Mac Mini M4 - 1 MONTH Review! [M2 vs M4 vs M4 Pro]

[@Thetechchap]

Hey Chaps! Would you buy a Mac Mini??

[@anandmishra-wl3ks]

for a moment I thought "Hey Chapri" 💀

[@copycatz6170]

Yeah I'll take the pro one with 6GB ram as per your specs :)

[@TheDanEdwards]

Perhaps. But I would not velcro it to the ASD improperly as you have. The plastic side, with the ventilation, antennae, and on-switch _should be facing outwards._ The velcro should be attached to the Apple logo side.

[@WybremGaming]

already did, and gonna get the m5 and m5 pro as well for testing

[@livelifefamilyzone]

I would if I have a budget for it. 😅

[@ZoneProduction448]

I ordered the M4 Pro 14c CPU/20c GPU, 1TB SSD, and 24GB of memory. My last Mac was a 2012 27-inch iMac that stopped working 5 years ago. The current iMacs screen sizes are too small. Personally, I don’t like the front design, but they look great from the back. The M4 Pro configuration I have chosen will be perfect for my needs.

[@StevenMichels]

Power bottom! Well played, sir.

[@oliverpigram7054]

That is the most annoying festure

[@bryans8656]

I'm part of the "most people" crowd, and the base M4 mini is perfect for my use case (I've had it for about three weeks).

[@GameoverUK-YouTube]

@@bryans8656 what do you use it for dude?

[@Midland_Wolf_71]

I bought the base model on launch day (I always buy the base model). Coming from the M1 Mini I’m VERY happy with my purchase. I also bought an additional 1Tb NVME and a cheap AF TB4 enclosure and so far it’s amazing. I don’t do video or anything of that nature, I’m an old school Art/Graphics/Print guy but this is hands down the best value Mac I’ve ever had (my first was a 2nd hand 2CX in 1994). For anyone in any doubt, the M4 is a phenomenal machine.

[@GlennEdell]

I bought the base model. Then I moved the Home-folder to an external USB4 SSD with 2TB of storage. Whoopee... now you have a workhorse machine and have cheated Apple on their Apple-tax for storage. I get along fine with 16gb of ram. Important not to use the external harddrive as main startup as you will loose some functions doing that... just move the home folder. It's a bit tricky to do (but not difficult at all), but once it's done you have a crazy fast Mac mini with a huge storage hard drive and you don't have to think about ever moving things around. The main harddrive will only be used for the Mac OS. I use Hypers SSD USB4 enclosure which is crazy a fast 40gb/s external drive. This is by far the best solution if you want to keep costs down. My total cost for this setup landed on 920 dollars including tax. Buying this setup from Apple would've been 1969 dollars incl tax. I also sold my old Mac mini for 500 dollars, so what I payed in cash was 420. Pretty sweet! (Side note... I always shop from their education store since they never ever check if your're eligible ;) That also keeps the cost down.)

[@davidcavanaghcoaching]

What’s the best way to use the Mac Mini M4 Pro as the start up machine, but using the externals to run the whole show? I’ve seen lots of videos, but these are all booting from the external drives as well as saving to them. Much appreciated!

[@UKTonyMagill]

They do check you're a student. How do you get away with it?

[@GlennEdell]

@@UKTonyMagill Not in Sweden :)

[@kraigbailey]

I got 2. A base M4 with 512 SSD to use as a media server and a tricked out M4 Pro with 48 RAM/2TB SSD for editing & video conversions, hooked up to a Studio Display that I already had.

[@techhubwiltsuk]

I ended up getting the Mac mini M4 standard chip with 24 GB of RAM. I do semipro tasks like Final Cut Pro and it keeps up as well as my M1 Max studio Mac did.

[@Passque666]

So the standard m4 is basically as powerful as M1 Ultra?!

[@techhubwiltsuk]

@ no the M1 Max has more gpus but for what I need it for the m4 with 24gb ram does the job

[@morrigansraven61]

The Mac Mini is so tempting, and I've always used PC's and have fought the urge to climb into the walled garden. I need to replace an older Windows 10 home theater PC and the Mac Mini looks like a great deal

[@WybremGaming]

And it is quite capable of gaming as well, in 1080p. Benchmarked 30 games or so. Incredibly value for money!

