Trying to Justify Getting a Mac Mini M4

[PCMacUser]

So I want to buy a Mac Mini M4, but I'm not sure why and now I'm trying to justify it to myself. Perhaps I'm just being silly. It's been about 6 years since I last owned a Mac, and I sometimes wonder how much the user experience has changed since those days. When I look at screenshots of Mac OS 15, it just looks the same as old OS X Snow Leopard, so that worries me a bit -- but there must be more to it than looks, right?

Currently I'm thinking that I could potentially move my Adobe Creative Cloud and DXO PureRAW 4 installations (currently on a well-equipped Windows PC) over to the Mac without needing additional license outlay. But whether it would be a performance increase or reduction is a bit of an unknown to me at this point. There's also the small amount of desk space it uses up, which is nice. Do they make good media devices, say, as an AppleTV alternative (including Dolby Vision/Dolby Atmos, etc?).

Any other reasons for a Mac Mini? I'm not interested in Apple Intelligence... ran it for a week or so on my iPhone 16 Pro and didn't find it useful at all (in fact Siri got worse), and I don't need ChatGPT thinking/writing/drawing for me. I can do those things badly all by myself.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Asking Apple people to justify Mac vs. PC will drown you in rationalization and assurances the difference will be like 2024 tech vs. rock-paper-scissors. We're a very biased crowd, so all will likely say you absolutely need to buy a Mac.

Since you are "not sure why," I'd give great pause, as apparently you are getting it all done just fine on the PC you have. Bonus: the PC can run tons of apps that do not exist for macOS and basically the broader world revolves around your PC vs the niche Mac.

macOS has many refined features vs. 6 years ago but much of it looks (and is) mostly the same. Some able to be more objective might even argue there have been changes for the worse (such as the remix of system settings that didn't seem to bring any tangible benefit but plenty of confusion).

If you recall how to use macOS then, you'll likely find it easy to use macOS now. On the other hand, the last decade has seemed to be about an annual parade of feature bloat which brings lots of bugs... some of which linger for years unfixed. Modern Mac life tends to involve "workaround" solutions to keep using Mac in spite of bugs or changes that don't seem to make sense to users. The community seems more important than ever to help find workarounds until Apple gets around to debugging... someday... hopefully.

We Mac people would passionately argue we favor Mac over PC... macOS over Windows, etc. I certainly do. However, in the last few years, I've added a PC back into my own mix as Silicon killed bootcamp and Windows emulation is not full Windows. Since you already have a PC, this may not be a thing for you. But this Apple guy put new money towards a PC.

PC is still focused on POWER while Mac is focused on Power-per-watt. Power often translates to "speed" and getting things done on a computer is often the #1 objective. We Apple people key on PPW because Apple Silicon wins all such contests vs. PC easily. But then we may find- as I have- that power means speed. As such, I've been shifting speed-dependent apps I used to run on Mac to that PC, because it processes FASTER than my Mac. Yes, it uses more energy to do that... but not that much more. To poke at two commonly slung phrases, No I do NOT have my own nuclear reactor to power the PC and no I suffer no burns at all from the heat either.

But, all this said, Mac Mini is relatively cheap (for Apple offerings anyway) and if you want a dose of macOS in your mix, it's the cheapest entry path via new hardware. I could write a bunch of lines about how great Mac exclusives are- even relatively basic apps like the iWorks ones. Probably with considerable bias showing, macOS does feel easier to use than Windows and in some ways more logical/intuitive. But you probably remember that yourself.

For you, it will probably feel like 2018 macOS with refinements. Behind the scenes, it will be doing familiar things much more power efficiently. Obviously 2025 "brains" will feel faster than 2018 brains. And if you have other Apple tech like iPhone or iPad, there's all of the ecosystem benefits too.

I hope this is helpful.

 

[ericwn]

I can’t make a use case for you. I recommend you try one out and return it if you don’t like it.

 

[Ray2]

Not sure what you mean with “it just looks the same as old OS X Snow Leopard, so that worries me a bit -- but there must be more to it than looks, right?”. SL was a high spot in MacOS. I think a lot of us would love to go back to those days of stability and everything just worked. So, yes there’s been a lot of new features, whether the user experience has improved is a function of who you talk to.

