of Mac
8:47
Studio owners realize that they can
8:49
downsize an optioned out Mac Mini starts
8:52
to approach Mac Studio prices and if
8:55
you'd rather put your money towards more
8:57
internal storage space rather rather
8:59
than getting a Max chip over a pro chip
9:02
because the pro chip is plenty fast
9:04
you'd be better off with a Mini in the
9:06
Apple silicon age Mac and MacBooks offer
9:09
identical performance when you give them
9:12
identical specs due to how Apple handles
9:14
a process called binning when you're
9:17
making a processor not all of them come
9:19
out of the fabrication lab identically
9:22
some of them will be a little faster
9:24
than others Intel would take the slow
9:27
chips and they would sell them at lower
9:29
price deves or put them in laptops but
9:32
Apple takes the opposite approach they
9:34
put their best chips in the MacBooks and
9:36
the slower chips in Max because on a
9:39
desktop you can always Juice It Up with
9:42
more power to squeeze the same level of
9:44
performance out of it laptops need to be
9:47
the most energy efficient what that
9:49
means is that you don't buy a Mac Mini
9:52
over a MacBook Pro because it's faster
9:54
you buy a Mac Mini because you can get a
9:57
better computer for the same price
10:00
if you're comparing entry-level models
10:02
the Mac Mini is half the price if you
10:05
bump up to the M4 Pro chip you save $600
10:08
and if you want an optioned out version
10:10
with more memory and storage you save
10:14
$1,000 the best value in the computer
10:17
industry just got even better be sure to
10:21
check out my other reviews remember to
10:23
like And subscribe I'm gager from Jones
10:26
with Cult of Mac
10:28
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