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Apple's 2024 M4 Mac Mini: What We Know
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And I also hope Apple doesn’t see the change to usb c as a way to increase prices. You never know with Timmy.
Way to kill sales of the Studio.
Why does Apple do that to their top end boxes?
Neglect them and upgrade the lower ends first.
I'm due a refresh and I'm going to drop my iMac for a studio, or so I thought....
It's now looking like it'll be a M4 Mini and a Samsung M8 or view infinity monitor.
Why does Apple do that to their top end boxes?
Neglect them and upgrade the lower ends first.
I'm due a refresh and I'm going to drop my iMac for a studio, or so I thought....
It's now looking like it'll be a M4 Mini and a Samsung M8 or view infinity monitor.
I've just bought an M2 Pro Mini, so I can only assume that now an M4 Pro Mini is days away from being launched. You're all welcome, I guess?
The new "Copilot+" Surface Laptop with 16GB starts at £1049 vs. £999 for the 8GB entry-level (i.e. M2, not M3) MacBook Air.
...and Microsoft are among the priciest PC makers out there - until the recent launch they were up there with Apple on pushing 8GB machines for $1000 or more. I didn't mention MS because they were cheapest but because they have a history of Apple-level prices, and are also probably closest to Macs in terms of design.
...except, the question is "not will the Mac be faster" but "will the MS laptop be good enough for some people?" You can't make "good enough for some" your benchmark for RAM/storage and then insist on "must be the fastest" for every other spec.
I very much agree.
From my point of view, as someone who has an M1 8/256 mini, I'll just not bother upgrading if there is £200 on top to reach 16GB. Indeed, the memory is more important to me than the faster processor so I feel that the cost of reaching 16GB is just too high. (For me, 512 would be nice but not essential.) And most especially if I am forced to miss out on any possible better prices due to having to buy directly from Apple. Might end up buying a refurb M1 or M2 Pro with 16GB rather than a new M4 machine...
I am reminded that there have been times in PC history where certain models actually cost more to make when built to the lower memory specification of the time. I can't remember the details for sure. Something like four small DIMMs made from chips which are no longer in production, and are in short supply, and were more expensive to make. When a new single or dual DIMM machine, made with more recent chips, using more efficient manufacturing, could be cheaper.
Currently:
Refurbished Mac mini Apple M2 Pro Chip with 10‑Core CPU and 16‑Core GPU
16/512 £1,189.00
Im with you, though Price is slightly less for the mini and apple always have this, mbp14 slighty less than mbp16 same specs, etc. the worst is MM thermal solution isnt the best one for sustained renders and just few ports ( you will need a good hub so more money) But you get latest M soc version with latest ANE 6-12 months earlier than the next MS, AND CPU slighty faster than current MS but GpU slighty behind curretn MS
What are you basing this off? Do you have actual insight into the operations of Apple’s refurb stores and processes or is this just a guess?
I do believe that the difference between my M1 8/256 mini and my M1 16/512 MBP is largely due to memory.
The mini works and is pretty good in many ways. There are times it seems a bit slow - and these seem to correspond with higher memory usage. It definitely feels like a lot of swapping at times.
Thank you for your sacrifice.
Now that Qualcomm has a Mini PC with the unbridled x-Elite processor for sale that has 32GB of RAM and 1TB SSD for $899, Apple can't wait that long to release a new Mac Mini.
Tim Apple, don't you dare offer the M4 MM with 8GB /256GB and the M4 Pro with only 18/512!
How much does 16 vs 8 Gb of RAM extra cost these days and how much is that out of the total price? 10-20$? And Apple can probably get a 16Gb chip for $5 more than the price of a 8Gb. Yet they are happy to charge $200 extra for it.
If given the choice would most customers not prefer the Mac mini base model to be $5 more expensive and then get 16Gb, compared to 20% (or whatever) of customers having to pay $200 to get 16Gb?
But yeah - I can see how Apple is doing all their customers a huge favor making the Mac mini as cheap as possible. 🙄
From a shareholders perspective keeping base model at 8Gb makes perfect sense. But don’t try to sell it as making it as cheap as possible for the base user.
What if Apple would move prematurely to removable ie. upgradeable storage?
Before right-to-repair forces it to do so?
Before right-to-repair forces it to do so?
They do fine with 8GB, which swaps their soldered ssd to death in 4 years and then they buy another mini.
With 16GB they could use that machine for 10 years.
(Of course they connect mini to 4k monitor and suddenly half of RAM is gone to be used as VRAM.)
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There are Mac Studio M1 Max on sale brand new in the EU for €1549, it's not a good deal to buy a refurbished Mac Mini M2 Pro 16/512 for the equivalent of €1330....
I think the Mac mini's form factor is fine, if anything add more ports to it. But the form factor is fine. I would also make the foot a little grippier, it slides around on a desk sometimes.