“whether it would be a performance increase or reduction is a bit of an unknown to me at this point.” Hard to render an opinion since you don’t mention what you’re using now.

I used to encourage people to switch. I stopped with Windows 7 and irrespective of the somewhat fluid state of Windows, I advise the learning curve isn’t worth the change. Since Snow Leopard Apple has evolved to buggy annual releases and too much gamesmanship in the pricing of hardware configuration. I’m steadfastly Apple as my family lives in the Apple eco-system. That and the fact that I’m too lazy to change keep me there. For a strictly price/performance criteria, Windows is a more logical platform.

 

[Apple_Robert]

If you don't know why you need one, you already have your answer. Do not purchase.

 

[CharlesShaw]

@PCMacUser asked: Do they make good media devices, say, as an AppleTV alternative (including Dolby Vision/Dolby Atmos, etc?).

I used a Mac mini for that from 2006 through 2012 and the Apple TV was a huge improvement that only got better over the years, so I say no, since you need a keyboard and mouse/trackpad. My 2006 mini played rented DVD's, had Front Row and an infrared remote, so that was a different time.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Since you are "not sure why," I'd have great pause, as apparently you are getting it all done just fine on the PC you have. Bonus: the PC can run tons of apps that do not exist for macOS and basically the broader world revolves around your PC vs the niche Mac.

As someone who has regularly flip-flopped between both, I can find tons of cool niche apps for Mac that simply don't have a good corollary in Windows. DEVONThink, Ulysses, Notability, Vellum, Omnifocus, etc., In fact, all of these are available without subscription.

I wish I could find good substitutes for these programs, but all of the Windows equivalents have drawbacks. I am still looking though. I really would like to simplify...

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Of course, in the entire post, I state largely the same. There are some apps for Mac that are standout great. I've made the case to buy a Mac to someone exclusively to use DTP mode of Pages (app) alone, as I found nothing on the PC side that was as easy to use and intuitive as Pages DTP.

My post is not "PC beats Mac in every way." Still, unless OP identifies some Mac apps that are important to them- of which there are apparently none since he apparently hasn't used Mac since 2018- he seems pretty set with the PC he already has.

He's fishing for rationalizations to buy a Mac without any himself. We can volunteer every little thing unique to Mac as rationalizations. That list might be quite long. But my gut guess- as objective as I can be based on what was shared- is he's fine with the PC he has until he shares a strong reason to want/need a Mac himself.

 

[turbineseaplane]

currently on a well-equipped Windows PC

Are you able to tell us more about your PC?

For me, the Mini M4 (base model) was an upgrade from an older build Hackintosh (i7 8700) and it's been incredible
Stupendous value -- once getting over the irritating as hell SSD situation (I'm booting off an external TB NVMe enclosure and it's been flawless -- but still annoying to need to do that)

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Are you able to tell us more about your PC?

For me, the Mini M4 (base model) was an upgrade from an older build Hackintosh (i7 8700) and it's been incredible
Stupendous value -- once getting over the irritating as hell SSD situation (I'm booting off an external TB NVMe enclosure and it's been flawless -- but still annoying to need to do that)

That's essentially how I view the M-series chip Macs. Back in the day, I used to build a custom PC that was both my gaming PC and a hackintosh. Hackintoshing is unfortunately practically dead these days, so now I need two machines where once I had one.

So now I have a gaming laptop for both work and gaming and a KVM. On the other side of the KVM, I have my Mac setup and they obviously share a keyboard, mouse, headset, and 4k monitor.

But, man, do I miss being able to do the whole thing in one hackintoshed PC.

 

[rvd818]

In my experience, using a Mac is much nicer than Windows, but I use both, running the same or comparable apps. Unfortunately Windows tends to develop weird little quirks after some restarts — forgetting settings, desktop icon sizes, random short freezes, things like that. Your mileage may vary but I find Mac to be more consistent — it really does get out of my way so I can get work done. It’s gotten to the point where I find myself using my Mac most of the time.

 

[surfsofa]

If you can afford it and you think you’ll like it, just do it. Life’s too short. Buy from an Apple Store so you get to try it out. Their return policy is the best.

 

[bamboozledChiuaua]

IMO if you already have good PC, you will be disappointed, M4 is great CPU but its weaker than latest desktop PC CPUs and you need at least 4k monitor for Mac OS. Yet if you have money for toys, then buy cheapest Mac Mini m4, its a fun toy. One interesting take is Mac Mini uses really low power, so you can run it 24/7 no problem.

