Not enough people talking about Thunderbolt 5 and the better display options the M4 Pro supports. More monitors, higher resolution and higher refresh rates. Yes it's still stupidly expensive compared to the base model. Apple know that if people want higher/better display options they will likely pay more for M4 Pro model.
If you plan to use these m4 devices to music production, please note that Logic Pro and few others use only Performance cores. M4 basic has just 4 of them and difference to M3 is not much. M4 pro has 10 performance cores
M4 pro SSD is quicker, also for future expansion you have thunderbolt 5 vs thunderbolt 4. RAM is an issue as you can’t expand that later … but nonetheless, I do think there’s an element of the m4 pro buyers subsidising the ones who buy the base spec m4 models.
The memory speed is also quicker on the M4 Pro with 8533Mhz vs 7500Mhz for the M4. And you have double the performance cores (8 vs 4 (or 10 vs 4 if you go with the 14-core version)) which is why multitasking is so quicker.
Thunderbolt 4 is quick enough for most people and solidstate disk sustain write is way slower than maximum available bandwidth Most SSD write speed in benchark was running from cache mode That's one of the reasons to avoid QLC SSD as their write speed was like 100MB/s while cache full for most 2-4TB model TLC disk aren't much better in actual sustain write . Yes thunderbolt 5 is good to have but not day and night atm When TB 5 device get common , probably you can buy m6 Mac mini at that time
@MattTalkTech I think you have misundertood this video...You have got what I have said wrong.... Why is it less money to do the exact same upgrades on a MacBook Pro from M4 to M4 Pro for less and it cost more to do those upgrades on a Mac Mini. That is my issue in this video not the M4 Pro at all and the advantages it brings like thunderbolt 5, faster SSD etc...
@@Traumatree @MattTalkTech Same to you like others... You have got what I have said wrong.... Why is it less money to do the exact same upgrades on a MacBook Pro from M4 to M4 Pro for less and it cost more to do those upgrades on a Mac Mini. That is my issue in this video not the M4 Pro at all and the advantages it brings
I'm planning on getting Mac mini M4 base model to replace my 2009 Mac Mini Core2 duo. The old girl was upgraded with 2 SSD drives and maxed out with 8gb of RAM. Apple's price ladder is a bit frustrating but they do make quality tech, so matter what you decide to purchase it will last a long time. Thanks for the comparison video!
The hidden flaw is that I am hooked on using it. 😀 Also, you are only giving part of the information but leaving out the speed of the SSD in the Pro, the speed of the Ram in the Pro, the speed of the GPU cores in the Pro as well as the increased P Cores in the Pro and Thunderbolt 5. I bought the Base one and returned it as soon as I bought and gave the Pro a spin. The Pro is definitely faster and feels faster and smoother as well and, at least in my opinion, in not a placebo effect.
Great to see someone who is actually giving advice that doesn’t leave out crucial information from music production I think the base m4 mini would be to sluggish for a live recording and sample based software The pro version however looks like a sweet spot especially when you compare it to the new m4 MacBook Pro with some of the similar specifications your almost paying an extra grand for a small monitor although a brilliant machine So how are you finding the M4 pro
@@feiht5487 I already have a windows pc that can game well. However, I am bored with it and after 30 years of upgrading, I lost interest in it. I put it up for sale as well. I have not bought anything significant in 3 years and live as a minimalist so I have the money saved to do this and I find it fun again.
Costco is selling M4 Mac mini for US$499.99 until December 2nd. With the possibility of SSD upgrade in near future, the cheapest M4 Mac mini is a steal.
dream on for that SSD upgrade. Never gonna happen. IF it does, it will cost silly $. Just go external. Acisis TBolt case is $50 at Walmart right now. BF deals on a decent 4TB NVMe should be under $200 = $250 for a 4 TB 3000 MBs external. More than 99.% anyone needs.
From a Base Mini M4 with 24gb unified memory and 512gb storage is $999 which is $399 less than the M4 Pro chip version is only gaining you Thunderbolt 5 ports which no one is making anything for yet and sure noticeably better graphics with the M4 Pro chip, but that is it. Okay bandwidth is doubled, but honestly that isn't not much more for 99% of buyers.
Early days, but I love mine. Using it for DAW software that doesn't use efficiency cores, so double the available P cores over base is huge. For this app, it's a different class of performance over the base unit.
No, I’ll go for the pro. I don’t need 2 computers even if the pro costs more. Complaining about the really high prices for storage is to ignore that the base model prices are a legitimate marketing approach to making the Apple ecosystem entry level attractive. I’ll happily pay $1799 for a top Mini M4 Pro with 1 Tb storage because it suits my needs perfectly and still comes in under $2000. I remember paying a lot more for laptops in the oughts which would be a lot more in today’s dollars. The new Minis - all of them - are genuine bargains plus you don’t ever have to put up with the horribly degenerate Window OS. BTW I loved XP and Win 7. Pay me $1799 to buy a Windows Laptop today and I’ll turn you down. We are just so fortunate to have such great hardware so cheap with an OS that mostly does not get in the way.
I do agree that the base Pro version seems overpriced compared to the base M4 version. However, if you shop around, and especially this Black Friday season, there are deals to be found. I got the base M4 Pro version from Micro Center this week for $1199 - $200 off. I'm very happy with it for that price!
Hello great video on the mac mini m4. I am saving up to get the base version. Would be awesome to make the move from Android to Apple at the same time with the iPhone. Thanks for offering. Best of luck.
I come close to agreeing with you, but I would be more generous for Apple. I think $1099 being a good price, but I could see $1199 being a fair price in today’s market. 8 GB added memory ($20), 256GB added storage ($20), the thing that gets you is thunderbolt 5 ($350 is current price for PC Card). Those are generous retail prices which add up to $390. Add $100 for the binned chip and you get $1199. I love the mini form factor. If they had a Max version, I’d buy one today. I plan on buying Apple’s next M4 Max desktop product, whatever that is. Wouldn’t it be nice if Apple (or someone) developed a course grain threading library to distribute processing across a bunch of MacOS systems ganged together via Thunderbolt 4/5. I could get 5 Minis and have 50 CPU cores and 50 GPU cores for my Lightroom editing. It is beyond me why they did not do something like this for the Mac Pro where you could gang multiple Ultra boards.
I did the pro with 24gb mem and 512ssd, added an external 4tb nvme with a thunder bolt 4 enclosure (400us), boom couldn't be happier. Traded in my m1 mac mini so my total cost was 1500us with a 4tb + 512 storage.
It seems like the base models are subsidized a bit, with a higher margin on the more powerful types. I think that is how they made the Mini so affordable, which is good, because they will sell a bunch, so they can keep creating new better processors.
We bought the M4 with 24gb RAM and 512gb HD. It ran very well for Adobe Suite. We are desperately waiting for a dock for more connections and SSD slots. For my work in audio I thought about the m4Pro with 1tb HD and 48gb RAM. But then I Heard the rumors about loud fans while working - this would be a big backstep. So I will stay with my actual M2Pro which is the quietest machine I ever had.
512GB model reads and writes faster, and won't fill up as fast and get slower. Think about the future. EDIT: For $200 ($144 with coupon), you get that insurance. The future frustration of running into SSD capacity or speed issues will feel more expensive than just paying for the 512GB from the get-go. 😅
Great point. I initially ordered the Mac Mini Pro but then canceled and got the base model since the huge price difference made zero sense. Plus the Mac Mini is basically just a processor with ports whereas the MacBook Pro is that plus a nice screen and keyboard and designed for portability. The cost per hardware just doesn’t balance out between the two devices.
The Macbook pro and Mac mini are completely different machines for different purposes. Many people need a desktop and already have monitor(s) and mice and keyboards to use with a desktop. You absolutely need the portable aspect of a Macbook to make that make sense. A mini is worthless to a student that needs to use a computer to take notes in class and study. A Macbook for its screen and keyboard and touchpad for someone that connects it to multiple screens and uses other keyboards and mice is overkill. The Mac Mini base model is an absolute beast for what it provides if you don't need portability and higher power. It should last quite a long time as well for those needs. It's great for elderly parents as well if you can get them past the MacOS learning curve.
