A quick straw poll of the apps I use on a daily basis sees that Adobe has a (feature restricted) public beta of M1 Photoshop and BlackMagic Design has a beta of its free video editor/colour grading software, Davinci Resolve. The transition to native M1 applications is already underway elsewhere, too.
Pretty much all of Apple’s library of business and creative professional applications has been converted to run natively on the M1 chip and you can run some iOS applications as well.
Not much has changed on the software front since I reviewed the M1 MacBook Pro and M1 MacBook Air last year. READ NEXT: M1 MacBook Air review M1 Mac mini review: Software compatibility It is, of course, possible to add fast storage via the Thunderbolt 4 drive if you need to, however. It is possible to pop off the lid and get at the machine’s innards by undoing six Torx TR6 security screws, but the RAM and SSD are soldered to the motherboard and cannot be replaced. The big difference compared with previous Mac minis is there’s no way to upgrade. Indeed, finished in silver and measuring a mere 197 x 197 x 36mm (WDH) and weighing around 1.2kg, it’s a rather attractive little thing, even though it’s no different physically than the previous Mac mini. M1 Apple Mac mini review: Design and featuresĪ Mac mini and monitor might not look as effortlessly elegant as a 27in iMac, but it’s far from an ugly pairing. With Apple’s cheapest 27in iMac costing £1,800, that represents quite a hefty saving.
Team up the M1 Mac mini with a monitor like the 27in ultrawide LG 27UL850 and you instantly have a desktop PC that’s nearly as elegant as an iMac for around £1,100. What you might be more interested in is a comparison with Apple’s iMac range of all-in-one PCs. The newer NUC 9 Extreme range is probably a better match for the M1 Mac mini in terms of raw speed but prices begin at around £770 – again with no RAM, SSD or OS. The (now ageing) Intel NUC kit 8i7HVK, based on the Core i7-8809G is the cheapest of these but it costs around £700 with no RAM, SSD or OS, and can’t compete with the Mac mini on performance. Intel also produces a range of more powerful “gaming” NUC PCs but the price of these start much higher than the M1 Mac mini.
At the time of writing, you can buy one of these “barebones” kits with a Core i7-10710U inside for £460, and add 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and Windows 10 OS license for an extra £160, bringing the total to £620. The benchmark among compact PCs is Intel’s NUC 10 (and the forthcoming NUC 11) range of mini PCs, which typically use much slower, lower-power U-series Intel chips. Prices rise as you add RAM and storage but essentially, this is the same hardware as you get in the M1 MacBook Pro, minus the screen, keyboard and touchpad, of course. At £699 for the base model with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, you’re getting a lot of performance and hardware for your money. Part of the reason behind the appeal of the M1 Mac mini – and the appeal of its laptop siblings – is the price.
M1 Apple Mac mini review: Price and competition If you don’t mind being a guinea pig for Apple, however, or you’ll never venture outside the safe boundaries of Apple’s own software stack or other native applications, then the M1 Mac mini is a great choice for a minimalist desktop setup. However, with not all software shifted to the new architecture just yet, you should know that you may need to run some of your favourite applications under emulation at first, and that some of your favourite Mac apps might not run perfectly – or at all. If you need a fast, compact PC for working from home, then there’s a lot here that’s good. Just like Apple’s M1 MacBooks, the M1 Mac mini is very impressive, delivering a huge amount of performance per pound. READ NEXT: M1 MacBook Air review Apple Mac mini review: What you need to know From the outside, the M1 Mac mini looks exactly like the previous model, but it’s on the inside where all the fireworks are happening. Aside from the radical architecture revamp, Apple has otherwise made few changes to its much-loved compact PC. The Mac mini is the third of the first wave of M1-based Apple products we have reviewed since they were announced last year, joining the M1 MacBook Air and the M1 MacBook Pro at the vanguard of Apple’s move away from Intel.