M4 Mac mini - First Impressions
So back in December I picked up an M4 Mac Mini, the base configuration. It actually arrived just before Christmas, somewhere around the 16th, which means that I've been using it for, I don't know, roughly a couple of weeks now, maybe 18 days? And I have to say that it's a nice piece of kit. It really is a good little computer. I was a little worried at the beginning if it wouldn't be too limiting, in terms of storage space and capability but so far it is proving me wrong.
Obviously, like a lot of people, I solved the storage problem just by adding an external SSD disk. I bought a NVME drive, put it into an external enclosure and that was that. One thing I will mention that you should look out for though is the type of USB-C cable that you’re connecting the drive with - I have a bunch of cables that are labelled as high speed USB-C but they’re basically USB 2.0 speeds, so the disks work really slowly with them. I bought a couple of new cables, that are USB3.2 which helped improve the speed a lot but to get the most out of it, I would need something that supports Thunderbolt 3 or 4, which are a bit more pricey. Just something to bear in mind.
I haven't moved my home folder over there. I didn't actually want to deal with that just yet. Maybe in the future I might, but for now it's kind of okay. I just make sure that all of the software that's going to be saving something that's going to be large, like Final Cut or wherever, is actually starting off on that drive.
I have to confess that at the beginning I was kind of worried whether it would be able to run a lot of the stuff that I would like it to, it was actually something that was playing on my mind a lot at the beginning, especially with all of the commentary online saying that they bought one but regretted it later. However one of the things that's worth mentioning here is that I work for a school. And one of the things we've done for at least the last eight years while I've been there is that we have always supplied the staff and students with a base model MacBook Air to do their work on and those things have handled everything that we have thrown at them without issue.
M4 Mac mini
Small and unobtrusive
Taking that into account I figured well, you know, there's no reason then why the M4 Mini, at least in the base config, shouldn't be able to handle the kind of stuff that I'm going to be doing at home, which again is going to be some research, online surfing, Netflix, email and every now and then editing something in Final Cut or DaVinci Resolve. I'm not that big of a video editor yet, most of my videos are basic, it's just cutting the video I have, adding some audio to it, some transitions. I haven't really got into color grading yet, as there wasn't a point for me with the type of videos that I do. So for me, it’s been so far so good. It ticks all of the boxes for whatI need to do.
I love the compact size actually and one of the other big things that helped to settle it for me is it's the first Mac that I've owned that's actually been mine for at least, I don't know how long now, at least 10 years, minimum. I mean way back when, early 2000s, I actually bought my first Mac which was a Powerbook at the time. I loved that computer, it was absolutely fantastic. It brought back all of these happy memories from the past when I had an Amiga and I really loved that computer. I started off with an Amiga 500 and then went to an Amiga 1200 and compared to other computers at the time, it just seemed to be for a while at least, so far ahead of anything else. Plus I did my college and uni work on it, gamed on it, it handled everything.
I got that feeling back when I bought my first Mac and I really did enjoy using it. But over the years as the cost of the hardware got more expensive, it became much too expensive for me to buy one personally. I was very lucky in that whichever job I've worked at usually supplied me with a work-based computer and I got to choose a Mac so that was always a big help.
The problem when you have a work-based computer like that is that you know when you start mixing the work stuff and the personal stuff, it's an extra layer of complexity and generally, I would prefer it if Church and State never met, so to speak. Especially as at the end of the day, the hardware belongs to the company and can be recalled by them or when you leave, you have to return it, so then you have that extra layer of complexity in having to deal with your data being on a device that’s not yours. Plus, what happens if there is a situation that they need to review the data on your computer, you might not necessarily want any of your private correspondence or banking details being viewed by someone else. So of course I was making backups and time machines and whatnot so if ever I had to return it I could hand it back in and just quickly delete my things off it and just leave the work stuff there. But it was always something kind of playing in the back of my mind.
So I'm really happy that I have this computer right now because what it's enabled me to do is transfer all of my personal stuff off the work computer onto this one. So I finally have a little computer that's mine, got all my stuff on it and I don't need to worry as much.
In terms of the device itself I mean honestly everything is fantastic. I haven't had any slowdowns, I haven't run into issues with the memory, right now from the 245 gigabytes that the Mac tells me I have available I have 207 gigabytes free so I'm not pressed for space and I have a lot of apps on here that are quite large or generate large files, such as Final Cut, DaVinci Resolve and Logic Pro. I will confess that a lot of the additional instruments for Logic Pro I removed because they were taking up like 80 or 90 gigabytes by themselves which was just insane and I am mainly using Logic Pro for recording voiceovers so it's not really something I needed all of the additional stuff for. If you're into music in any way shape or form, you might want to consider a larger internal disk or an external at the very least. In my case with the videos I do, I'm not doing anything too complicated yet. We'll see how it holds up in the future if my skills get better and I start trying to do more complex things but then on the other side of the coin if I've rendered something and it's taken me 10 minutes and now because it's more complex, it’s going to take an additional 10 minutes to render, well then no big deal. At least I feel that way right now. It's not like I'm trying to mass produce stuff on a schedule and I'm producing videos that are time sensitive. It's just something I need to get it done at some point during the day but does it need to be done by 5pm sharp not really. Maybe I'll change my tune on that in the future but right now I don't mind.
