Category
🦄
Art et designTranscription
00:00Hey what's up, MKBHD here. So, this little machine, this one right here that I can hold
00:08in my hands has more power than a base Mac Pro right now. More CPU power anyway. Now
00:16I hope that that's not true for much longer because the Mac Pro is overdue for its Apple
00:21Silicon upgrade, but the fact that it's true at all right now is absolutely insane. This
00:26little machine is not only super powerful and super efficient and super small, but it's
00:32also a really good price. So I said in my last video about the MacBook Pros that the
00:37Mac Mini is actually the more interesting machine, and I mean it. It really is. It's
00:41just gotten a refresh from the M1 chip that it had before to now having an M2 and an M2
00:47Pro option, both of which are kind of game changers in their own ways. So first the M2
00:52version, the base M2 Mac Mini is a game changer because it's all the benefits of the new
00:57Apple Silicon stuff, the second generation 5 nanometer process, the blazing fast shared
01:01memory, all the optimizations that come with it for a starting price of $599 US. So I mean
01:09it's a pretty simple computer, not even a small tower, just an absolutely tiny computer
01:13in there. It's basically the laptop but without the screen and the keyboard. Only one color,
01:19and then a decent selection of ports around the back, along with a small exhaust vent
01:23for active cooling and a headphone jack. And so this thing packs a surprisingly enormous
01:28power for its size. We've seen this Apple Silicon transition play out over the past
01:32two years. And when the Mac Mini moved to Apple Silicon from the Intel chips, it took
01:38an absolutely hilarious leap up in performance. Some of the numbers on paper are just ridiculous.
01:43You'll have to forgive me for using Apple's stupid unlabeled charts, but like just to
01:47give you an idea, this completely changed the nature of the product. So this M1 Mac
01:52Mini is already dramatically better than the Intel one for 99% of people. And now the M2
01:57comes along with more cores, a more powerful CPU and GPU, more max memory and a higher
02:03overall performance ceiling. And the price goes down from $699 to $599. Apple almost
02:10never lowers the price of the entry level of anything, but that's exactly what's happened
02:14here. So we just got a computer that's more powerful and more capable and more efficient
02:19for less money. So then we also have the M2 Pro Mac Mini. This is the one that I've been
02:25testing and using. And so before we just had the base Apple Silicon M1 Mac Mini, now that's
02:30the M2, but we've also now got this Pro chip, which raises the ceiling for Mac Mini performance
02:36still on the same tiny body. Well, actually I can't say the exact same tiny body because
02:40the M2 Pro version also does gain two more Thunderbolt ports. So now there's four Thunderbolt
02:45four ports on the back along with everything else still here. And that means you can now
02:49do three external displays instead of two, and you can still option up to 10 gigabit
02:54ethernet if you're blessed with that type of internet connection, or if you're at an
02:57institution that will take advantage of the networking capability. And yes, that is HDMI
03:022.1. But the big deal here with this new chip is the M2 Pro is so much more performant thanks
03:08to the updated architecture and the extra cores that it's now benchmarking actually
03:12over the M1 Pro and the M1 Max in the CPU department that was in the highest end MacBook
03:18Pros before. I had to double take when I first read that because M1 Max has been so incredible,
03:23but yet here we are, even the incremental improvements here are notable. And on top
03:27of that, the thermal advantage potentially of a Mac Mini with active cooling in a taller
03:31chassis over a MacBook Pro can also mean in the longterm, you know, sustained CPU performance
03:36over time, you may see even better results there. So this thing's performance is rock
03:41solid. And then of course, as you move up in chips from base to pro to max, that's
03:46actually mostly a GPU improvement. And so M2 Pro does great here too. But as you can
03:51see, the results fall sort of more in line. It's improvement, of course, over the last
03:55one, but the max chips are still the way to go if your applications specifically take
04:00advantage of GPU power. But then everyday performance is just, it's going to be the
04:04same, which is to say great, but the sustained multi-core performance ceiling is just way
04:10higher, you know, especially for things like video editing or app development, things that
04:15have basically longer compile times or render times that might be above what you want to
04:18do on the base M2. That's awesome on the M2 Pro. This model starts at $1299. Not cheap,
04:24of course, but when you consider the M2 Pro MacBook Pro with the exact same system on
04:29a chip starts at $1999 right now, pretty good. That's actually, that's the real reason
04:35I'm calling these Mac minis a game changer, or at least for being so good, is performance
04:40per dollar. You don't usually expect that out of a Mac, but if I were to do like one
04:44of those dumb Apple charts of like, here's the laptops performance per dollar, and then
04:48here's the Mac minis, which is the same performance, but for less money. It's better. The line's
04:52higher. You know, for so long, Apple's prioritized these laptops, which makes perfect sense,
04:56by the way. They've been great. Lots of people buy them, but some people get the laptop and
05:00then just keep it in one room all the time because desktop options aren't as appealing.
