Apple has never liked discounts and for a long time, the company even told resellers they couldn’t offer lower prices on its products. But a lot has changed since then and this Black Friday weekend, Amazon has cut prices on all of Apple’s products including the new Mac mini. This small desktop is already one of the best small computers on the market, and now the 256GB model is on sale for $479, which is the lowest price ever, down from $599. It’s one of the biggest price drops we’ve seen on current-generation Apple hardware during a Black Friday sale.
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Powerful Tiny Machine
The 2024 Mac mini is only five inches by five inches which is about the size of two stacked paperback books but it has Apple’s new M4 chip with a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU that gives it performance levels that were only available in much bigger desktop towers before. Apple redesigned the whole internal structure of the M4 to make the most of its power and now, the machine can do everything from casual web browsing to professional creative work without any problems. The unified memory architecture makes the 16GB of RAM work better than in older systems with similar specs.
The placement of the ports finally fixes one of the biggest problems with older Mac mini models: it adds front-facing USB-C ports and a headphone jack so you don’t have to reach behind the device every time you want to plug in a flash drive or connect headphones. The back panel still has Thunderbolt ports, HDMI output, and Gigabit Ethernet for more permanent connections, like those for displays and network cables. You can set up your workspace however works best for you without having to use external hubs or adapters for basic daily tasks thanks to the ability to connect to both the front and back of the device.
The M4 chip has CPU cores that split into performance and efficiency cores and these cores intelligently divide up the work based on what you’re doing. This means that tasks that need a lot of power like rendering videos, happen quickly, while tasks that don’t need a lot of power, like running background processes, happen slowly. The 10-core GPU can handle graphics-heavy tasks that would have needed a separate graphics card in Intel-based systems. This means that the Mac mini can edit 4K video, run multiple high-resolution displays, or even play moderate games.
The biggest software improvement of this generation is Apple Intelligence integration: It adds systemwide AI help that can help you write, organize information, and automate tasks that you do over and over again. It also keeps all processing local to protect your privacy. The M4’s neural engine takes care of these AI tasks without slowing down the rest of the system, so you can use smart features like advanced autocorrect, contextual suggestions, and natural language processing without the slowdowns that often happen with cloud-based AI services. Your data never leaves the device which addresses real privacy concerns while also providing AI features that are useful instead of just gimmicky.
Since Apple switched to its own silicon, compatibility with professional software has gotten a lot better: For example, Microsoft 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud now run natively on M4 chips instead of through emulation layers that slow down performance. Because of the way macOS is optimized and how efficient Apple silicon is, apps start up faster, render faster and use less power than similar Intel-based systems.
For $479, you can get Apple’s newest desktop technology for less than many mid-range laptops. This is a great deal for anyone who already has a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and the performance-to-price ratio is better than that of most other small-form-factor PCs.
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