The new Mac mini goes smaller and faster with M4 and M4 Pro by Scott Simmons

October 29, 2024

The week of Mac updates continues (after yesterday’s M4 iMac announcement) with a new M4-based Mac mini.

The new Mac mini is even more worth a look for video editors than the iMac as the all-new design and M4 Pro chip option really make the new Mac mini look and feel like a mini Mac Studio.

The new Mac mini goes smaller and faster with M4 and M4 Pro 2 — With that front-facing headphone jack, I can see this new M4 Mac mini being the workhorse of editing cubicles all over the world.

There’s some really interesting specs here:

New M4 chips with an M4 Pro available at the top-of-the-line
A smaller size at 5 x 5 inches
Two USB‑C ports and a headphone jack on the front
M4 chips include three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI port, and Gigabit Ethernet port on back
M4 Pro chips include three Thunderbolt 5 ports, HDMI port, and Gigabit Ethernet port on back
10 Gigabit Ethernet available
Up to 64 GBs of RAM available on the M4 Pro Mac mini
The M4 Pro, it can support up to three 6K displays at 60Hz
New thermal architecture for better cooling that previous Mac mini design

These new specs make for a really compelling little machine in the new M4 Pro Mac mini. While the M2 Mac minis had some good power for their price, these new M4 machines take it up a notch with better connectivity and more power from Apple Silicon overall.

When specing out a good M4 Pro Mac Mini for post-production. I got the price right at $2,900. That would be a 14-core CPU, a 20-core GPU, 64 GB of RAM, a 2 TB internal hard drive, and 10 GigE. That’s really close in price to a low-end Mac Studio with an M2 Max chip, but the Mac Studios are only carrying the M2 chips at this point. This makes for an interesting buying season right now until Apple gives us an updated Mac Studio. When that will be is anybody’s guess.

Worth noting, there’s a mention in the new Mac mini announcement video above about a new version of Final Cut Pro! Hit around the four-minute mark for that nugget.

Or we can let twitter do it for us!

THEY’RE ADDING TRANSCRIBE TO CAPTIONS IN AN UPCOMING #FINALCUTPRO UPDATE.

still reserving my excitement to observe how it’s going to be implemented… but still… BIG NEWS! #finalcutpro pic.twitter.com/hwMfRpCdbv

— finalcutgod (@finalcutgod) October 29, 2024

The new Mac mini goes smaller and faster with M4 and M4 Pro 3 — That’s some pretty good ports on this little thing. Add a Thunderbolt dock, and you’ve got a nice compact desk machine.

The new Mac minis are available for pre-order now and will be available on November 8th.

One uhhh … interesting design choice of the new M4 Mac mini is that the power button is on the bottom, as pointed out by AppleInsider.

Don’t expect to fit the new M4 Mac mini into too tight a space because you’re going to have to move it to reach underneath every time you need to switch it on. By @WGallagher

https://t.co/CR7HWaOTtC

— AppleInsider (@appleinsider) October 29, 2024

With space being at a premium in the new design, perhaps there was no room for the power button to be on the back where you might expect it to be. If you’re the kind of person who never turns their Mac off then this won’t be that big of a deal. It probably won’t be a huge deal for most people anyway but, the power button is on the bottom.