[@L0p3s]

What games did you test?

[@notmedude]

@@L0p3sall 30 of them, or so.

[@WybremGaming]

@@L0p3s see my channel, popular non native games like gtav, cyberpunk, also native games, world of warcraft, minecraft with shaders, farming simulator, rust all kinds of games really. And i'll be testing whatever i can get my hands on, like assassins creed shadow etc.

[@WybremGaming]

​@@notmedude lmao ye, there's not a ton of games yet, ofc a ton of old games but interesting games maybe 30 ye. Still there's a lot of interest in mac gaming.

[@jccnguyen]

What I like most about the mac mini lineup is it always uses internal power adapter

[@NomadicBloke1]

I do kinda professional video production and mid-range 3D rendering jewelry for my clients. I ordered a base spec model with 24gb and 256 ssd, this is an upgrade from my 2019 27" 5k iMac.

[@tim-oth]

How did it perform for your needs?

[@Sonic-Boom]

I've had my base model with 512gb for a few weeks now with a 2tb Sandisk SSD attached. It's perfect for my needs.

[@JacobBall75]

Thank you for clarifying near the end that you’ve benchmarked the higher specced M4 Pro mini, as it’s another $300 jump in price over the base M4 Pro here, meaning an overall jump of $1500 from the base M4 mini to that spec.

[@noelmirando]

I think slapping it on the back of the display is not a good idea. Most likely the adhesive will melt due to heat.

[@ArturBFPV]

@@noelmirando end then - boom on the desk and this thing can dent any desk easy

[@nitrobear]

For the comment section: PLEASE spare him the mercy to remain unbeknownst to what a power bottom is. Let him stay happy.

[@joeygo0999]

Or, if he knows, he knows 😉

[@Royaleoake]

HE KNOWS

[@sklynexd]

Yeah it is a silly design, I use my power button every day

[@PrapullSharma]

Ok 😂

[@yorkan213swd6]

@@sklynexdPoor power button.

[@sklynexd]

I press the power button every day lol

[@AverlonToussaint]

Great review, will be picking one up

[@gavinives4705]

As someone about to ditch their Intel 27" iMac in favour of the M4 MacMini, I wondered what monitor you would pair with it if saving money and not going for the Apple display?

[@thevisionaryelitist]

Thanks for the info. Looking to jump in and make the change to Mac Like others wondering do I wait for an M4 Studio in Spring or go with a Mini Pro now. No requirement for gaming, 3D rendering or even serious video editing. Primary use will be Lightroom/Photoshop with large RAW/Tiff files.

[@oliverpigram7054]

I just got the M4 pro model, loving it

[@Steve-racer]

OK, I’ll ask, did you have to wipe your hard drive on your iMac? How did you set this up? I would sure like to know.

[@MasterChief4U]

There is a migration built in.. You just [lug them both in and click the application. It move everything just as your old one. Nothing will change. Just be sure you upgrade the OS to the newest version on your old one. As it will make you do it anyways before it starts.. And you don't have to go back and install all your passwords again for your accounts..

[@YouGotPropofol]

Does Finder still suck though?

[@lchanceiv]

Wait a minute. Did he say "power bottom" ?!!!!! I see you😆😍🤩😆😁

[@jaysonroper0989]

I’d love to know what you guys recommend for running Logic Pro??

[@Desert679]

Activity monitor M4 Pro Mini 14/20 - 64GB - 4TB is showing 24GB used of 64GB, I'm just running 2 tab safari, Norton 360, multi video camera streams and mail. The concern of future SSD failure due to TBW usage was a concern, zero memory swapping being seen with this configuration makes me feel better 😄.

[@saadh777]

m4 mac mini base model costs around $900 with all the taxes here in my country, is it still worth in this price range or should i look for any other option?

[@Mozi2380]

My M4 with 512 and 32GB is on the way

[@tomaszwnuk7096]

I consider the same... But wouldn't it be too small with 512 GB of storage? I think that 1TB would be perfect but it gets a little bit pricey.

[@Mozi2380]

@ my current iMac has 512gb and 220gb free. I just have my apps and mac os on the internal ssd. Everything else is on a m2 ssd with 2tb and my 8tb NAS

[@tdrewk15]

Regarding fan control in the Pro versus the base model: TG Pro is an excellent app that allows you to control the fan speed and monitor temps of all CPU and GPU cores and much more. It's such a useful tool for anyone who wants to monitor their system and have control over their cooling.

