Introduction: Six Months with the M4 Pro Mac Mini
I’ve had the M4 Pro Mac Mini for about 6 months now and you lot have been asking lots of questions i know what you’re thinking another M4 Mac Mini video however this one is different i promise and the reason for that is because I’m turning the tables on you every time I make a video about this brilliant little computer and it is fantastic it’s the best thing that Apple has ever done and boy do they need some positive coverage at the moment but every time I make a video about this computer you guys get involved you send me questions you give me your opinion both good and bad so I thought it would be fun to throw all of that stuff into ChatGpt and say to ChatGpt “Give me the 10 most common questions and opinions about the Mac Mini so that I can react to them on this video.” And if you’re wondering the power button placement which is that thing there came up 25 times out of thousands of comments which was basically 1.4% 4% of all correspondence on the M4 Mac Mini was about that power button placement which means it didn’t make the top 10 yeah
1. The M4 Mac Mini: The Perfect Entry Point into macOS
Number one is that the M4 Mac Mini is finally the perfect entry point into Mac OS so a lot of you are buying this as your first Mac and you’re using it for coding for editing for side hustles and just normal computery use at home and I could not agree more that combination of power and price and just the stuff that you can do with this for very little outlay this is a Mac remember Apple charges a lot of money for a lot of things but when it comes to the Mac Mini one of the many reasons that I love this thing and think it’s one of the best things they’ve ever done is that they have kind of and bear with me on this they’ve democratized that power and they’ve made entry into the Mac OS ecosystem much more attainable for a much wider group of people and that is a wonderful thing
2. Unreal Performance for the Price
Number two is Unreal performance for the price a lot of you in the comments are genuinely surprised about what you can do with the M4 Mac Mini and that’s the point it’s not the M4 Pro Mac Mini which is this one here it’s the base model M4 it’s so so capable i’ve done tests on it loads of people have done tests on it and completely rinsed the performance to the point where you’ve got Logic running and you’ve got Final Cut Pro running and thousand exported photos running in the background from Lightroom all this crazy crazy stuff on a base model computer and it’s not just YouTubers who are demonstrating this in the comments people are coming to me and saying “I cannot believe what I’m doing with this base model M4 chip it’s unbelievable.” And the great news about that is that if you’re thinking about spending quite a bit of money on a spec M4 Pro version you probably don’t need to
3. Replacing Higher-End Macs
Number three is really interesting because a lot of you are saying that the M4 and again the M4 base model version of the Mac Mini is replacing your higherend Mac so you’ve bought in the past a you know very expensive iMac or you’ve bought a Mac Studio that you’ve speced up and you’ve decided to switch to this and as a result of that you’ve well you’ve saved a bit of money because you haven’t gone for the next Mac Studio or speced up yet another iMac or you haven’t waited for that 27in iMac replacement which doesn’t seem to be happening you’ve you’ve gone for this you’ve kind of downgraded but you’ve retained performance and in some cases gained performance when does that happen ever anywhere else
4. Whisper-Quiet Operation
Number four is shh it’s not plugged in but silence this thing makes no noise and yes if you really slam it it will do something the fan will kick up and you’ll hear something very very faintly in the background but most of you in the comments are saying you cannot believe how quiet this thing is which means it’s both very powerful it can get loads of stuff done and it won’t make a racket which is more important than you might think
5. The Apple Refurb Store Advantage
Number five is something that I don’t talk about very often on this channel and you do tell me off for that which I completely understand it’s the Apple Refurb store and a lot of you have been waiting for this to hit the Apple Refer Store that’s happened that means you can get it for cheaper and more importantly you can get a specked up version for less money and Apple refurb stuff is basically brand new so there you go i will talk about it more often i promise
Quick Break: RoboForm Sponsorship
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6. Unified Memory: 16GB Is Enough
Number six is very good news it’s the fact that you think 16 gig of RAM or sorry unified memory is enough now the whole 8 gig thing is a thing of the past and that means there was there was no arguments in these comments out of thousands of comments about the starting unified memory for the Mac Mini and that is very good news
7. A Developer’s Dream Machine
Number seven is something that I can’t really comment on personally because I’m not one of these people but apparently according to a lot of you this is perfect for developers and coders so a lot of you are saying that you’re starting to use this for coding with VS Code with Xcode obviously and basically it’s become your dev machine and some of you have come from again like I mentioned earlier much more powerful Macs to this it’s still powerful but much less expensive than you know the MacBook Pro that you bought four years ago or the
8. The Port Problem
There are some bad things in this list I promise uh the next one oh the next one is is a negative and that negative is the port situation so if you weren’t aware the M4 base model and the M4 Pro version have different port selections or different port speeds basically which we’ll put down below and we don’t get USBA usba has been deleted from the Mac Mini and more importantly from my perspective we don’t get an SD card slot which is really annoying so depending on your requirements the port situation is a bit irritating and you might have to spend more money on the M4 Pro version if the speed of the M4 base model ports isn’t enough i think that makes sense
9. Modularity and Freedom
Number nine is the fact that a lot of you love the modularity of this and what you mean by that is you can attach anything to it in terms of a keyboard a mouse a monitor a lot of you are talking about the monitor selection with this the fact that you’re not kind of governed by Apple you don’t have to get the very expensive studio display you can get anything you want basically and the same thing goes for all of those peripherals that is again something else that I think makes this the best thing that Apple makes is the fact that you don’t just have to buy Apple stuff for it you can I know I know that’s the case with the iPhone to a degree etc but when it comes to the Mac having that freedom to build your own little empire around this thing is just absolutely wonderful and clearly you guys really value that
10. Falling in Love with the M4 Mac Mini
Number 10 is fantastic it’s the fact that a lot of you have fallen in love with this even though you didn’t expect to or it’s come as a surprise how much you love the M4 Mac Mini and I think the reason for that is a lot of people buy it it’s just a Mac you know a Mac for your for your office for your home whatever and you don’t think too much about it until you get it and firstly you get it out of the box and think it’s so lovely and then you turn it on and you start using it and you realize that it’s incredible and then you remember what you spent on it which wasn’t comparatively that much money for a Mac and you just fall deeply in love with it i’m not surprised by that at all but I am surprised that so many people are surprised that they fall in love with it if that makes sense
Conclusion: Join the Community
Anyway guys that is the list however I’ve just had a brilliant idea this is this has honestly just come into my head i want to rate your Mac Mini setup and it doesn’t have to be the M4 Mac Mini it can be any Mac Mini basically send me a photo of your setup to this email address down here and in a future video I will rate your setup i’ve never done that before and it’s just come into my head i think it’s a fantastic idea get involved and also get involved in the comments of this video and if I can ask one more thing if you haven’t hit subscribe yet and you’ve been watching this channel for a while or you’ve just found it and you’ve enjoyed this video give it a click please it makes a massive difference i’ll see you in the next one remember send me your setups
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