 

[Darren.h]

going to school? you can get it for $499. you got 14 or 15 days to try it out.

Heck it always best to start out cheap in Mac. if you grow tired of it you did not invest a whole lot.

great portable power house for the camper or hotel room or just bring to a friends house to game on.

 

[Darren.h]

 

[john123]

Not sure what you mean with “it just looks the same as old OS X Snow Leopard, so that worries me a bit -- but there must be more to it than looks, right?”. SL was a high spot in MacOS. I think a lot of us would love to go back to those days of stability and everything just worked. So, yes there’s been a lot of new features, whether the user experience has improved is a function of who you talk to.

“whether it would be a performance increase or reduction is a bit of an unknown to me at this point.” Hard to render an opinion since you don’t mention what you’re using now.

I used to encourage people to switch. I stopped with Windows 7 and irrespective of the somewhat fluid state of Windows, I advise the learning curve isn’t worth the change. Since Snow Leopard Apple has evolved to buggy annual releases and too much gamesmanship in the pricing of hardware configuration. I’m steadfastly Apple as my family lives in the Apple eco-system. That and the fact that I’m too lazy to change keep me there. For a strictly price/performance criteria, Windows is a more logical platform.

Man. I was going to reply but saw this. Are you me? Are you in my head? This is EXACTLY how I see things, down to pretty much every sentence.

 

[GusBougadis]

Ive used Mac OS for the last 27 years, although I bought a Microsoft surface go as a secondary device. For me Mac OS is way better, I don’t like windows at all. I had 2 iMacs previously, currently use a MacBook Air M1.

 

[PCMacUser]

Thank you everyone for your responses; you've been extremely generous with your time and thoughts.

As many of you stated, there's probably little reason for me to get a Mac unless there's software on that platform that I can't have on my PC, and I had to think really hard about that. There are things like Apple Business Manager and the Mac Evalution Utility (used to detect problems accessing Apple hosts, useful for diagnosing iPhone/iPad connectivity issues), which do not install on Windows machines. Would I use them much? No. So not really a deal breaker.

For those who were asking about my current PC for performance comparisons, here's a very brief summary:
- Watercooled Intel i9-9900K
- 32GB RAM
- NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super
- a lot of drives (3x internal m.2, 3x internal 3.5", 5x external)

Spending this much money on a 'toy' for no clear reason is probably not very sensible so perhaps I'll hold out on buying a Mac this Christmas and focus on other things instead.

 

[Lift Bar]

So I want to buy a Mac Mini M4, but I'm not sure why and now I'm trying to justify it to myself. Perhaps I'm just being silly. It's been about 6 years since I last owned a Mac, and I sometimes wonder how much the user experience has changed since those days. When I look at screenshots of Mac OS 15, it just looks the same as old OS X Snow Leopard, so that worries me a bit -- but there must be more to it than looks, right?

Currently I'm thinking that I could potentially move my Adobe Creative Cloud and DXO PureRAW 4 installations (currently on a well-equipped Windows PC) over to the Mac without needing additional license outlay. But whether it would be a performance increase or reduction is a bit of an unknown to me at this point. There's also the small amount of desk space it uses up, which is nice. Do they make good media devices, say, as an AppleTV alternative (including Dolby Vision/Dolby Atmos, etc?).

Any other reasons for a Mac Mini? I'm not interested in Apple Intelligence... ran it for a week or so on my iPhone 16 Pro and didn't find it useful at all (in fact Siri got worse), and I don't need ChatGPT thinking/writing/drawing for me. I can do those things badly all by myself.

It’s the best 500 dollar computer ever made. 2nd place isn’t even close. Justifying the very expensive upgrades is a challenge though.

 

[bamboozledChiuaua]

It’s the best 500 dollar computer ever made. 2nd place isn’t even close. Justifying the very expensive upgrades is a challenge though.

Whats the second place according to you? PC's like Beelink SER8 are $500 for better specs.

 

[TechnoMonk]

I tried Compact PCs, too much heat, too much throttling and noise. I was running couple of raspberry pi’s. I just replaced them with base Mac mini for 400. Sure you can chase specs, but windows compact pc in mini format was a disaster for me.