[@akin242002]

For general use, this is the best mini-PC CPU on the market. Geekom A8 with the Ryzen 7 CPU is the 2nd best for value.

[@ArturBFPV]

One doesn’t buy Mac for value :) although this Mini is great for the price

[@GameoverUK-YouTube]

@@ArturBFPV can I ask you both what you would use it for? This "cheap" version. If you add a PCIe 2TB NVME and a capable enclosure to match the speed, it's over £800. That's me for editing, so that's my use case

[@user-dj7xq1qh9e]

General use? Heard it can handle photo and video editing

[@ArturBFPV]

@@GameoverUK-KZbin I was on Mini 2019 (Intel, i7 32GB RAM) and my user case is 90% photo editing and 10% video (gigs, multi cams etc). My current mini was struggling with video and was getting slow with jpg exports for instance (5 years old machine, no wonder) Now I’ve gotten m4 Pro with 48Gb RAM (again, my user case) and still waiting til it will get sent out from China ha ha. Regarding the base mini m4 probably external ssd would help a bit to save a cost etc. I’m sure it’s gray machine. Even compare to my 2019 intel mini it would probably shred it to peace’s with performance

[@GameoverUK-YouTube]

@@ArturBFPV ahhh... I forgot about photo, being a video editor myself, then that means that not having the fastest type of external SSD / NVME will matter as much. 👍🏼

[@MasterChief4U]

Apple did something with the base 256gb drive and the 512gb. As the 512gb is twice as fast as the 256gb... This made a huge difference in reindeer speeds and smoother editing. So not sure whats going on there. I think the OS makes better use of the bigger SSD sizes...As they only use two chips on the board now. One on each side..

[@conorfurlong]

Given that placement of the Mac mini on the back of your monitor, are you not concerned about the heat that would be being pumped out directly onto the monitor?

[@Thetechchap]

The twelve south backpack is a better solution

[@J4ckCr0w]

It is all sponsored, so probably not.

[@kirtancreative]

Amazing Information - i have order the 14 core with 64/1tb and studio display

[@alessandromanuel728]

Twelve South Backpack is a better solution mate!

[@Thetechchap]

Ooh I haven't seen this before - that's great!

[@alessandromanuel728]

@@Thetechchap Sure thing!

[@skd]

It's an apple TV case...why not leave it black? :(

[@ImMarkyB]

I bought the base unit M4 mac mini. Opened a few tabs in Chrome, then opened up my van wrap design in Adobe Illustrator and it pooped it's pants. I then rebooted and then decided to open up Serato and plug in my DJ controller for a test. it also pooped it's pants on loading tracks.

[@MichaelGGarry]

In other words you need more ram for your very ram intensive tasks…

[@rockstar6790]

I’m looking to get the base Mac Mini with 256GB storage. I already have a 2TB Nas storage and enough iCloud storage.

[@briandk8391]

just got mine love it I couldn't believe how tiny it was sadly I don't have a 4k display only a 1440p ultra wide display

[@ensarguler7684]

Do you think 1440p is good enough?

[@briandk8391]

@ yea it’s not bad but I do want a 4k monitor though

[@verykeen2please]

just ordering - should i go for nano glass display?

[@Thetechchap]

Yes!

[@craigg4246]

I am thinking hard about an upper spec mini pro. But that is priced up where the studio max is. Think I need to wait to see what the M4 Max studio prices are before I spend $2600 on a mini.

[@MRVSKIN]

Love the new Mac mini. I think for me for using iTunes and basic email and internet the base model is fine with an 2TB external hard drive for my iTunes. Let’s see what Santa brings

[@eduardzemlianoi]

2:54 gigabits per second, not gigabytes

[@UKTonyMagill]

I've noticed that every single tech KZbinr makes this mistake. Very odd.

[@Thetechchap]

I know - i put text on screen highlighting the mistake

[@eduardzemlianoi]

​@@Thetechchapno, your text on the screen IS the mistake

[@eduardzemlianoi]

​​​@@UKTonyMagillyeah, they have no clue what it means, and how it works, unfortunately. Or... they just are paid to make this mistake to mislead people. 120GB/s is the bandwidth of RAM in base M4.