That brings me back to an area where I do think I need to make some changes though and I think I definitely need a dock of some kind. That’s because I currently have an external drive connected for data storage, another for Time Machine, an audio interface for my mic an speakers, which leaves me with two ports and I still have a bunch of other things I would like to have connected, for example my stream deck. Having a card reader to transfer photos from my camera would also be helpful. So I think a dock for me is a must have and as I mentioned earlier, I am conscious of the transfer speeds, so I believe I would need a Thunderbolt 4 dock and I’m currently eyeing the CalDigit T4. It’s spendy though, so I need to do a bit more research first but it offers all of the ports, that I want. I think then I will be good for like a couple of years, actually I'm thinking this could be a good computer for the next three to four years of course depending if I don't start pushing the envelope too much because I'm editing more complex videos or something.
I actually haven't tried playing games on this yet I have an Xbox for that so it's not been something that's really popped up but I have been considering firing up Stellaris or something and giving them a go. You know yourself they always play better with a mouse and keyboard than the controller so I might give that a try at some point but I don't expect that they would be too demanding and the mac would be able to handle them.
Otherwise just going back to overall sentiment I think Apple did a nice job with this, I think it's great that they made a mac like this, that is just so accessible to people because some of their other stuff is really expensive. I mean it's all fantastic, I have a old M1 MacBook Pro that I use for work and that thing is phenomenal it still keeps going it, handles everything I throw at it work-wise and I don't ever have the impression that it's slow. The difference is obviously the pro is probably at least twice or three times the cost of the Mac Mini and that's a big difference. So I think it's good that they made something so accessible to pretty much everyone.
I've also read online that a lot of the people that were building a hackingtosh have essentially gave up on it because it's just cheaper to buy the M4 Mac Mini than to build a decent PC spec to run the hackingtosh on. I've also saw quite a few people saying it's really good for emulation and that's something I will look into because as I mentioned before I had the Amiga in the past and it might just be nice to play around with an emulator and fire something up from time to time and just relive a trip down memory lane.
Now let’s touch on the most controversial thing about the Mini when it first came out, which was the power button being on the bottom. I was actually worried about his and because of that I actually 3d printed a model that attaches to the bottom of the mini and turns the whole thing into a power button that you just push down on. I actually haven't installed it yes, as it's never been a problem. I just lift up the corner press the power button and off I go and during the day it sleeps, I wake it up with a keyboard and at night I shut it down when I go to bed, so it's absolutely fine. I haven't tried to hide the mini away yet I mean I've just got it on top of the desk underneath the monitor. Maybe if I had it tucked under a shelf or something it would be more of a nuisance but right now it doesn't bother me, we'll see what happens.
Something else that I wanted to bring up is the noise. This thing is silent. I have not heard the fans come on at all yet it's just it's sitting there the little white light on the front is present and it's just chugging along and doing its thing and everything's fine. You just can't hear it and I honestly can't tell that it’s powered on except for the white light on the front so that's really nice. I have a Mac mini 2012 model that I picked up secondhand and that thing I mean it's quiet, but it is still noticeable if you know what I mean and one of the things I do use it for is to rip some DVDs that I have (I mean believe it or not I still have some old DVDs!), so I was using it to rip some DVDs and of course when it's ripping then the fans kick on and it's quite distracting so I've relegated it to what I call my server closet. In short though, noise on the M4 Mac mini, is not an issue.
So those are my impressions so far I just kind of wanted to put something out there because I've seen or rather heard a lot of people, especially on YouTube who immediately snapped up the base model M4 when it came out and then there've been a lot of follow-up videos, along the lines of “don't make the mistakes I did” and “I regret buying the base model and I've already switched it for the M4 Pro” and so on and that might all be true for them with their use case but I think that's the thing that people need to realize, that it’s their use case. I will admit this to you I initially actually went doing that path as well and I was thinking oh my you know maybe I actually need the M4 Pro and maybe you know the base model won't be good enough and so on but I think that if you are someone who is really pushing the computer and you know you're doing final cut projects with multiple video files in 4k and you've got color grading going on in there and multiple transitions and cuts and cameras and all the rest of it all, the same with DaVinci Resolve then yeah you probably need a beefier computer.
I would say I think if you're just looking for a computer for all of the everyday stuff and here and there you're gonna be editing some simple videos, maybe you're not doing stuff for YouTube, maybe you're just putting together some memories of the kids growing up that you want to keep or maybe you're putting something together for relatives who live far away and you just want to share a video of what's going on. Then the base model is totally fine for all of that, so I think if you just want a computer for the home that you can do your stuff on, kids can do the homework on, then this will be a good investment. If you want to do a lot of intense music production or video production, maybe look at getting some more RAM or maybe look at the m4 pro. If you want to do gaming, I mean on one side why would you try to game on a Mac? I know Apple's working at changing that but if you are gaming, then I definitely would look at a pro or maybe even a different Mac. But otherwise if you're gaming I'd suggest looking more to a steam deck an Xbox or maybe even a gaming PC but I wouldn't put Windows on it actually I'd put Linux on it and use that instead ;) but that's just me.
I think that's pretty much everything I wanted to say right now, so thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope it helps you if you're thinking about picking up a Mac Mini as well.