I don't get what you are saying at all... just imagine working in a stationary environment (music production studio) and you could choose between those options: 1.) MacBook Pro M4 Pro 14-core CPU 24GB RAM 1TB SSD = 2.399$ 2.) Mac mini M4 Pro 14-core CPU 24GB RAM 1TB SSD = 1.799$ That's a 600$ difference... with those 600$ you could boost your RAM up to 64 on that mini or chose 12-core 48GB RAM 2TB SSD... or spend it on other hardware/software...
I just received my 14 core Pro and I think I’m going to return it and just get the regular one, even though it’s more than twice as powerful for digital audio, but I wanna leave room on my card to get the M4 MacBook Pro as well which I will probably use a lot more.
Because of the ML capabilities. I can run llama 3.1 70b with ease on a M2 Ultra Mac Studio base model To do that in pc, I’d have to buy at least 2 4090. I can’t wait to see what the new m4 studio brings.
Thanks for the video. I agree the upgrade prices are quite unreasonable, but just comparing the bottom line capabilities to non-Apple alternatives, it seems more reasonable, which is how they are positioning their premium product pricing. I need a new Macbook Pro to replace my Intel based version. It's getting long in the tooth, and also does not run Apple Intelligence, at least very well. As a developer, I need quick responsiveness and the ability to run all the latest technologies that Apple supports. I might spring for a Mac-mini, but only if Apple releases a reasonably-priced 5k monitor. I'm tired of using a 4k monitor and having sub-optimal display sharpness.
In 2024, I’m planning to get the Mac Mini Pro, as its power and capabilities perfectly suit my needs. I’m really excited to see how Apple continues to evolve this product line. Thank you for the amazing content and the opportunity to participate in the iPhone 16 Pro Max giveaway!
I’m looking at buying either a 16” MacBook Pro or the mini with the Apple display. I have a M1 16” MacBook Pro now. It hasn’t left the house for years. I use my iPad M2 for travel.
Definitely looking at a potential Mac Mini the beginning of next year. I’ll get the base mode and use external drives for storage. I’ll be using it for my music production, photography, and to finally put some effort into my TH-cam channel since it is very sorely neglected.
Thought a lot to decide. I work with Music and Audio. I end getting M4 Base with 512 with EDU price (US$ 699.00). I'm into the return windows, but after testing all my projects here with ProTools and Logic, the Pro is not necessary. I think also that M5 in 1 or 2 years will be an ease decision to change again instead to wait more for future update when you buy a base model.
Oh wow, really? I always had the impression that if u use these Macs for any kind of professional work, you'd jump on the M4 Pro regardless of price since you're bound for a longer term upgrade while upping the ante for productivity... and that would pretty much offset the cost. But if you're working with audio and the M4 is up to the load, that's impressive! 😊
Hi Matt. I’m maxed out my M2 Mac Mini inside my Logic Pro projects. Because I use too many plugins on the mix buses and master chain. And by doing that they multiply by the amount of tracks. Which goes really quickly with over 30 tracks. The extreme demand on “Performance Cores” is what makes me want to work with the M4 pro. Reason is Logic Pro only uses performance cores. And if you check the specs the 10 core cpu from m4 has only 4 performance cores. The other 6 are efficiency ones. And totally useless for audio. The 12 cpu cores from the pro has 8 performance cores. So, while going from my M2 which has 4 performance cores to the M4 which has the same could be a bit better, because of the new chip, the performance that I can achieve with my project would exactly double, comparing the M4 with the M4 pro. Perfect price would be 1000 or 1200 dollars. But getting double of the performance for me makes a lot of difference. Since RAM of 16 or 24 and SSD upgrade wouldn’t change almost a thing, because they are already enough on the low range.
Yes!! I have the exact same concerns. You spoke truly - Efficiency cores are TOTALLY USELESS for most audio / music production. Apple's own Logic can only utilize the performance cores of the CPU, so in our case, we need to judge which Mac to buy largely by how many performance cores it has.
@@spintonik Hi Spintonik! You're right, of course (that's why I said most, rather than all DAWS. ;-). But it seems incredible to me that Logic, Apple's own DAW, doesn't utilize efficiency cores. In his latest review, James Zhan (who's videos first alerted me to this issue) suggests that Apple's engineers might have done this by design - for some reason that he's unaware of. Nevertheless he still concludes that in his tests, fewer P cores directly translates into a less capable computer for audio (using Logic and a number of other DAWs). But you're right to make the distinction - Pro Tools & Cubase can indeed utilize the E cores.
Alright, good points. However, if you end up keeping your computer for many years like I do, you're better off. OTOH, presumably there will be a cheap M8 Mac Mini out about 4 years from now, which will beat the crap out of an M4 Pro Mac Mini. Also to consider: I you get the standard M4 Mac Mini, and you find yourself lacking of e.g. graphics performance, you could likely sell the Mac Mini without too much loss. Or keep it as a TV server, and be able to browse the Internet in your living room.
I think that a 12 core CPU M4 Pro machine running @ 22406K is a pretty fast desktop machine for $1399. But, I’d spend the money on as much ram as I could afford to buy. Max it out at 64 GB on the M4 Pro for $1999 and buy a 4TB SSD external drive to run my home folder on for $225 and run it on one of the thunderbolt ports, saving about $1,000 there. Or even get an 8TB external SSD for $500, saving $1,900 over the Apple price! Keeping all your apps on the internal drive. Pretty fast rig with a ton of storage that would suit most home setups. And it will drive up to 3 displays. I think for the budget conscious that would be a great home setup, it could make sense. By the way. I think I may want to replace my older MacBookPro this year with a newer M4. Please consider me for the iPhone drawing. I LOVE ❤ your videos!
Mac Mini M4 is the one for me, and I'm good to go using my macbook pro as a monitor as long as I'm at a coffee shop or somewhere they have an outlet I can use for graphics design and video editing. Thank you for the video!
I just bought an entry level M4 Mac Mini, and sent it to a "shady" Chinese repair shop to upgrade ssd to 2TB with paying only 150 USD, and next year, I am thinking Macbook Pro~
The M4 Mac Mini isn’t meant to be a profit driver. All base Minis, as well as other base Apple products, are meant to introduce new users into the ecosystem system. Apple makes the majority of its profits on the upgrades. Remember also that Apple retains way more resale value than its competitors so you you’ll get a good percentage back on the cost of your upgrades. Btw, most companies make way more profits on its upgrades. You can buy a brand new base Ford F-150 for $37K but if you want to upgrade all the way up to an F-150 Raptor, you’ll have to drop $78K. You can say it’s way too expensive but you don’t say it’s a major flaw with the Raptor.
@MattTalkTech Same to you like others... You have got what I have said wrong.... Why is it less money to do the exact same upgrades on a MacBook Pro from M4 to M4 Pro for less and it cost more to do those upgrades on a Mac Mini. That is my issue in this video not the M4 Pro at all and the advantages it brings
Actually Im confused to buy . which one is suitable for me m4 or m4 pro, i need more storage because in music production there need so much installation file vst plugin. m4 pro obviously good and m4 also benchmark near about same. but storage problem is big issue.
Buy an external Thunderbolt 4 enclosure ($60-$80) and put a 2TB Gen 4 NVME SSD in it ($90 or more), and it will cost you less than the measly extra 256GB upgrade would cost you and will be just as fast (if not faster) than the internal drive, and give you 8x the storage.
I was considering the Mac Mini M4 Pro, but your argument makes a lot of sense. I am worried, however, that the base model won’t be enough for a pro photog…
I want the new Mac Mini M4 base model as my 2016 MacBook Pro is struggling to run on my monitors. In the new year, I want to invest in a handheld PC like a Steam deck or a Rog Ally X. Great video Matt.