[@sifatullah9872]

Your PC seems more tempting to me.

[@Thetechchap]

It's 5x more expensive though! (and mainly for gaming)

[@kris-lv7ql]

Glad you mention the fan noise: There is some pretty contradictory infos on the internet from "dead silent" to "sounds like a vacuum cleaner", especially for the m4pro version: I am doing a lot of sound design and need a silent machine, I edit in davinci and would need there also silence for normal tasks. I dont mind the vacuum cleaner while rendering though, any experience on that? should I better go with a silent m4 and then upgrade to the studio version when it comes out?

[@chidorirasenganz]

As far as I have seen the Pro only kicks on its fan during export/rendering for long periods of time

[@tatv2316]

@@chidorirasenganz Thank you, so good to know!

[@TeslaRules1856]

Actually i would like to know how a middle model 512/24 compares to the base and high end M4

[@troublemakershenzhen]

Do you have experience running an offline LLM on a Mac Mini M4 and M4 Pro? Does the Pro have significant advantages over the standard M4 for this use case (given the same amount of RAM and storage)?

[@Thetechchap]

I haven't tried much AI workloads yet

[@Slave-Of-Christ]

Hey! You gave me a great idea about how to hide my MBP while using as a desktop. Thanks!

[@zachcarmichael699]

Not having USB-A sucks. They've been trying to push USB-C since like 2016, but let's be honest -- USB-A will always be a thing too. No one likes having to buy a hub. Also, you can get the base one for $499 pretty often, whether it be with EDU/Govt discount or just on sale. It's a heck of a computer at that price.

[@Royaleoake]

Not gonna lie, I don’t miss USB-A at all. I only ever use that connector anymore whenever I’m using a legacy device. At least for anything I use with my Macs/iPads.

[@MasterChief4U]

@@Royaleoake Same for me.. I have 2 uses for USB. The wireless KB Mouse receiver. And an old stand by KB USB on the side.. Everything else to day is Type C. And was reason I upgraded my old iPhone to the16 Pro Max. Now everything is type C down to the Monitor..

[@murtazachaudhary3339]

Nice video

[@kinocchio]

Do you reckon you could mount the Mac Studio to the back of the display with command strips? 🤔

[@BasselSherif]

Big NO

[@Thetechchap]

No, try the Twelve South backpack

[@CraigMecak]

I bought the maxed out m4 Pro Mac Mini, but am having two (possibly related) issues. 1. Time Machine backups fail when I put the studio display to sleep; 2. FindMy fails to update location when studio display is asleep. I have the Time Machine drive connected to the USB-C port on the studio display, but have also tried it directly connected to the Mac Mini. No difference. I also tried High Power mode in case it was trying to sleep/power nap or something. I also have 'Prevent Automatic Sleeping When The Display is Off' turned on in the Energy settings. Any ideas on how to fix both issues? My old Intel iMac 27" which I upgraded from didn't have any of these issues.

[@luiggimondoli]

Oh man I wish they didn't cancel the comments on the M4 commercial, I really have a lot of fun reading Apple haters because they sound so damn praising PCs, it's frustrating having to use Windows at work, is sooo slow, unstable and needs reboot all the time.

[@epsig1507]

Mac mini + NAS, and good bye cloud subscriptions

[@Thetechchap]

Yes!!

[@MasterChief4U]

That NAS works great with hosting sites on the base model. Now it's not going host 50k people at once. But it's there to use..

[@J.R.ClubbPhotographer]

What monitor would you recommend to pair with that mini in that $600 range? For photographer

[@Thetechchap]

Dell S27

[@Huaihaizi]

3:54 it’s a power bottom hahahahahahja😂😂😂😂😂

[@horafreak]

I purchased the Mac mini 4 base version , the vocal short or voice dictation doesn’t work. Did you face a similar issue ?

[@typingcat]

I would buy one, when it can fully run Linux (with hardware video decoding and whatnot).

[@darthslackus499]

You'd be waiting for at least 2 years. Though I hope I am wrong.

[@typingcat]

@@darthslackus499 Hey, that's shorter than I thought, because I thought it would probably never come, considering that Asahi Linux still can't use video decoding on M1 after all these years.

