Apple has continued its week of announcements by releasing a new compact Mac mini computer with the M4 chip. Previous rumors have been confirmed: the minimalist Mac has become even smaller and can now be compared to Apple TV in size. This was reported by the Apple press service.
The Mac mini is only 5 inches (127 mm) long and wide, 50 mm high, and weighs 670 or 730 g.
Despite its compact size, the device has all the necessary interfaces:
- The front panel has two USB-C ports and a 3.5 mm audio jack;
- Ethernet, HDMI, and three USB-C/Thunderbolt ports are available on the back.
There are no more USB-A ports. The predecessor had only two Thunderbolt 4 ports and two USB-A ports. With the M4, you get five ports in total – you lose USB-A, but you get an additional Thunderbolt port.
It’s worth noting that the speed of Thunderbolt ports will vary depending on the M4 processor you choose. The regular M4 chip offers Thunderbolt 4, while the M4 Pro offers the highest bandwidth Thunderbolt 5.
10 Gigabit Ethernet remains an optional upgrade for those who need it.
The new Mac Mini M4 supports ray tracing for the first time and has 16GB of RAM in the base version. However, it is offered in two processor-different versions.
The basic version with the M4 chip has 10 computing cores, 10 GPU cores, and up to 32 GB of RAM. Meanwhile, the M4 Pro processor-based system delivers higher performance with 12 or 14 CPU cores, 16 or 20 GPU cores, and up to 64 GB of RAM. Storage is up to 8 TB.
The Mac mini with M4 can support up to two 6K displays and up to one 5K display, and with M4 Pro, it can support up to three 6K displays at 60Hz with a total of more than 60 million pixels.
Compared to the Mac mini with M1, the Mac mini with M4:
- Performs spreadsheet calculations up to 1.7 times faster in Microsoft Excel.
- Transcribes using artificial intelligence on a device that converts speech to text up to 2 times faster with MacWhisper.
- Combines panoramic images up to 4.9 times faster in Adobe Lightroom Classic.
Apple has also included a new personal intelligent assistant in the Mac mini, Apple Intelligence, which expands users’ ability to interact with the system while maintaining data privacy.