The analysis on cost-to-performance was spot on. It’s a growing frustration in tech: paying a premium for incremental improvements. Do you see this as a temporary trend, or is this the future of hardware pricing?
Your reviews are really good and informative. I am considering buying the M4 MacMini and possibly two of them to replace both our aging apple Macbook Air and Pro - you mentioned this in this review and it does make a lot of sense. Thanks and keep it going :)
Been in the Intel-based MacBook Pro for the longest time. This new Mac mini really ticks all the items I need and want to buy a new one at least the base model. Thanks Matt for the review.
Original plan was to get a MacBook Air for my wife and a Mac mini m4 Pro, but I was thinking of getting a regular Mac mini with 512GB. This video confirms I am not alone in my thinking.
for now I stick to my m1 studio. I almost sold it to get an M4 I think it is great! . but I have all hooked up to my ports A/B>C/C and everything works great and fast. besides,.... for the normal user the entry level with a 512 is more than enough. on marketplace i scored an iPad Air M1 and a MBP16" M1. works great for my simple workflow. ( only use Logic Pro and that works even on my old intel MacBook Pro 2012 with sequoia..well.., sort of. 🤪 ) my iPhone 12 Pro is an oldie but a goodie and probably gets me another year then the 16 will be cheaper. ( yes I am a cheapskate hahaha ). keep these vids coming Matt !
I’m going to try and get a Mac mini after the 1st of the year if everything goes well wish me luck I love all the Mac’s they’re amazing and great video by the way
THE CLOSER YOUR MEMORY IS TO YOUR CPU AND GPUs, THE FASTER YOUR MACHINE WILL SEEM. FOR MOST PEOPLE THE BASE IS ENOUGH, UNLESS YOU ARE WORKING WITH VIDEO OR DOING AI , OR VIDEO GAMES, YOU JUST ARE NOT GOING TO NEED ANYTHING BETTER THAN THE BASE MODEL. THE SSD SHOULD ONLY BE USED FOR STORING EXECUTABLES, SYSTEMS AND VIRTUAL MEMORY SWAP, IF YOU WANT MORE STORAGE SPACE, NO MATTER WHAT, ITS GOING TO BENEFIT YOU LITTLE TO STORE NON ESSENTIALS INTERNALLY, THAT BEING SAID, FORGET THE EXTRA INTERNAL SSD SPACE.. UNKESS YOU ARE WORKING WITH VOLUMETRIC DATA, NOT 3D WIREFRAMES, VOLUMETRIC DATA, YOU WILL NOT NEED MORE THAN 256GB Internal, besides, if you need fast loads of data, RAID SSD's outside the computer, when loading imagesand video since your senses are slower than the content it will loadin, you will not know the difference. If you are doing backups, you will notice but youd be doing that anyhow, and if you have more than 256GB internal, wouldn't your backups take longer, why waste time on that,keep your non essentials on external drives. If you are more than one person, just get two base models, unless again the application calls for volumetric data. A 1kx1kx1k volume is at least a gigabyte, AI tensors are volumetric in nature, SO AI obviously.. But mainly Stable Diffusion, I doubt an LLM would need it to the same degree cause you are working with text and pointers (graphs, vector data).. If you plan on running videogames, I don't see a need for internal SSD unless playing multiplayer games and you need to beat everyone when loading the next level.. MUSICIANS WILL NEVER NEED MORE PROCESSING, INTERNAL RAM OR SSD than this has to offer, unless they are delusional or schizophrenic, or are doing volumetric sound resonance simulations of large geometries, say a architect of open air concert halls and are trying to maximize clarity of transmitted sound while diffusing distant sonic disturbances.. If your sound work is just signal processing and you need to minimize latency, focus on increasing unified memory not internal ssd.. Consider even if you have 200 tracks of 24-bit sound at 200khz, that is 200,000 * 3 bytes * 2 channels or second or about a megabyte, a gigabyte in that case is 1000 seconds, which is 15 minutes.. oh I forgot the 200 tracks oops.. 200 gigs, throughput needed? 200 megabytes a second.. What was the internal bus to unified memory? So even if you have 8 gigs of ram, you will have at least 50 seconds of cache. But someone working with uncompressed video will need at least a hundred times as much.. I was computing an insane figure fir audio, who the heck uses teoo tracks of stereo 24-bit at 200khz, unless you are sampling hummingbirds and mosquitoes, and are training an AI to discern the creatures based on their wing geometry, as well as compute sonic reflections and the resonance of those space with respectto the humming birds.. Again musicians do not need anythingmore tgan the base model unless they are delusional or schizophrenic or scientists.. Blender users may need it, only if they are planning to use renderman to render big buck bunny at a thousand sample points per pixel for insane anti-aliasing. So if you know your needs, you'll know what, from my perspective (been using computers since the commode 64 , have computer science degree, minor in art , and an alias/wavefront scholarship SIGGRAPH 96 and know Ton Roosendaal and Frank VanBeek, bart veldhuzen, mark henne (made skin software for coca cola bears), brad carvey, etc.. Irix, unix, linux, etc.. Jim Holan who had demod the first HDTV at SIGGRAPH , with an animation he made called stan and stella breaking the ice..Go find old mindseye videos.. in my honest opinion... The base model , or 24GB model.. or two 16GB base models, or a pro, depending on how much of a power user you think you are, my guess is you will be wasting your time finding stuff to exploit your computer, and who for.. Those are the guys, that buy the exoensive models.. And they are helping apple more than themselves..
The thing that makes the Mini a good deal to me is I maxed out the ram at 64gb and can upgrade my storage with new 2tb NAND chips. That’s way cheaper than the equivalent MacBook Pro and I also don’t have to worry about a battery degrading in the future
I love the form factor of the new Mac Mini. Am waiting for the Black Friday/Christmas sale deals on the Apple website, to compare with the Education discount. Will definitely be picking up the base model! With the "savings" from that, I'll be grabbing a Steam Deck OLED as well :)
If it wasn’t for my requirement for greater graphics performance, I would buy the base model in a heartbeat. I’m really on the edge between the pro and the 14 inch MacBook Pro because as you said it is a greater value and even though I probably won’t be really moving my computer aroundon the possibility that you do that 14 inch is just an incredible value.
@MattTalkTech Same to you like others... You have got what I have said wrong.... Why is it less money to do the exact same upgrades on a MacBook Pro from M4 to M4 Pro for less and it cost more to do those upgrades on a Mac Mini. That is my issue in this video not the M4 Pro at all and the advantages it brings
hello from Croatia, currently I am on mac mini m2 and for my needs it's good with 16 gb and 256gb +satechi hub with 1tb ssd but when I saw this new mac mini m4 which I like it. Only negative side I think is lack of ports.here in croatia entry level point mac mini m4 cost 800 Euros or 16gb/512gb 1059. Cheers
Same to you like others... You have got what I have said wrong.... Why is it less money to do the exact same upgrades on a MacBook Pro from M4 to M4 Pro for less and it cost more to do those upgrades on a Mac Mini. That is my issue in this video not the M4 Pro at all and the advantages it brings
Thanks for this! I bought a MBP 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7 about 5 years ago thinking I'd be taking it everywhere. Turns out I only took it out of my house twice. So now I'm shopping for a Mini or Mini Pro. I use FCP and Logic Pro, but not sure how much I want to spend. Also, I'd love to win that new iphone! Cheers, Tom
im planning on getting the 13 inch m2 ipad air. Really great value for a drawing tablet with a processor inside. have the m1 right now but 64gb is starting to get annoying even with external drives.
Before the end of the year I will be getting a M4 Mini w/1T of storage. My 2009 dual Mac Pro will become s dedicated winblowz machine… it now dual boots.
Currently trying to make up my mind between Mac mini m4 with extra ram or MacBook Pro ! Going to apple tonight to have a browse… just to see if it will help 🤨
I wanted the Mac mini pro and a iPad Pro… but cost are prohibitively costly. I think I’ll get a MB pro and have the best of both worlds since I can’t have both .