[@darthslackus499]

@typingcat that is based on Asahi Linux progress. Linux support will probably come to the M3/M4 at the same time. Official support from Apple for Linux is unlikely, but who knows, they might do something like what MS did with Windows Linux subsystem. WSL.

[@fellowcitizen]

Excellent review💎🦘

[@Thetechchap]

Much appreciated

[@GameoverUK-YouTube]

What can you do with 256GB? Why would that do for most people?

[@Thetechchap]

Because you can plug in an external SSD if you need more

[@shenzhen8302]

i rather expect iMac 27 with studio display form factor.

[@rudyelizondo1935]

What cable do you use to connect the Mac mini to the display or iMac ?

[@muscy2637]

It’s an apple studio display so he’s using a thunderbolt 3/4 cable that is included with the display to output full 5k

[@islanddev4893]

base model is 479£ in my country.. i guess that's not a bad deal

[@ahmedbourja3136]

Good Job

[@blakelmj]

If Apple truly cared about environment, they would make the parts upgradable. Unlike the iPhone, they don't even have the waterproofing excuse. On the bright side, Apple has made M1 performance so good, that even if they 10x the performance, it wouldn't be worth upgrading because the performance improvement doesn't lead to any improvement in my life as a developer. Also, I love my USB-A ports.

[@MasterChief4U]

Who uses USB A anymore? And if you need them with an SD card reader. Just wait a month. They will be making Docking stations\hubs that have these builtin. My old Satechi docking station\hub still works with the M4. That has all those old ports and readers.It's just bigger then the newer M4.

[@amieka9371]

M4 Base Model Mac Mini can do 4K 120hz right via HDMI 2.1?

[@MasterChief4U]

If the monitor can support it..

[@dlightfultech]

Might...

[@PearHellforge]

use the 3m dual lock

[@J4ckCr0w]

Device that produces heat taped to a monitor to burn it. O yes, you can put it in high performance mode to produce more heat while at the he back of your monitor blowing heat in it. Apple user logic at its peak.

[@imTheAny]

At 7:20 how do you measure "points". All the other channels I looked at compare how long it took for them to render the scene while you are sharing points. I'm confused. Would appreciate if you explain.

[@vagrantpistol]

Because the heat coming from the bottom of Mac mini wouldn’t destroy your monitor. 🤦🏻‍♂️

[@t.h.9897]

Power button placement matters a lot! This is a joke man. Cannot give this to my mother or other non-tech people. They will be simply annoyed. And lots of people actually shut down the OS

[@marion817]

"It's a power bottom" 👀👀👀

[@cortesdopixelblock5389]

i dont know why here in brazil the monitor costs more than an imac. its just ridiculous

[@charminbaer2323]

No one is having an issue with the power button on the Mac Mini, except for some youtubers....

[@ianforber]

I bought the 16GB with 512GB storage model. I went for the higher storage simply to allow for future software bloat - my 2017 MacBook Pro with 256GB was getting uncomfortably close to its limit. I mainly use it for photo editing and keep all my files on external storage anyway. It’s good and I’m glad I bought it but I was expecting to be absolutely blown away by the difference in performance over an old intel-based processor and I’m not. That may be because I tend only to work on one file at a time with one, maybe two apps open at a time. I bought the Studio Display too and that is a game changer for me. Just fantastic.

[@granata4]

how can i connect a samsung odyssey g9 to a mac mini m4 if ​​i already have the display port taken, can i get the same resolution with the hdmi port

[@MasterChief4U]

Yes..

[@JJ-fq3dh]

You used a base M2, not a 12 core 19gpu M2 pro. Not exactly a fair comparison

[@Thetechchap]

I tested base m2 vs base m4 - which seems fair. And then also added m4 pro / M2 Ultra macs

[@MasterChief4U]

@@Thetechchap You should have bought the 512gb. It's twice a fast as the 256.. Then you get a fair test..Trust me Apple did some magic supplier with that memory upgrade.

[@noellauper2601]

You can literally get a 4TB SSD for under 100 bucks so I would never ever upgrade the storage of a laptop or computer

[@tomaszwnuk7096]

I didn't find SSDs that cheap. You meant 300 bucks for 4TB probably...

