Mac Mini’s were always a cheap and portable desktop setup that could double up as a home theater box or a family computer. It is small and has enough ports for typical beginner-friendly use. Undoubtedly, a product introduced in 2005 (and later refreshed with Intel chipset in 2006) is still one of Apple’s most popular computer offerings. The current unibody design dates to 2010 and has stayed on to date, even with the change to Apple Silicon.
Look and feel
Nothing has changed from a design perspective. M2 Mac Mini has the same exact design as the 2010 unibody version, even with the same dimensions. The Front has a tiny status LED towards the bottom-right corner, which glows even when the machine is sleeping – basically always-on. The two sides are blank, and the rear has the ports that you need. The removable bottom base is colored black with the ‘Mac mini’ lettering cut into it. The top has – as you guessed, the Apple logo.
Ports and specifications
The rear side houses the ports and the huge cooling vent required for the Apple M2 to dissipate heat. There is the usual Mac mini AC power adapter with dual pins. Interestingly, the power supply for Apple Silicon Mac Minis is the same as the Intel Minis, but the Apple Silicon power consumption is 3 times lower compared to them. Then to the right comes the Gigabit Ethernet port, which has become extinct on most laptops and even on pre-built desktop machines.
There are two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports that can drive two 1080p displays or one 4K display. It supports up to 40Gbps data transfer speeds. Then comes the HDMI port with up to a single 4K display support. To the side are two USB-A 3.1 Gen2 ports.
Below it lies the forgotten 3.5mm audio jack. We missed you, friend. The power button is situated at the far-left corner beside the power connector.
There is WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 for faster connections and support for smart Apple-esque features like Universal Control, Airdrop, and Handoff – all of which are tested and working like a charm. Perks of being in the ecosystem for sure.
Performance
The Mac Mini lineup saw an impressive performance jump when it switched from Intel to Apple Silicon back in 2020. The potato-level home theater box suited for basic web browsing and media consumption now has enough power to edit a 4K video without breaking a sweat. All thanks to the efficiency of M-series chips.
The M2 Mac Mini carries the baton forward, but this time with a minor performance increment compared to the M1 chip. This is expected, as the Geekbench scores suggest a 10% increase in single-core performance, while muti-core performance increases to 21-22% compared to M1.
The speed of the M2 Mac Mini’s built-in storage is the only area in which the device truly experienced any kind of performance drop. Bear in mind that this primarily impacts the 256GB base model (which we purchased).
As opposed to the M1 Mini’s two 128GB SSD storage chips, the M2 variant only contains a single 256GB chip. This reduces the bandwidth to single channel, showing during heavy read-write operations. However, most users will not feel any slowdowns.
Content Creation Workflow
Video editing on the M2 Mac Mini feels smooth and zippy, and 1080p timelines can be scrubbed without frame drops. Notably, since the M2 Mac Mini is actively cooled with a fan and has a bigger heat dissipation system – it is miles better compared to the M2 MacBook Air, which gets a bit hot and throttles during heavy editing workflows.
Lightroom and Photoshop batch processing tasks are also faster than M2 MacBook Air for obvious reasons. Running Maxon Cinebench R23 gave us 1586 points on single-core and 8559 points on multi-core, beating the 11th Gen Intel Core i7 comfortably while the MP Ratio reads 5.48x.
Moving to the render times – a 10-minute 4K timeline export took 5.30 minutes which is very impressive considering the form factor of the Mac Mini. We think there is a scope for improvement with the 512GB version as it has better bandwidth, equating to better write speeds. The Blackmagic Disk Speed Test app gave us 1485MB/s Reads, and 1424MB/s Writes. NOT IMPRESSIVE BUT MANAGEABLE for lightweight video editing and casual media consumption.
If you are a content creator, we recommend buying the 512GB option, which uses dual-bandwidth storage. The increased storage space is also helpful in that case. Do not repeat our mistakes, lol.
The pricing
Compared to the M1 Mac Mini, which was priced at $700 (₹84000 in India, not direct conversion – includes taxes) at launch, the M2 Mac Mini retails at $599 (₹59900 including taxes, not direct conversion), which makes it an impressive buy if you want to get into the Apple ecosystem – and yeah, it’s cheaper than an iPhone 13.
Raw specs
- Processor – Apple M2 (8 Core CPU, 10 Core GPU)
- Media engine – H/W-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW Decode and Encode support
- Memory – 8GB to 24GB (configurable at checkout, non-upgradable)
- Storage – 256GB to 2TB (configurable at checkout, non-upgradable)
- Audio – 3.5mm audio jack with high impedance headphone support, Audio out via HDMI
- Display Out – 2x1080p 60Hz Displays or 1x4K 60Hz Display
- USB – 2xUSB-C (Thunderbolt 4) with 40Gbps transfer speeds, 2xUSB-A 3.1 Gen2 with 5Gbps transfer speeds
- Other Ports – HDMI with Audio out, Gigabit Ethernet (upgradable to 10Gbit at checkout)
- Wireless Connectivity – WiFi 6E 802.11ax, Bluetooth 5.3
Tailend thoughts
Apple is really trying to push users toward the desktop Mac ecosystem, as evident from its aggressive pricing. So much so that it envisions Mac Mini as a family computer, replacing their old Windows machines. And the form factor obviously suits the goal – small and compact, easy to clean, and almost no fan noise for 99% of workloads.
The M2 Mac Mini’s discounted pricing makes it a crazy good deal, something which cannot be ignored considering the performance-for-money it provides. This could be a great investment for work-from-home people, self-employed, and freelance folks who require a no-nonsense machine that just works.
Buy the Mac Mini M2 from Amazon!
- M2 chip for exceptional speed and performance
- 8-core CPU packs up to 18 per cent faster performance to fly through everyday tasks
- 10-core GPU with up to 35 per cent faster performance for graphics-intensive apps and games
- 16-core Neural Engine for advanced machine learning
- From 8GB up to 24GB of unified memory, so everything you do is fast and fluid