I loaded up a M4. It was painful but my PC with nVidia 1080Ti was ready for replacement. And I made the mistake of buying it off a friend. It's fully watercooled...even the GPU so upgrading was nearly impossible. Anyways...Hope I get the phone to pair up with this M4 Beast!! Cheers!
I plan to order a mac mini m4 512 and 24 gb ram this week. Already in cart I was gonna get the regular 16gb ram but I plan on keeping it for many years not upgrading.
The Mac mini with the M4 Pro is a very good deal. Apple is not overcharging anyone. What no one is talking about is the RAM and storage are designed in a way that is very expensive to produce. Unlike the normal RAM that you would get off the shelf. Probably one of the flaws of the silicon design; however, Apple is slowly trying to make the RAM and the storage detachable.
That's nonsense. The NAND chips used in the internal Apple SSDs are exactly the same as those you can find on any decent NVME drive for a fraction of the price. It all comes from exactly the same handful of manufacturers. There's nothing special about that at all. And it's the exact same for the memory. Apple uses LPDDR5X modules for its m4 minis, and you can buy a LPCAMM2 board (the new standard to be used in laptops going forward) with 32GB on it for $175 direct from Crucial. Apple wants $400 for an extra 16GB of LPDDR5X memory. So yeah, they're using standard industry modules for both memory and SSD. There is no excusing their exorbitant upgrade prices except to say that they know their fans will willingly pay them. Also, there was nothing stopping Apple from using the standard NVME format in this generation of m4 mini. The blazingly fast top of the range 2TB Samsung NVME SSD costs just $160 at retail. And you claim Apple couldn't have used that internally instead of their own new proprietary design card they're charging $800 for?
Tech channels HAVE to start informing themselves about the music production scene. Having 8 performance cores over 4 is HUGE if you are working with Ableton, Logic Pro or FL Studio...
I think I will buy a Mac Mini M4, minimum specs. I think is enough for my needs. It does pretty well in DaVinci Resolve and I am not a heavy user of Fusion, although I am using it when needed. However, I believe it will be fine.
I make music for a living and because of the large sample libraries I use I need to bump the ram up all the way to 64 GB for best performance.. For the 14 inch MBP you're only able to upgrade to 64 GB of ram if you get the 14 core CPU, 32 core GPU model which bumps it up to an insane price. I'm sticking to my decision of getting the M4 Pro Mac mini with the 14 core CPU and 20 core GPU, 512 GB SSD and 64 GB of ram.
I was going to switch from pc to mac with the mac mini m4 but instead I upgraded my graphics card. I did however buy one for my wife to use in our wedding photography business. I tested it and it's pretty damn good. Not fast like my pc but for the size and money you can't beat it. I paid $479 at costco for the m4 mini
It all depends what you need and how much would you willing to pay out. Apple is always known doing this kind of pricing for a long time (minimal upgrade for premium cost). You only can get the one that you can afford, and you don't have to worry about upgrading for a couple of years.
Let's see what the M4 Pro Studio goes for. Or the M4 Ultimate Studio. I agree the pricing of the M4 Pro Mini is out of line with the regular M4 Mini, I guess Apple painted themselves into a corner with their bizarre memory and storage pricing.
The biggest problem with the base M4 Mac mini is the storage size. It is more than capable running Logic Pro in a professional studio, but Logic Pro takes up close to 100 GB itself and once you start to record, you're pretty much running out of storage within a week. So one way or another you have to buy storage. Maybe from Apple maybe attach an external drive etc. so it does cost you more than 599. . It is useless as a $599 machine. If you want to just browse the Internet and be on Facebook or TH-cam, then why not just buy a base iPad it does the same. The bottom line is, I cannot say the M4 Mac mini costs only 599 because you definitely need to buy storage to use it for anything.
A "pro" logic user wouldn t buy the cheapest mac you can get and expect it to run well. Im not gonna buy a Toyota camry and complain it wont tow a 50ft trailer. that's stupid. I have a 2010 27 iMac loaded with 128 GBs of ram, big drive, 3 screens an 5K display. I don't expect a $500 M4 mini + a $100 1080p screen can replace it....
@ The M1 Air from 4 years ago is 10 times more powerful than the mighty Mac Pro tower a decade ago and professionals got radio ready recordings done with that tower. The M4 Mini is waaay powerful enough for professionals. But...256GB of storage?
Apple improved their RAM price gouging but they did nothing to address their SSD price gouging. They're priced like it's 2014. It really exposes some predatory markups.
I agree the price is way too high. When they release the Studio M4 Max, there will be no need for the mini pro at this price point. The base Studio will be within a few hundred dollars hopefully.
Still cant decide what’s the best buy to replace my late 2014 iMac for photography and a little video editing. I don’t want to get it wrong and future proof it as much as possible.
Decide how much you want to spend first. Thats what I tell my clients. But even a M1 would run circles around it. Problem is if you have a 27" with 5K screen and want the same... hard to replace... cheapest 5K is $800.
What do you think of the M4 Pro Mac Mini?
I am waiting for M4 Mac Studio.
The only thing i like better about the m4pro is Thunderbolt 5. I doubt i even need that but i like to be future proof
I hate what apple does to us with ram and storage....and then hits us over the head with a baseball bat for cost!
Not enough people talking about Thunderbolt 5 and the better display options the M4 Pro supports. More monitors, higher resolution and higher refresh rates. Yes it's still stupidly expensive compared to the base model. Apple know that if people want higher/better display options they will likely pay more for M4 Pro model.
Love it and, overall, worth every penny. A lot faster than the M4 Mac Mini base, which is fast in its own right.
If you plan to use these m4 devices to music production, please note that Logic Pro and few others use only Performance cores. M4 basic has just 4 of them and difference to M3 is not much. M4 pro has 10 performance cores
Hmmm, makes sense.
M4 pro SSD is quicker, also for future expansion you have thunderbolt 5 vs thunderbolt 4. RAM is an issue as you can’t expand that later … but nonetheless, I do think there’s an element of the m4 pro buyers subsidising the ones who buy the base spec m4 models.
The memory speed is also quicker on the M4 Pro with 8533Mhz vs 7500Mhz for the M4. And you have double the performance cores (8 vs 4 (or 10 vs 4 if you go with the 14-core version)) which is why multitasking is so quicker.
Thunderbolt 4 is quick enough for most people and solidstate disk sustain write is way slower than maximum available bandwidth
Most SSD write speed in benchark was running from cache mode
That's one of the reasons to avoid QLC SSD as their write speed was like 100MB/s while cache full for most 2-4TB model
TLC disk aren't much better in actual sustain write .
Yes thunderbolt 5 is good to have but not day and night atm
When TB 5 device get common , probably you can buy m6 Mac mini at that time
@MattTalkTech
I think you have misundertood this video...You have got what I have said wrong....
Why is it less money to do the exact same upgrades on a MacBook Pro from M4 to M4 Pro for less and it cost more to do those upgrades on a Mac Mini. That is my issue in this video not the M4 Pro at all and the advantages it brings like thunderbolt 5, faster SSD etc...
@@MattTalkTech yep apple pricing strategy!
It drives people to add a little bit to upgrade in each step and sometimes end up with a over spec build 😂
@@Traumatree @MattTalkTech
Same to you like others... You have got what I have said wrong....
Why is it less money to do the exact same upgrades on a MacBook Pro from M4 to M4 Pro for less and it cost more to do those upgrades on a Mac Mini. That is my issue in this video not the M4 Pro at all and the advantages it brings
I'm planning on getting Mac mini M4 base model to replace my 2009 Mac Mini Core2 duo. The old girl was upgraded with 2 SSD drives and maxed out with 8gb of RAM. Apple's price ladder is a bit frustrating but they do make quality tech, so matter what you decide to purchase it will last a long time. Thanks for the comparison video!