 

[Cape Dave]

If you don't know why you need one, you already have your answer. Do not purchase.

Because all human purchases are totally completely 100% logical. I say take the leap! I have to change my sig after buying a mini because I like it way better than my Win machine. 40 year windows user here. FAST SILENT and some very cool features. All built in with no hassle. Been three days and I am already used to it. You will not regret your purchase.

 

[Bungaree.Chubbins]

Asking Apple people to justify Mac vs. PC will drown you in rationalization and assurances the difference will be like 2024 tech vs. rock-paper-scissors. We're a very biased crowd, so all will likely say you absolutely need to buy a Mac.

Since you are "not sure why," I'd give great pause, as apparently you are getting it all done just fine on the PC you have. Bonus: the PC can run tons of apps that do not exist for macOS and basically the broader world revolves around your PC vs the niche Mac.

macOS has many refined features vs. 6 years ago but much of it looks (and is) mostly the same. Some able to be more objective might even argue there have been changes for the worse (such as the remix of system settings that didn't seem to bring any tangible benefit but plenty of confusion).

If you recall how to use macOS then, you'll likely find it easy to use macOS now. On the other hand, the last decade has seemed to be about an annual parade of feature bloat which brings lots of bugs... some of which linger for years unfixed. Modern Mac life tends to involve "workaround" solutions to keep using Mac in spite of bugs or changes that don't seem to make sense to users. The community seems more important than ever to help find workarounds until Apple gets around to debugging... someday... hopefully.

We Mac people would passionately argue we favor Mac over PC... macOS over Windows, etc. I certainly do. However, in the last few years, I've added a PC back into my own mix as Silicon killed bootcamp and Windows emulation is not full Windows. Since you already have a PC, this may not be a thing for you. But this Apple guy put new money towards a PC.

PC is still focused on POWER while Mac is focused on Power-per-watt. Power often translates to "speed" and getting things done on a computer is often the #1 objective. We Apple people key on PPW because Apple Silicon wins all such contests vs. PC easily. But then we may find- as I have- that power means speed. As such, I've been shifting speed-dependent apps I used to run on Mac to that PC, because it processes FASTER than my Mac. Yes, it uses more energy to do that... but not that much more. To poke at two commonly slung phrases, No I do NOT have my own nuclear reactor to power the PC and no I suffer no burns at all from the heat either.

But, all this said, Mac Mini is relatively cheap (for Apple offerings anyway) and if you want a dose of macOS in your mix, it's the cheapest entry path via new hardware. I could write a bunch of lines about how great Mac exclusives are- even relatively basic apps like the iWorks ones. Probably with considerable bias showing, macOS does feel easier to use than Windows and in some ways more logical/intuitive. But you probably remember that yourself.

For you, it will probably feel like 2018 macOS with refinements. Behind the scenes, it will be doing familiar things much more power efficiently. Obviously 2025 "brains" will feel faster than 2018 brains. And if you have other Apple tech like iPhone or iPad, there's all of the ecosystem benefits too.

I hope this is helpful.

Interestingly, I’ve gone the opposite direction. After 8 months with my M3 Pro, I’m getting rid of my PC. Windows 11 is a painful mess that just infuriates me every time I use it, and the few tools that run SLIGHTLY better aren’t worth the rigmarole.

 

[cjsuk]

Asking Apple people to justify Mac vs. PC will drown you in rationalization and assurances the difference will be like 2024 tech vs. rock-paper-scissors. We're a very biased crowd, so all will likely say you absolutely need to buy a Mac.

Since you are "not sure why," I'd give great pause, as apparently you are getting it all done just fine on the PC you have. Bonus: the PC can run tons of apps that do not exist for macOS and basically the broader world revolves around your PC vs the niche Mac.

macOS has many refined features vs. 6 years ago but much of it looks (and is) mostly the same. Some able to be more objective might even argue there have been changes for the worse (such as the remix of system settings that didn't seem to bring any tangible benefit but plenty of confusion).

If you recall how to use macOS then, you'll likely find it easy to use macOS now. On the other hand, the last decade has seemed to be about an annual parade of feature bloat which brings lots of bugs... some of which linger for years unfixed. Modern Mac life tends to involve "workaround" solutions to keep using Mac in spite of bugs or changes that don't seem to make sense to users. The community seems more important than ever to help find workarounds until Apple gets around to debugging... someday... hopefully.