05:05And if we're being honest, the iMac is cool, but it's not for everyone. Like even right
05:09now, it kind of feels like Apple low-key forgot about the iMac. It's just been sitting with
05:14the un-upgraded M1 chip for a little while now, even when M2 is out, but then they dropped
05:18Mac Studio and Mac Studio is excellent in the highest end configurations. And I can't
05:23wait for the M2 Ultra here, but yeah, the Mac mini now slots in really nicely underneath
05:29all of that. And of course, with the modularity of a desktop that doesn't come with a monitor
05:33built in, now you pick whatever display you want with the $700 you save. It's funny,
05:38in recent reviews, I've been trying to give sustainability notes where it's relevant.
05:42And so there are some neat ones with this machine, like recycled aluminum, the packaging
05:47on the outside, the recycled plastics on the inside of the Mac, all that's cool, but all
05:52of that sort of is outweighed by the ability to continue using your same display and swap
05:58out displays however you want, unlike the iMac. Call me crazy, but I think there's
06:02a lot of people who probably don't want to be stuck with a non-upgradable display and
06:06webcam and white bezels forever. Plus, if you already have a display you like, yeah,
06:10you can just continue using that. I haven't done a video on the Mac mini since the fastest
06:16Mac mini in the world project that I did back in college. Shout out to those of you who
06:21subscribed back then. But I basically, I took the highest end available Mac mini in
06:252012 and maxed it out by upgrading to the fastest RAM, the fastest SSD it would support
06:31in an effort to make it like the most capable tiny machine for a college dorm room where
06:36space is at a premium. Because clearly my priorities at the time were video editing
06:40over homework. Now, this M2 Pro Mac mini has all the power that I would have killed for
06:47back then as a fledgling creator with not a lot of space. And it costs less. It costs
06:52less. I had to look back. I spent in total with the Mac and all the upgrades, $1,759
07:00for the fastest Mac mini in the world. This one blows it out the water as far as performance
07:04and capability. Of course, the difference here is no part of this tightly integrated
07:08machine is upgradable at all. So now you've got to think about spending a little bit more
07:12to account for having the machine for a long time and not upgrading things. Maybe a little
07:16more RAM, maybe a little more storage, depends on what you're doing with it. But yeah, this,
07:21this would have blown out the water. This can handle basically any footage that I could
07:24possibly throw at it that I could shoot myself. Also, by the way, if you actually do happen to
07:28be looking at one of these and you are in college, like I was back then, don't forget
07:32about the student discount. That's typically a hundred bucks off. And I think with these
07:35machines, it's a hundred bucks. So now that brings this down a hundred. That also brings
07:38the base M2 down to $499, which is great. So in conclusion, if you're trying to think of,
07:44if you're trying to pick one Mac to buy right now, think of it this way. If you already have
07:49an Apple Silicon Mac, like an M1 generation Mac, you're good. You don't have to buy a new Mac
07:55every year. Those machines were a great update over the Intel ones. You're set. Now, if you
07:59have an older machine and you're actually looking to upgrade, I would actually default
08:03to the Mac mini and just start with the base M2 $599 Mac mini. And I would not buy the iMac right
08:09now, because if you look at the specs specifically, it's still M1 and it's $1299 for a non-removable
08:1624-inch display. I would just get the Mac mini instead and get whatever $600 screen you want.
08:21You can swap that out, however. So I wouldn't recommend iMac right now. And then if you know
08:26that you specifically want to be computing on the go, that's when you move over. Okay. The laptops
08:31are really good. You can get an M2 generation MacBook Pro, and those are excellent. I just
08:36reviewed them. If you want to check it out, links below the like button. That video is up,
08:40and that's how I think about the lineup. But honestly, if you can find an M1 generation
08:44MacBook Pro right now on a discount, that's really good too. And then within each lineup,
08:48of course, I keep saying this, but the big difference between M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, and
08:53eventually M2 Ultra when it comes out is GPU. So it shouldn't be a shock that they're all sort of
08:59similar in CPU performance, but if the applications that you use and you know your workflow will take
09:04advantage of GPU power, then that's when you bump that up. Okay. Yeah, that's pretty much it.
09:10Maybe a little bit shocking, but yeah, price for performance. Mac Mini, kind of a huge winner. Mac
09:16Mini might make me miss removable memory, but it makes most massive media machines feel pretty
09:23mid. Thanks for watching. Catch you guys in the next one. Peace.