The hidden flaw is that I am hooked on using it. 😀 Also, you are only giving part of the information but leaving out the speed of the SSD in the Pro, the speed of the Ram in the Pro, the speed of the GPU cores in the Pro as well as the increased P Cores in the Pro and Thunderbolt 5. I bought the Base one and returned it as soon as I bought and gave the Pro a spin. The Pro is definitely faster and feels faster and smoother as well and, at least in my opinion, in not a placebo effect.
Haha, maybe not so much for a flaw!
With that much money you're wasting you could build a better spec pc that can take care of your all needs..smh people with money.
Great to see someone who is actually giving advice that doesn’t leave out crucial information
from music production I think the base m4 mini would be to sluggish for a live recording and sample based software
The pro version however looks like a sweet spot especially when you compare it to the new m4 MacBook Pro with some of the similar specifications your almost paying an extra grand for a small monitor although a brilliant machine
So how are you finding the M4 pro
@@feiht5487 I already have a windows pc that can game well. However, I am bored with it and after 30 years of upgrading, I lost interest in it. I put it up for sale as well. I have not bought anything significant in 3 years and live as a minimalist so I have the money saved to do this and I find it fun again.
@@andrewharman6861 I am finding the M4 Pro Mac Mini fun to use. Since it will be 6 years before I upgrade, I find this the one to get.
In Europe we'd have to pay € 1.679,00 for the "entry level" Mac Mini M4 Pro and for the basic MBP 14" M4 Pro € 2.499,00. It's a huge difference.
I guess in the US they add tax to that price while in EU it is included
@@ko2610 correct.
Costco is selling M4 Mac mini for US$499.99 until December 2nd. With the possibility of SSD upgrade in near future, the cheapest M4 Mac mini is a steal.
dream on for that SSD upgrade. Never gonna happen. IF it does, it will cost silly $. Just go external. Acisis TBolt case is $50 at Walmart right now. BF deals on a decent 4TB NVMe should be under $200 = $250 for a 4 TB 3000 MBs external. More than 99.% anyone needs.
Amazon also. Great deal. The coupon basically pays for the tax and price ends up flat.
From a Base Mini M4 with 24gb unified memory and 512gb storage is $999 which is $399 less than the M4 Pro chip version is only gaining you Thunderbolt 5 ports which no one is making anything for yet and sure noticeably better graphics with the M4 Pro chip, but that is it. Okay bandwidth is doubled, but honestly that isn't not much more for 99% of buyers.
Early days, but I love mine. Using it for DAW software that doesn't use efficiency cores, so double the available P cores over base is huge. For this app, it's a different class of performance over the base unit.
No, I’ll go for the pro. I don’t need 2 computers even if the pro costs more. Complaining about the really high prices for storage is to ignore that the base model prices are a legitimate marketing approach to making the Apple ecosystem entry level attractive. I’ll happily pay $1799 for a top Mini M4 Pro with 1 Tb storage because it suits my needs perfectly and still comes in under $2000. I remember paying a lot more for laptops in the oughts which would be a lot more in today’s dollars. The new Minis - all of them - are genuine bargains plus you don’t ever have to put up with the horribly degenerate Window OS. BTW I loved XP and Win 7. Pay me $1799 to buy a Windows Laptop today and I’ll turn you down. We are just so fortunate to have such great hardware so cheap with an OS that mostly does not get in the way.
I do agree that the base Pro version seems overpriced compared to the base M4 version. However, if you shop around, and especially this Black Friday season, there are deals to be found. I got the base M4 Pro version from Micro Center this week for $1199 - $200 off. I'm very happy with it for that price!
I've already ordered the M4 Pro Mac mini with 64GB RAM, upgraded CPU/GPU and 2 TB storage. Just waiting for deliveruy now!
Hello great video on the mac mini m4. I am saving up to get the base version. Would be awesome to make the move from Android to Apple at the same time with the iPhone. Thanks for offering. Best of luck.
Best Buy has a great deal. I got $575 for my M2 Pro and bought the M4 Pro for $1359. Total price paid was $945!
I had no idea you could trade at Best Buy 😮
Absolutely! I was surprised as well. They offered much more than Apple. It made getting the M4 Pro doable.at $945 my Pro was less than the $999 M4!
I come close to agreeing with you, but I would be more generous for Apple. I think $1099 being a good price, but I could see $1199 being a fair price in today’s market. 8 GB added memory ($20), 256GB added storage ($20), the thing that gets you is thunderbolt 5 ($350 is current price for PC Card). Those are generous retail prices which add up to $390. Add $100 for the binned chip and you get $1199. I love the mini form factor. If they had a Max version, I’d buy one today. I plan on buying Apple’s next M4 Max desktop product, whatever that is. Wouldn’t it be nice if Apple (or someone) developed a course grain threading library to distribute processing across a bunch of MacOS systems ganged together via Thunderbolt 4/5. I could get 5 Minis and have 50 CPU cores and 50 GPU cores for my Lightroom editing. It is beyond me why they did not do something like this for the Mac Pro where you could gang multiple Ultra boards.
I did the pro with 24gb mem and 512ssd, added an external 4tb nvme with a thunder bolt 4 enclosure (400us), boom couldn't be happier. Traded in my m1 mac mini so my total cost was 1500us with a 4tb + 512 storage.
It seems like the base models are subsidized a bit, with a higher margin on the more powerful types. I think that is how they made the Mini so affordable, which is good, because they will sell a bunch, so they can keep creating new better processors.
Maybe, but it is unfair that the Mac Mini users have to pay for it but the MacBook Pro users going from M4 to M4 Pro is not such a big jump in price
@@MattTalkTech Fairness in capitalism, that would be the day :)
Really on the fence with the MMPro.Thanks for the comparison.
Planning to buy an ultra width monitor and mac mini next year.
I'd love to get one of these Mac Minis next year
I was looking to get the Pro model but yes your right that extra money spend on that mini pro model is....InSANE !
We bought the M4 with 24gb RAM and 512gb HD. It ran very well for Adobe Suite. We are desperately waiting for a dock for more connections and SSD slots. For my work in audio I thought about the m4Pro with 1tb HD and 48gb RAM. But then I Heard the rumors about loud fans while working - this would be a big backstep. So I will stay with my actual M2Pro which is the quietest machine I ever had.
Waiting and saving money for M4 Ultra Mac Studio 🙏
I cannnot wait for it either!
Break the Bank !!!
For my needs a regular Mac mini M4 will serve me right. Just wondering if I should get a 512GB SSD 🤔
Yes because 512gb is faster by far than the 256gb version
@@gmanglenn1 yeah but you won’t really see that speed difference in normal use
512GB model reads and writes faster, and won't fill up as fast and get slower. Think about the future.
EDIT: For $200 ($144 with coupon), you get that insurance. The future frustration of running into SSD capacity or speed issues will feel more expensive than just paying for the 512GB from the get-go. 😅
Great point. I initially ordered the Mac Mini Pro but then canceled and got the base model since the huge price difference made zero sense. Plus the Mac Mini is basically just a processor with ports whereas the MacBook Pro is that plus a nice screen and keyboard and designed for portability. The cost per hardware just doesn’t balance out between the two devices.
Very good point!
The Macbook pro and Mac mini are completely different machines for different purposes. Many people need a desktop and already have monitor(s) and mice and keyboards to use with a desktop. You absolutely need the portable aspect of a Macbook to make that make sense. A mini is worthless to a student that needs to use a computer to take notes in class and study. A Macbook for its screen and keyboard and touchpad for someone that connects it to multiple screens and uses other keyboards and mice is overkill.
The Mac Mini base model is an absolute beast for what it provides if you don't need portability and higher power. It should last quite a long time as well for those needs. It's great for elderly parents as well if you can get them past the MacOS learning curve.
I don't get what you are saying at all... just imagine working in a stationary environment (music production studio) and you could choose between those options:
1.) MacBook Pro M4 Pro 14-core CPU 24GB RAM 1TB SSD = 2.399$
2.) Mac mini M4 Pro 14-core CPU 24GB RAM 1TB SSD = 1.799$
That's a 600$ difference... with those 600$ you could boost your RAM up to 64 on that mini or chose 12-core 48GB RAM 2TB SSD... or spend it on other hardware/software...
