*** The official 2023 and 2024 Mac mini thread (it has the M2 chip, the M4 chip and everything!) ***

vail3r said:
Afraid not no :(


Got mine all set up. Fits perfectly under the MateView

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I have the same monitor ! What speakers are you using?

(Found a review with reference to Baldur's Gate 3 on the base Mac mini, I am paraphrasing :- its not smooth on ultra settings, and more ram should help. Found a few reviews about it with the Mac mini M4 pro, that does it fine.)
 
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Raymond Lin said:
I have the same monitor ! What speakers are you using?

(Found a review with reference to Baldur's Gate 3 on the base Mac mini, I am paraphrasing :- its not smooth on ultra, and more ram should help. Found a few reviews about it with the Mac mini M4 pro, that does it fine.)
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None at the minute! I have my AirPods Max so I tend to use those as I can’t hear the little one screaming the place down whilst I work :cry:

I’ve just tried some stuff on the MateView Speakers and yeah they aren’t as good as the MacBook Pro speakers
 
Very happy so far. My MBA isn't exactly slow and it feels nippier. Text is a touch fuzzy on my 27" 1440p screen and I had some issues getting 10Gb networking to work at first (had to manually specify 10Gb both ends) but other than that I'm happy. It's "just" a desk based version of my MBA with a bit more horsepower so it is excelling at what it needs to (first forum post from my new m4).
 
The SSD is not soldered on !!!!

ap3jL97.png


 
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The MacOS setup without a mouse experience kind of sucked, which is something Apple is usually very good at - had to give up and go and find my Trackpad. I'm very much keyboard driven, and tabs/select and moving on just locked up on signing into my Apple Account. Not an issue with the device, but frustrating.
 
My M4 Pro came with 15.1 but there was still an update for that. Migration assistant took about 45 minutes from my old mini, get around 5000MB/s disk speed tests and 1500/1500 download/upload speed tests.
 
Received the base spec one this evening. Nice device for the price. It's very small on desk and silent during non intensive work. Comes with a nice braided power cable too.

Some typical Apple annoyances:

Having to mess about with cables due to no MST support (knew this before) but didn't know it won't do RGB colour mode over hdmi on a Dell monitor, so having to run it in YPbPr mode.

Also a surprising amount of hoops to jump through to install Samsung ssd software (enabling system extensions) etc.

Couldn't have it as my main machine but will do nicely for the Mrs.
 
Collecting my base mac mini m4 today. Will be replacing my gaming PC as I want a distraction free zone in the house. Gaming will be in the outdoor cabin so if I wanna game I gotta brace the cold! Although I'm sure the mini can play some games :p
 
Minstadave said:
Not soldered but the module just has NAND and no controller - like the Studio - so a simple replacement may not work.

arstechnica.com

Explaining the Mac Studio’s removable SSDs, and why you can’t simply swap them out

To upgrade the Mac’s SSDs, it helps to understand how they work.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
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Argh! Why not just a standard m.2 nvme slot?! Other than being able to price gouge, I can't think of a reason why Apple would do this. I'd understand if they gonee fully soldered to save space (but I'd still moan). This just seems anti-consumer whilst still ticking the repairable box.
 
punky_munky said:
Argh! Why not just a standard m.2 nvme slot?! Other than being able to price gouge, I can't think of a reason why Apple would do this. I'd understand if they gonee fully soldered to save space (but I'd still moan). This just seems anti-consumer whilst still ticking the repairable box.
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Apple will say the storage controller is integrated on to Apple Silicon for security and cost efficiency. It just happens to allow them to charge 5-10x as much over consumer NVMEs that are faster than Apples solution.
 
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Having slept on it...I think the base model is the way to go. The money jump to the Pro....that money can go towards the next Steam Deck if I want to play games better. I don't play games much these days anyway and to spend £800 more on to play Baldur's Gate in Ultra setting instead of high is just not financially responsible. I might as well just get it again on my PS5. Plus, with edu discount, it's only £500, vs £1260 for the Pro, that is like 150% more money.

Plus, I saw a test this morning comparing file transfer speeds between the 2. For a 60G file, the difference is only 27 secs (2:30 vs 2:57).

 
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Any ideas/indications on Lightroom/photoshop performance on the M4 vs the Pro?
My M1 Pro 16" MBP is starting to drag a little, on Lightroom in particular, and I was all for the M4 Pro Mini as an upgrade but I'm not sure if the performance boost is worth the outlay - perhaps the base Mini might suffice? CPU performance will be significantly improved but from what I can tell, GPU is a minor bump, if at all. I would be speccing up the RAM to 24gb which makes it a £799 investment.
 
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