We Mac people would passionately argue we favor Mac over PC... macOS over Windows, etc. I certainly do. However, in the last few years, I've added a PC back into my own mix as Silicon killed bootcamp and Windows emulation is not full Windows. Since you already have a PC, this may not be a thing for you. But this Apple guy put new money towards a PC.

PC is still focused on POWER while Mac is focused on Power-per-watt. Power often translates to "speed" and getting things done on a computer is often the #1 objective. We Apple people key on PPW because Apple Silicon wins all such contests vs. PC easily. But then we may find- as I have- that power means speed. As such, I've been shifting speed-dependent apps I used to run on Mac to that PC, because it processes FASTER than my Mac. Yes, it uses more energy to do that... but not that much more. To poke at two commonly slung phrases, No I do NOT have my own nuclear reactor to power the PC and no I suffer no burns at all from the heat either.

But, all this said, Mac Mini is relatively cheap (for Apple offerings anyway) and if you want a dose of macOS in your mix, it's the cheapest entry path via new hardware. I could write a bunch of lines about how great Mac exclusives are- even relatively basic apps like the iWorks ones. Probably with considerable bias showing, macOS does feel easier to use than Windows and in some ways more logical/intuitive. But you probably remember that yourself.

For you, it will probably feel like 2018 macOS with refinements. Behind the scenes, it will be doing familiar things much more power efficiently. Obviously 2025 "brains" will feel faster than 2018 brains. And if you have other Apple tech like iPhone or iPad, there's all of the ecosystem benefits too.

I hope this is helpful.

I'm not sure how someone can use the world productivity and windows in the same post. It's the only platform I charge by the hour to work on because I genuinely can't estimate what is going to break or go wrong while I'm using it.

Just last week I lost two entire days suddenly because vmmem craps out with 100% CPU usage, the virtual machines all hang and the work stops. This happens every hour. Windows 11 + Dell Precision 7680. I had to move the workload to my M4 mini, which turns out to be faster anyway despite having 1/4 of the RAM and considerably less cores (R + Julia + simulation for ref)

And don't get me started on the hardware after the Dell Precision 5550 thermal debacle - think we lost over 100 workstations to hardware failures in total. I mean I can't even get a working laptop + dock + monitor combination across Dell/HP/Lenovo high end kit.

The whole windows and PC experience is unreliable, unrefined, cheap and nasty and I have no desire to have anything to do with it these days. I question the objectivity of anyone actually saying otherwise these days.

 

[cjsuk]

So I want to buy a Mac Mini M4, but I'm not sure why and now I'm trying to justify it to myself. Perhaps I'm just being silly. It's been about 6 years since I last owned a Mac, and I sometimes wonder how much the user experience has changed since those days. When I look at screenshots of Mac OS 15, it just looks the same as old OS X Snow Leopard, so that worries me a bit -- but there must be more to it than looks, right?

Currently I'm thinking that I could potentially move my Adobe Creative Cloud and DXO PureRAW 4 installations (currently on a well-equipped Windows PC) over to the Mac without needing additional license outlay. But whether it would be a performance increase or reduction is a bit of an unknown to me at this point. There's also the small amount of desk space it uses up, which is nice. Do they make good media devices, say, as an AppleTV alternative (including Dolby Vision/Dolby Atmos, etc?).

Any other reasons for a Mac Mini? I'm not interested in Apple Intelligence... ran it for a week or so on my iPhone 16 Pro and didn't find it useful at all (in fact Siri got worse), and I don't need ChatGPT thinking/writing/drawing for me. I can do those things badly all by myself.

The user experience is about same. The main reason is stuff just works and the performance and user experience on the ARM machines is excellent. On top of that if you’re an iPhone user it’s the same apps on your desktop and phone (reminders/calendar/notes etc) which makes life considerably easier.

With respect to Adobe CC I was mostly using mine for Lightroom and general day to day tasks. The M4 mini (base) is faster than my old 14700k + RTX4060 desktop for photo stuff in lightroom. I don’t use DXO. 16Gb is enough RAM on the Mac to do what I was using 64Gb for on the PC.

The AI stuff is a fad and entirely useless to me. I am happy we got extra base RAM.