I just received my 14 core Pro and I think I’m going to return it and just get the regular one, even though it’s more than twice as powerful for digital audio, but I wanna leave room on my card to get the M4 MacBook Pro as well which I will probably use a lot more.
I’m excited for the M4 lineups. I’m considering a MacBook Pro m4.
Mac Studio M4 is my future dream for my next tech purchase.
why dont u just get a actual pc that has better performance and has rendering capabilities too isntead og a mac mini
Nice one!
Because of the ML capabilities. I can run llama 3.1 70b with ease on a M2 Ultra Mac Studio base model To do that in pc, I’d have to buy at least 2 4090. I can’t wait to see what the new m4 studio brings.
@@Visionooor Cause we don't WANT a PC /Windows !!!
@@Visionooor I’m not ogg on a Mac mini, I’m ogg on the future Mac Studio M4.
Thank you for the M4 update. I will be buying a iMacPro Laptop 16 inch upgraded. I was thinking of upgrading my desktop as well with M4 or M4 pro.
Thanks for the video. I agree the upgrade prices are quite unreasonable, but just comparing the bottom line capabilities to non-Apple alternatives, it seems more reasonable, which is how they are positioning their premium product pricing. I need a new Macbook Pro to replace my Intel based version. It's getting long in the tooth, and also does not run Apple Intelligence, at least very well. As a developer, I need quick responsiveness and the ability to run all the latest technologies that Apple supports. I might spring for a Mac-mini, but only if Apple releases a reasonably-priced 5k monitor. I'm tired of using a 4k monitor and having sub-optimal display sharpness.
Mac mini M4 for me - you convinced me. Thank you
In 2024, I’m planning to get the Mac Mini Pro, as its power and capabilities perfectly suit my needs. I’m really excited to see how Apple continues to evolve this product line. Thank you for the amazing content and the opportunity to participate in the iPhone 16 Pro Max giveaway!
I’m looking at buying either a 16” MacBook Pro or the mini with the Apple display. I have a M1 16” MacBook Pro now. It hasn’t left the house for years. I use my iPad M2 for travel.
Definitely looking at a potential Mac Mini the beginning of next year. I’ll get the base mode and use external drives for storage. I’ll be using it for my music production, photography, and to finally put some effort into my TH-cam channel since it is very sorely neglected.
Thought a lot to decide. I work with Music and Audio. I end getting M4 Base with 512 with EDU price (US$ 699.00). I'm into the return windows, but after testing all my projects here with ProTools and Logic, the Pro is not necessary. I think also that M5 in 1 or 2 years will be an ease decision to change again instead to wait more for future update when you buy a base model.
Oh wow, really? I always had the impression that if u use these Macs for any kind of professional work, you'd jump on the M4 Pro regardless of price since you're bound for a longer term upgrade while upping the ante for productivity... and that would pretty much offset the cost. But if you're working with audio and the M4 is up to the load, that's impressive! 😊
Hi Matt. I’m maxed out my M2 Mac Mini inside my Logic Pro projects. Because I use too many plugins on the mix buses and master chain. And by doing that they multiply by the amount of tracks. Which goes really quickly with over 30 tracks. The extreme demand on “Performance Cores” is what makes me want to work with the M4 pro. Reason is Logic Pro only uses performance cores. And if you check the specs the 10 core cpu from m4 has only 4 performance cores. The other 6 are efficiency ones. And totally useless for audio. The 12 cpu cores from the pro has 8 performance cores. So, while going from my M2 which has 4 performance cores to the M4 which has the same could be a bit better, because of the new chip, the performance that I can achieve with my project would exactly double, comparing the M4 with the M4 pro. Perfect price would be 1000 or 1200 dollars. But getting double of the performance for me makes a lot of difference. Since RAM of 16 or 24 and SSD upgrade wouldn’t change almost a thing, because they are already enough on the low range.
Yes!! I have the exact same concerns. You spoke truly - Efficiency cores are TOTALLY USELESS for most audio / music production. Apple's own Logic can only utilize the performance cores of the CPU, so in our case, we need to judge which Mac to buy largely by how many performance cores it has.
@@pjny123actually, several DAWs do use efficiency cores, including Pro Tools and Cubase.
@@spintonik Hi Spintonik! You're right, of course (that's why I said most, rather than all DAWS. ;-). But it seems incredible to me that Logic, Apple's own DAW, doesn't utilize efficiency cores. In his latest review, James Zhan (who's videos first alerted me to this issue) suggests that Apple's engineers might have done this by design - for some reason that he's unaware of. Nevertheless he still concludes that in his tests, fewer P cores directly translates into a less capable computer for audio (using Logic and a number of other DAWs). But you're right to make the distinction - Pro Tools & Cubase can indeed utilize the E cores.
@@pjny123 James is goated for this video! Almost no other tech channel talking about the m4 chips even knows that...
Alright, good points. However, if you end up keeping your computer for many years like I do, you're better off. OTOH, presumably there will be a cheap M8 Mac Mini out about 4 years from now, which will beat the crap out of an M4 Pro Mac Mini.
Also to consider: I you get the standard M4 Mac Mini, and you find yourself lacking of e.g. graphics performance, you could likely sell the Mac Mini without too much loss. Or keep it as a TV server, and be able to browse the Internet in your living room.
Greetings! I am getting the Mac mini base model. Thank you this video helped me in my decision.
I think that a 12 core CPU M4 Pro machine running @ 22406K is a pretty fast desktop machine for $1399. But, I’d spend the money on as much ram as I could afford to buy. Max it out at 64 GB on the M4 Pro for $1999 and buy a 4TB SSD external drive to run my home folder on for $225 and run it on one of the thunderbolt ports, saving about $1,000 there. Or even get an 8TB external SSD for $500, saving $1,900 over the Apple price! Keeping all your apps on the internal drive. Pretty fast rig with a ton of storage that would suit most home setups. And it will drive up to 3 displays. I think for the budget conscious that would be a great home setup, it could make sense.
By the way. I think I may want to replace my older MacBookPro this year with a newer M4. Please consider me for the iPhone drawing. I LOVE ❤ your videos!
Mac Mini M4 is the one for me, and I'm good to go using my macbook pro as a monitor as long as I'm at a coffee shop or somewhere they have an outlet I can use for graphics design and video editing. Thank you for the video!
I just bought an entry level M4 Mac Mini, and sent it to a "shady" Chinese repair shop to upgrade ssd to 2TB with paying only 150 USD, and next year, I am thinking Macbook Pro~
The M4 Mac Mini isn’t meant to be a profit driver. All base Minis, as well as other base Apple products, are meant to introduce new users into the ecosystem system. Apple makes the majority of its profits on the upgrades. Remember also that Apple retains way more resale value than its competitors so you you’ll get a good percentage back on the cost of your upgrades.
Btw, most companies make way more profits on its upgrades. You can buy a brand new base Ford F-150 for $37K but if you want to upgrade all the way up to an F-150 Raptor, you’ll have to drop $78K. You can say it’s way too expensive but you don’t say it’s a major flaw with the Raptor.
@MattTalkTech
Same to you like others... You have got what I have said wrong....
Why is it less money to do the exact same upgrades on a MacBook Pro from M4 to M4 Pro for less and it cost more to do those upgrades on a Mac Mini. That is my issue in this video not the M4 Pro at all and the advantages it brings
So true !
Actually Im confused to buy . which one is suitable for me m4 or m4 pro, i need more storage because in music production there need so much installation file vst plugin. m4 pro obviously good and m4 also benchmark near about same. but storage problem is big issue.
Buy an external Thunderbolt 4 enclosure ($60-$80) and put a 2TB Gen 4 NVME SSD in it ($90 or more), and it will cost you less than the measly extra 256GB upgrade would cost you and will be just as fast (if not faster) than the internal drive, and give you 8x the storage.
