The Mac mini will celebrate its 20th birthday in January. And I think the M4 version of the Mac mini is far and away the most appealing one the company has ever made.
When it was introduced during the white plastic heyday of peak iPod-era Apple, the Mac mini was pitched as the cheapest way to buy into the Mac ecosystem. It was $499. And despite some fluctuation (as high as $799 for the entry-level 2018 mini, $599 for this year’s refresh), the Mac mini has stayed the cheapest entry-level Mac ever since.
But the entry-level models always left a lot to be desired. The first Mac mini launched with just 256MB of RAM, a pretty anemic amount even by the standards of the day. The first Intel Mac mini in 2006 came with a single-core Core Solo processor, literally the last single-core Mac Apple ever released and the only single-core Intel Mac. The 2018 Mac mini’s Core i3 processor left a lot to be desired for the price. The 8GB of RAM included in the basic M1 and M2 Mac minis was fine for many things but left very little headroom for future growth.
