Apple’s ‘carbon neutral’ Mac Mini is small and compact, but packs a mighty punch with the new M4 chips

Apple has unveiled the new Mac Mini sporting an overhauled and even smaller chassis with souped-up internals, promising the latest version of its compact desktop is “small but fierce”.

The new model features Apple’s much-lauded M4 and M4 Pro chips, which is significant considering the Mac Mini did not get an M3 version, so the performance boost should be dramatic.

Apple said users can expect the new Mac Mini to deliver 1.8x faster CPU performance and 2.2x faster GPU performance over the M1 model.

All versions of the new Mac Mini will now ship with 16GB of RAM, with 8GB now deemed insufficient for modern workloads.

Apple also noted the M4 and M4 Pro chips will support hardware-accelerated ray tracing for the first time, which will be a boon for creatives.

Apart from the silicon, the biggest change is the size of the new Mac Mini, coming in at just five-by-five inches - a footprint that is less than half the size of Apple’s previous design.

Apple said it has implemented a new air flow system and “innovative thermal architecture” in the design to accommodate thermal throttling concerns with the limited space.

Apple’s new Mac Mini goes carbon neutral

The new Mac Mini marks an important milestone for Apple, being the first carbon neutral Mac with an over 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions associated with materials, manufacturing, transportation, and customer use.

The latest Mac Minis will offer a slightly altered port lineup too. The front has a 3.5mm headphone jack and two USB-C inputs, with a gigabit ethernet, HDMI, and three Thunderbolt 4 ports round the back.

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Users that spring for the more expensive M4 Pro model, will enjoy higher data transfer speeds with the Thunderbolt ports on the rear upgraded to Thunderbolt 5.

The M4 Mac Mini will start at £599 for 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD and £799 to double the storage capacity to 512GB.

The M4 Pro version, with a 12-core CPU and 16-core GPU, will start at £1,399 and will come with 24GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.

Apple is capitalizing on the burgeoning mini PC market

Bobby Hellard

It’s been well over a decade since Apple last gave the Mac Mini a design overhaul, and it appears to be doubling down on the ‘mini’ part of its name. The timing of the announcement and the size of the machine could be seen as strategically shrewd by Apple.

The refresh also includes an M4 chip, bringing the Mini in line with both Apple’s MacBooks and iPad ranges. And, also positioning its product near the top of the mini PC market, which is seeing significant growth through gaming, small business adoption, digital signage, and remote work.

The market for mini PCs was valued at $21.1 billion in 2022 and market reports suggest its continued growth could reach $33 billion by 2032.