I was considering the Mac Mini M4 Pro, but your argument makes a lot of sense. I am worried, however, that the base model won’t be enough for a pro photog…
I already bought the yellow iMac M4 2TB and I am very happy with it. I have now the sunshine in my home !!!
Compared to the M4 Mac Mini, you OVERPAID for the 24" screen by $900 for that ! Let that sink in !!!
I want the new Mac Mini M4 base model as my 2016 MacBook Pro is struggling to run on my monitors. In the new year, I want to invest in a handheld PC like a Steam deck or a Rog Ally X. Great video Matt.
I am seriously considering the Mac Mini.
The analysis on cost-to-performance was spot on. It’s a growing frustration in tech: paying a premium for incremental improvements. Do you see this as a temporary trend, or is this the future of hardware pricing?
The improvements on this Pro version is far from incremental.
I think we finally won with 16gb being the base amount of RAM, lets hope we do the same with disk space and also disk space upgrades being cheaper
Nice video! I’m actually considering buying a Mac Mini for myself this year or next year and your video helped me a lot. Thank you!
Your reviews are really good and informative. I am considering buying the M4 MacMini and possibly two of them to replace both our aging apple Macbook Air and Pro - you mentioned this in this review and it does make a lot of sense. Thanks and keep it going :)
Hey, love your videos. Always the most informative on Apple and tech products.
I’m planning on the iMac, mini, iPad mini this year.
Been in the Intel-based MacBook Pro for the longest time. This new Mac mini really ticks all the items I need and want to buy a new one at least the base model. Thanks Matt for the review.
$500 on sale everywhere (maybe USA only)
Original plan was to get a MacBook Air for my wife and a Mac mini m4 Pro, but I was thinking of getting a regular Mac mini with 512GB. This video confirms I am not alone in my thinking.
for now I stick to my m1 studio. I almost sold it to get an M4 I think it is great! . but I have all hooked up to my ports A/B>C/C and everything works great and fast. besides,.... for the normal user the entry level with a 512 is more than enough. on marketplace i scored an iPad Air M1 and a MBP16" M1. works great for my simple workflow. ( only use Logic Pro and that works even on my old intel MacBook Pro 2012 with sequoia..well.., sort of. 🤪 ) my iPhone 12 Pro is an oldie but a goodie and probably gets me another year then the 16 will be cheaper. ( yes I am a cheapskate hahaha ). keep these vids coming Matt !
I’m going to try and get a Mac mini after the 1st of the year if everything goes well wish me luck I love all the Mac’s they’re amazing and great video by the way
What about the difference in GPU and maximum RAM?
THE CLOSER YOUR MEMORY IS TO YOUR CPU AND GPUs, THE FASTER YOUR MACHINE WILL SEEM. FOR MOST PEOPLE THE BASE IS ENOUGH, UNLESS YOU ARE WORKING WITH VIDEO OR DOING AI , OR VIDEO GAMES, YOU JUST ARE NOT GOING TO NEED ANYTHING BETTER THAN THE BASE MODEL. THE SSD SHOULD ONLY BE USED FOR STORING EXECUTABLES, SYSTEMS AND VIRTUAL MEMORY SWAP, IF YOU WANT MORE STORAGE SPACE, NO MATTER WHAT, ITS GOING TO BENEFIT YOU LITTLE TO STORE NON ESSENTIALS INTERNALLY, THAT BEING SAID, FORGET THE EXTRA INTERNAL SSD SPACE.. UNKESS YOU ARE WORKING WITH VOLUMETRIC DATA, NOT 3D WIREFRAMES, VOLUMETRIC DATA, YOU WILL NOT NEED MORE THAN 256GB Internal, besides, if you need fast loads of data, RAID SSD's outside the computer, when loading imagesand video since your senses are slower than the content it will loadin, you will not know the difference. If you are doing backups, you will notice but youd be doing that anyhow, and if you have more than 256GB internal, wouldn't your backups take longer, why waste time on that,keep your non essentials on external drives. If you are more than one person, just get two base models, unless again the application calls for volumetric data. A 1kx1kx1k volume is at least a gigabyte, AI tensors are volumetric in nature, SO AI obviously.. But mainly Stable Diffusion, I doubt an LLM would need it to the same degree cause you are working with text and pointers (graphs, vector data).. If you plan on running videogames, I don't see a need for internal SSD unless playing multiplayer games and you need to beat everyone when loading the next level.. MUSICIANS WILL NEVER NEED MORE PROCESSING, INTERNAL RAM OR SSD than this has to offer, unless they are delusional or schizophrenic, or are doing volumetric sound resonance simulations of large geometries, say a architect of open air concert halls and are trying to maximize clarity of transmitted sound while diffusing distant sonic disturbances.. If your sound work is just signal processing and you need to minimize latency, focus on increasing unified memory not internal ssd.. Consider even if you have 200 tracks of 24-bit sound at 200khz, that is 200,000 * 3 bytes * 2 channels or second or about a megabyte, a gigabyte in that case is 1000 seconds, which is 15 minutes.. oh I forgot the 200 tracks oops.. 200 gigs, throughput needed? 200 megabytes a second.. What was the internal bus to unified memory? So even if you have 8 gigs of ram, you will have at least 50 seconds of cache. But someone working with uncompressed video will need at least a hundred times as much.. I was computing an insane figure fir audio, who the heck uses teoo tracks of stereo 24-bit at 200khz, unless you are sampling hummingbirds and mosquitoes, and are training an AI to discern the creatures based on their wing geometry, as well as compute sonic reflections and the resonance of those space with respectto the humming birds.. Again musicians do not need anythingmore tgan the base model unless they are delusional or schizophrenic or scientists.. Blender users may need it, only if they are planning to use renderman to render big buck bunny at a thousand sample points per pixel for insane anti-aliasing. So if you know your needs, you'll know what, from my perspective (been using computers since the commode 64 , have computer science degree, minor in art , and an alias/wavefront scholarship SIGGRAPH 96 and know Ton Roosendaal and Frank VanBeek, bart veldhuzen, mark henne (made skin software for coca cola bears), brad carvey, etc.. Irix, unix, linux, etc.. Jim Holan who had demod the first HDTV at SIGGRAPH , with an animation he made called stan and stella breaking the ice..Go find old mindseye videos.. in my honest opinion... The base model , or 24GB model.. or two 16GB base models, or a pro, depending on how much of a power user you think you are, my guess is you will be wasting your time finding stuff to exploit your computer, and who for.. Those are the guys, that buy the exoensive models.. And they are helping apple more than themselves..
I think the mini is compelling. I’m considering a purchase.
Brill vid, fam. Getting the base M4 Mini. Keeping my M1 mba for traveling and taking tons of photos. Respect.
Looking at upgrading to either the Mac Mini M4 pro in 2024 or early 2025. Thanks for the video.
Great comparison,
I love the M4 iMac, but I also would like to know more about M4 MacBook Air as it would be thin and light.
The thing that makes the Mini a good deal to me is I maxed out the ram at 64gb and can upgrade my storage with new 2tb NAND chips. That’s way cheaper than the equivalent MacBook Pro and I also don’t have to worry about a battery degrading in the future
I love the form factor of the new Mac Mini. Am waiting for the Black Friday/Christmas sale deals on the Apple website, to compare with the Education discount. Will definitely be picking up the base model! With the "savings" from that, I'll be grabbing a Steam Deck OLED as well :)
If it wasn’t for my requirement for greater graphics performance, I would buy the base model in a heartbeat. I’m really on the edge between the pro and the 14 inch MacBook Pro because as you said it is a greater value and even though I probably won’t be really moving my computer aroundon the possibility that you do that 14 inch is just an incredible value.
Just ordered my Mac mini!
Considering the M4, maybe always like hearing your assessment
Higher memory bandwidth, SSD speed, Thunderbolt 5 could be the reason for bigger price difference between M4 and M4 Pro.
