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It boils down to this: the Mac Mini is for fun (unless your definition of 'fun' involves games) and the Mac Studio is for people who actually have work to do

That's a pretty narrow definition; my work is massive excel spreadsheets running across a couple screens for hours per day, which is just as much work as Final Cut Pro. A Mini would do fine.
 
I don’t understand those who say that there’s a big gap in pricing between the Mini and the Studio. If you want the specs of a Studio, pricing is pretty similar. I just configured the Mini that would fit my needs, and it’s 2600€ (and it’s not the top confuguration). So it clearly overlaps with Studio prices. I want a M4 Studio, but after the announcement yesterday, I thought I could consider a ~3000€ Mini instead. However, I prefer the Studio form factor more. The USB-A ports and the SD card slot, if they keep them in the next Studio, would also be a very welcome bonus compared to the Mini.
 
my intel core i7 mac mini still chugging along fine - love the space grey color
I’m actually going to upgrade mine to an M4 mini with 24GB of RAM. Mine has been showing its age, even before Seqouia came out. My i7 is paired with an RX 570 and 32GB of RAM, I think this will be a good upgrade. Still debating on 512GB vs 1TB since I have three hard drives plugged into my mini currently.
 
I need to say that I am confused now. Nothing negative, just not very clear. We now have Mac Mini, Mac Studio and Mac Pro. How to really understand it?
It's really easy.

Can your workflow take advantage of the GPU:
No - Mac Mini
Yes - Mac Studio

Do you need lots of RAM:
No - Mac Mini
Yes - Mac Studio, Mac Pro


Are you a professional - Mac Pro
 
However, I prefer the Studio form factor more. The USB-A ports and the SD card slot, if they keep them in the next Studio, would also be a very welcome bonus compared to the Mini.
USB-A will most likely be gone in the next generation though.
 
It's really easy.

Can your workflow take advantage of the GPU:
No - Mac Mini
Yes - Mac Studio

Do you need lots of RAM:
No - Mac Mini
Yes - Mac Studio, Mac Pro


Are you a professional - Mac Pro

what do you mean by professional?
plenty of professional work has no need for the pcie slots in the Mac Pro

you only need a Mac Pro if you have something to stick in the pcie
otherwise it's pointless
 
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I don't know that the $699 config is worth comparing to as with only 8 gigs of shared memory it really cannot do much other than light surfing, email and pages, numbers, etc.

A far more relevant comparison would be the $1099 config of the mini with 16 gigs. Then the extra $900 for a $1999 Studio Max you get 2 more cpu cores, 16 more gpu cores, 32 gigs of shared memory and the upgraded ethernet / wireless.

To me if you want/need an Apple desktop today then the studio at $1999 is a far better buy than $1099 for the mini in terms of how much mileage you will get from it. The $699 mini would truly be a throw away purchase except for the most basic user.
I just made quick comparison of similar configuration that are closer together.

Mac mini Pro 14/20 cores 48/512/10Gb ethernet 2099,-
Mac studio base 12/30 cores 32/512/10 Gb ethernet 1999,-

It will be interesting to see real life comparison of such congigs.
 
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I bought a M2 Max Mac Studio last year and did have a debate on whether to get a Mac Mini or Mac Studio.

At the end of the day I went for the Studio because when you spec up the Mac Mini it is basically the same price as the Max version Studio.

I assume the same will be true next year when an M4 Max Studio is released.
 
Yes it does. Local LLM work for example. Large data / video imports exports to externals. Studio still has 400 vs 273 bandwidth and up 196GB RAM. It's just the mini overlaps the studio with workflows that don't require more than 64GB memory.

Still, at that point you wait a few months for the M4 Studio Max.
 
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Obviously not in your house. For the rest of the world the high ground is the Mac Pro. Many people spending $10,000+ on a desktop - the base Mac Pro needs expanded for most of its prospective buyers.
The Mac Pro is not for people, it’s for fairly specific high end industry needs. If someone is using it as a personal computer, it has not been a decision based on price vs. gain. The typical buyer is a company and even then it’s niche, you can get much better value from a purpose-built pc running either Windows or Linux. The mac only enters the competition when there are apps like Final Cut that only run on MacOS.
 
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I'm hoping for the Mac Nano.
A pocket-sized device that can be powered by USB-C with one or two additional USB ports.

Ideal for hybrid working. Shove it in your pocket instead of lugging around a laptop, then plug it into your monitor when you get to the office and it instantly starts up.

Even better if it had just a small lithium-ion battery so that you didn't even need to shut it down when you unplug it, just enough juice to keep it running at idle during the commute.

I'd be first in line to buy that Mac, even if it was no more powerful than an iPad Mini.
Samsung phones have been able to do that since 2017 with the Note8 and a feature called Samsung DeX. Using an HDMI adapter your phone effectively turns into a desktop computer on the fly and you use the touchscreen as a mouse or to type. You can still attach a small USB hub or a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, if desired. But you say, "I prefer MacOS"? Well, in DeX mode I can still fire up TeamViewer and remote into my Mac at home.
 
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I bought a M2 Max Mac Studio last year and did have a debate on whether to get a Mac Mini or Mac Studio.

At the end of the day I went for the Studio because when you spec up the Mac Mini it is basically the same price as the Max version Studio.

I assume the same will be true next year when an M4 Max Studio is released.

I did the same when the M2 Studio was launched.

A Mac mini Pro with the 14C/20G/16N M4 Pro SoC and 48GB of RAM is $1999.

Presuming the Mac Studio M4 Max comes out at the same $1999 base price, it will at a minimum offer 32/36GB of RAM and might even offer 48GB (though if it does, I expect a $200 higher base price) along with the same storage (512GB), faster Ethernet (a $100 option on the mini) and an M4 Max with more CPU and GPU cores. So it will continue to be the better option, overall.

But if you do not need high CPU and GPU core counts and 24GB is sufficient for your workloads, the 12C/16G Mac mini Pro will be a compelling option at a $600 lower price.
 
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Surely the Mac Mini and Mac Studio should have parity?

Ie. Upgrade the Studio to M4 processors at the exact same time.

It's weird and confusing to have an inferior architecture in the higher-end product.

My guess it is initial yields on each new generation of Max SoC, as Apple probably needs almost all of them for the MacBook Pro at launch and therefore does not have sufficient capacity for the Mac Studio and Mac Pro (especially since the Ultra needs two of them). So after ~six months when the initial rush of MBP orders have been filled and TSMC has better yields, the supply opens up to update the Mac Studio and Mac Pro to the new generation.
 
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