That's fairly typical of the IC industry - huge fixed set-up costs, relatively tiny per-unit marginal costs, so economies of scale are everything. Once the industry moves on to "bigger" chips and any surplus stock is sold off, the smaller chips fall behind in price-per-GB, or even rise in price.
I don't think the 16GB issue has much to do with the actual cost of chips, though: Even back in 2017 when I got my iMac, which took bog-standard, user replaceable, DDR4 2400 SODIMMs., Apple wanted £200 for an upgrade from 8GB to 16GB (replace 2x4GB with 2x8GB) whereas I got an extra 16GB (2x8GB) from Crucial (the same Micron sticks that Apple used) for £140 (probably less if I'd shopped around, but Crucial "guaranteed" compatibility). I checked at the time and 2x4GB from Crucial would have been more like £70. Those are retail, 1-off prices with "free" delivery. So Apple was asking £200 (retail) for £70 (retail) worth of goods. Nearly a 3x mark-up over retail market rates, heaven knows what markup over what Apple (#4 largest PC manufacturer in the world) could get them for wholesale.
The mere fact that Apple are still charging $200 for 8GB 7 years later should be a warning sign.
With the LPDDR5X chips used by Apple Silicon it's impossible to compare retail prices because LPDDR is only sold as bare surface-mount chips, often in reels of 1000 or so, and buying "retail" one-off components like that for hobby/small business is hugely expensive - Apple are probably on the short list of the biggest LPDDR5 consumers in the industry and should be able to negotiate very good prices. I did try looking up the retal prices for a post in another thread and - let's just say - it was still a lot less than $200 pre 8GB.
Bottom line is, it would be surprising if the cost to Apple of moving from 8GB to 16GB as standard was more than $20 - $30 bucks, and would probably save money on logistics by having fewer variants of the Mx packages to manage. The problem is that they're happily trousering most of the $200 upgrade price, and customers having to special-order 16GB models drives people to the Apple Store rather than pesky 3rd-party retailers to whom Apple has to give a wholesale discount. But, apparently, that's OK because 8GB is "good enough" for some people whereas using Windows or Linux is completely beyond the pale.
Wow a lot of 8GB discussions here.
I don't think the base M1/M2/M3s with base 8GB is necessarily a problem but the AS chips have unified memory, which means that 8GB is also your graphics and 'AI' sandbox space. While my dad has an M2 macbook with 8GB and will never even know, some competitive pressures apple may be feeling around graphics and AI may want them to bump this up.
It would not surprise me to see the M4 base chip with standard 12GB or 16GB (however the chipset is arranged). I would not use the iPad pro as an indicator.
-d
I don't think the base M1/M2/M3s with base 8GB is necessarily a problem but the AS chips have unified memory, which means that 8GB is also your graphics and 'AI' sandbox space. While my dad has an M2 macbook with 8GB and will never even know, some competitive pressures apple may be feeling around graphics and AI may want them to bump this up.
It would not surprise me to see the M4 base chip with standard 12GB or 16GB (however the chipset is arranged). I would not use the iPad pro as an indicator.
-d
Well, the Studio and the Pro already have removable/repairable storage, so there's clearly no technical barrier. As far as anybody can tell, the only reason it's not upgradeable - even with genuine Apple parts - is down to Apple's policy of only selling you like-for-like replacements. (There are conflicting reports of whether upgrades work, but that could be because you have to install exactly the right combination of modules). That said, simply having the possibility of replacing a perishable component like SSD if it fails is a plus for the Studio/Pro.
The other interesting development on the RAM side is that, until recently, LPDDR RAM has only been available as surface-mount chips - so all thin laptops and small-form-factor systems that use LPDDR have been non-upgradeable out of necessity (Apple did have an excuse there). There is now an emerging standard (LPCAMM) for plug-in LPDDR5X modules - so it will be interesting to see what that does for Apple's competition in the future.
As for Apple adopting LPCAMM, the words "over", "freezes" and "hell" spring to mind, not least because they seem committed to mounting the RAM chips directly on the SoC package - however, I do have a lovely mental image of a future Mx chip with plug-in "wings"...
Yup - it's true that the form factor was originally designed to house an optical drive and mechanical HD, but the spare space can be well used for larger coolers and bigger (hence quieter) fans, and it leaves plenty of space for ports on the back.
The front ports & SD reader on the Studio are nice to have (but unless you get the Ultra with extra Thunderbolt the front ports are just USBs sharing the same controller as the rear USB-A ports) - and the extra height is mainly to accommodate a huge cooler for the Ultra model (since the Mx Max has to be capable of running in a 14" laptop I suspect it would be quite happy in a Mini case if Apple chose to make a Mini Max). I do think the Studio is better built, though - with replaceable (if not upgradeable) SSD modules and most of the ports on replaceable carrier boards.
The previously rumoured plastic top (throwback to the original G4 Mini) doesn't really change the "form factor" and would be a good idea if it helped WiFi/Buluetooth reception... but maybe Apple tried it (hence the rumours) and it didn't help.