@MattTalkTech
Same to you like others... You have got what I have said wrong....
Why is it less money to do the exact same upgrades on a MacBook Pro from M4 to M4 Pro for less and it cost more to do those upgrades on a Mac Mini. That is my issue in this video not the M4 Pro at all and the advantages it brings
hello from Croatia, currently I am on mac mini m2 and for my needs it's good with 16 gb and 256gb +satechi hub with 1tb ssd but when I saw this new mac mini m4 which I like it. Only negative side I think is lack of ports.here in croatia entry level point mac mini m4 cost 800 Euros or 16gb/512gb 1059. Cheers
M4 RAM has 120GB/s memory bandwidth, M4 pro's has 273GB/s memory bandwidth. and pro has three Thunderbolt 5 ports
Same to you like others... You have got what I have said wrong....
Why is it less money to do the exact same upgrades on a MacBook Pro from M4 to M4 Pro for less and it cost more to do those upgrades on a Mac Mini. That is my issue in this video not the M4 Pro at all and the advantages it brings
Thanks for this! I bought a MBP 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7 about 5 years ago thinking I'd be taking it everywhere. Turns out I only took it out of my house twice. So now I'm shopping for a Mini or Mini Pro. I use FCP and Logic Pro, but not sure how much I want to spend. Also, I'd love to win that new iphone! Cheers, Tom
im planning on getting the 13 inch m2 ipad air. Really great value for a drawing tablet with a processor inside.
have the m1 right now but 64gb is starting to get annoying even with external drives.
Before the end of the year I will be getting a M4 Mini w/1T of storage. My 2009 dual Mac Pro will become s dedicated winblowz machine… it now dual boots.
nice video Matt. I will be getting the Macbook pro M4
Will be getting a new Mac Mini M4 next year
Currently trying to make up my mind between Mac mini m4 with extra ram or MacBook Pro ! Going to apple tonight to have a browse… just to see if it will help 🤨
Well said!
I am would love to upgrade my iPhone 12 Pro Max to the 15 or 16
I wanted the Mac mini pro and a iPad Pro… but cost are prohibitively costly. I think I’ll get a MB pro and have the best of both worlds since I can’t have both .
I loaded up a M4. It was painful but my PC with nVidia 1080Ti was ready for replacement. And I made the mistake of buying it off a friend. It's fully watercooled...even the GPU so upgrading was nearly impossible. Anyways...Hope I get the phone to pair up with this M4 Beast!! Cheers!
Just bought the new Mac Mini base configuration!
the best choice for M4 Mac Mini Pro
I plan to order a mac mini m4 512 and 24 gb ram this week. Already in cart I was gonna get the regular 16gb ram but I plan on keeping it for many years not upgrading.
The Mac mini with the M4 Pro is a very good deal. Apple is not overcharging anyone. What no one is talking about is the RAM and storage are designed in a way that is very expensive to produce. Unlike the normal RAM that you would get off the shelf. Probably one of the flaws of the silicon design; however, Apple is slowly trying to make the RAM and the storage detachable.
That's nonsense. The NAND chips used in the internal Apple SSDs are exactly the same as those you can find on any decent NVME drive for a fraction of the price. It all comes from exactly the same handful of manufacturers. There's nothing special about that at all.
And it's the exact same for the memory. Apple uses LPDDR5X modules for its m4 minis, and you can buy a LPCAMM2 board (the new standard to be used in laptops going forward) with 32GB on it for $175 direct from Crucial. Apple wants $400 for an extra 16GB of LPDDR5X memory.
So yeah, they're using standard industry modules for both memory and SSD. There is no excusing their exorbitant upgrade prices except to say that they know their fans will willingly pay them.
Also, there was nothing stopping Apple from using the standard NVME format in this generation of m4 mini. The blazingly fast top of the range 2TB Samsung NVME SSD costs just $160 at retail. And you claim Apple couldn't have used that internally instead of their own new proprietary design card they're charging $800 for?
I have an m4 mini on order and intend to get a refreshed studio next year.
Tech channels HAVE to start informing themselves about the music production scene. Having 8 performance cores over 4 is HUGE if you are working with Ableton, Logic Pro or FL Studio...
But the M4Pro seems to BE to noisy...
There are other distinct features of the Mac Min M4 Pro than what you mentioned, which makes it outclass the Mac Min M4
going for iPad Pro also the Mac mini base version. but my iPhone 13 is getting old so the new iPhone 16 pro would make my Apple system the best
I think I will buy a Mac Mini M4, minimum specs. I think is enough for my needs. It does pretty well in DaVinci Resolve and I am not a heavy user of Fusion, although I am using it when needed. However, I believe it will be fine.
I make music for a living and because of the large sample libraries I use I need to bump the ram up all the way to 64 GB for best performance.. For the 14 inch MBP you're only able to upgrade to 64 GB of ram if you get the 14 core CPU, 32 core GPU model which bumps it up to an insane price. I'm sticking to my decision of getting the M4 Pro Mac mini with the 14 core CPU and 20 core GPU, 512 GB SSD and 64 GB of ram.
I was going to switch from pc to mac with the mac mini m4 but instead I upgraded my graphics card. I did however buy one for my wife to use in our wedding photography business. I tested it and it's pretty damn good. Not fast like my pc but for the size and money you can't beat it. I paid $479 at costco for the m4 mini
A long time Lenovo user deciding to change to Apple. Looking to get a MacBook M4 Pro 14 in. by the end of this year.
nice review
It all depends what you need and how much would you willing to pay out. Apple is always known doing this kind of pricing for a long time (minimal upgrade for premium cost). You only can get the one that you can afford, and you don't have to worry about upgrading for a couple of years.
Let's see what the M4 Pro Studio goes for. Or the M4 Ultimate Studio. I agree the pricing of the M4 Pro Mini is out of line with the regular M4 Mini, I guess Apple painted themselves into a corner with their bizarre memory and storage pricing.
Saving up for the MacBook Air M4
The biggest problem with the base M4 Mac mini is the storage size. It is more than capable running Logic Pro in a professional studio, but Logic Pro takes up close to 100 GB itself and once you start to record, you're pretty much running out of storage within a week. So one way or another you have to buy storage. Maybe from Apple maybe attach an external drive etc. so it does cost you more than 599. . It is useless as a $599 machine. If you want to just browse the Internet and be on Facebook or TH-cam, then why not just buy a base iPad it does the same. The bottom line is, I cannot say the M4 Mac mini costs only 599 because you definitely need to buy storage to use it for anything.
A "pro" logic user wouldn t buy the cheapest mac you can get and expect it to run well. Im not gonna buy a Toyota camry and complain it wont tow a 50ft trailer. that's stupid. I have a 2010 27 iMac loaded with 128 GBs of ram, big drive, 3 screens an 5K display. I don't expect a $500 M4 mini + a $100 1080p screen can replace it....
@ The M1 Air from 4 years ago is 10 times more powerful than the mighty Mac Pro tower a decade ago and professionals got radio ready recordings done with that tower. The M4 Mini is waaay powerful enough for professionals. But...256GB of storage?
Apple improved their RAM price gouging but they did nothing to address their SSD price gouging. They're priced like it's 2014. It really exposes some predatory markups.
Thunderbolt 4 enclosure + 1TB or 2TB Gen4 NVMe SSD for the win!
I just bought my 1st iPad Air instead of the new Mac Mini which I was planning to get.
I’m considering upgrading my Mac book M1pro to a M4pro
Tech is always getting better as we go along.
I agree the price is way too high. When they release the Studio M4 Max, there will be no need for the mini pro at this price point. The base Studio will be within a few hundred dollars hopefully.
Still cant decide what’s the best buy to replace my late 2014 iMac for photography and a little video editing. I don’t want to get it wrong and future proof it as much as possible.
Decide how much you want to spend first. Thats what I tell my clients. But even a M1 would run circles around it. Problem is if you have a 27" with 5K screen and want the same... hard to replace... cheapest 5K is $800.