[@noellauper2601]

@tomaszwnuk7096 Well, maybe some are not ssds, and the price may be different in different countries but I got an 4TB external hard-drive from WD for under 100bucks and it works absolutely fine and it's definitely fast enough for the work I do

[@MasterChief4U]

WD has already signed a deal with Apple to make the Black Addition upgrade snap in.. You will pay the extra $50.00 for them. But hey it's still cheaper. And no extra plugs of cords needed.

[@mrockz2053]

display heating air flow

[@PauloFerreira-hh6zv]

Hi. Thank you very much for the video. I have a MAC Mini M1 and I'm satisfied with its performance, my only regret is that I can't watch Netflix in 4K. Do you know if the M4 can run Netflix in 4K?

[@MasterChief4U]

Netflix does not support all movies in 4k...Their cheap asses..

[@Snirucher]

Power Bottom, Tom? What are you NOT telling us? 🤪🤔

[@Thetechchap]

👀

[@infinitedarkness9476]

Notice. Don't look up what "power bottom" is. 😬

[@ifell3]

It definitely looks like Apple has hit us tight-ass wallet-bearing people with a tempting plea. I would have liked to have heard more of your thoughts while video editing, etc., for a month. What are some of your real likes and dislikes?

[@Bluffmaster179]

Waiting for m5 😂

[@blueSurfer]

To the universe : someone gift me mac mini

[@BillyLuna]

New sub here. Great channel. Would you be so kind as to answer a few questions. I mostly use Final Cut Pro & Photoshop to create videos on my Billy Luna Crime Stories YT channel. I am working in 1080p, but plan to start working in 4k. Currently I am Using a Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD (2TB & 4TB) to edit off whilst using FCP. I like to use Final Cut Pro, Photoshop and 40 web browser tabs open simultaneously. 1) For my needs, which exact configuration of the new M4 Mac Mini should I get? (Pro or no, RAM, SSD) This is the configuration that I have been mulling: $1,799.00 512GB SSD storage Apple M4 Pro chip with 12‑core CPU, 16‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine 48GB unified memory 512GB SSD storage 2) What would the practical difference be when using Final Cut Pro, Photoshop and 40 web browser tabs open simultaneously if I just got the base M4 mac mini rather than the M4 Pro mac mini? 3) If I go M4 Pro what would the practical difference (for my use scenarios) be in upgrading from 24 GB memory to 48 GB? 4) Is there any speed or performance advantage in going with a 1 TB SSD vs 512? 5) Do I need to worry about fan noise when I’m recording on camera video or voice over with the M4 Pro mac mini? Thank you!

[@Thetechchap]

You probably don't need the 48GB RAM, but otherwise the spec you've thinking is ideal for your workloads. M4 Pro, 24/32GB RAM, 512 storage - and a big external SSD drive.

[@COLDMKULTRA]

Dear "Tech Chap" ... please pay attention to your audio production ... you are causing digital audio clipping with the youtube audio encoders ... not very tech 🤣

[@JMaxwell1000]

Many of us are SICK of Apple's built-in obsolescence! No matter what you buy, it will be obsolete in a couple of years, as will the compatible OS. What a horrible company.

[@mightbesherwood1313]

Phones yes. Computers, quite the opposite.

[@mohammedshoeb2766]

Help me

[@Jessemakesvids]

Velcro is genius

[@Miyuki-zzZ]

First

[@KianFloppa]

Google and Windows better

[@SPFboy86]

Yeah, they are better in collecting and stealing user data.

[@tomaszwnuk7096]

Windows? Please. I like Win 11 interface and features, but I also dont like telemetry, collecting data and forced updates. I would buy a Mac but they're expensive, so I use linux.

[@59trader43]

Windows can have nasty virus on those

[@J4ckCr0w]

​@@SPFboy86lol, stay safe with apple.

[@J4ckCr0w]

​@tomaszwnuk7096 Which you can turn off.

[@ps3301]

No wifi 7 for a 2000dollar computer ?

[@Thetechchap]

It would have been nice, but only the iphone has Wi-Fi 7 (and in some ways it's not 'full' wi-fi 7 either), i think we need to wait for Apple's own modem

[@rehodesign6657]

make some video about LENOVO LOQ and windows pc

[@afarangi4839]

You people are total apple sheep

[@martinspedding4210]

There is just nothing attractive about Apple.products. I just don't have the patience to deal with their operating system interfaces