Apple launches are our favorite time of year because they come so randomly, but they’re always so rewarding. With the announcement of the new Mac mini with M2 and M2 Pro chipsets And with its competitive pricing (oddly affordable by Apple standards), we’ll compare the 2020 version of the M1-chip Mac mini to the new model and see how it stacks up.
Is it worth buying the latest Mini, or sticking with what you have?
The Mac mini (M1, 2020) is in second place Best computers list And for good reason. It keeps all of its powerful hardware under a sleek, ultra-compact hood and runs even the most demanding and memory-intensive programs without complaint (the PC is virtually silent). With such a beloved desktop computer occupying this niche for so long, it will be very interesting to see if the newer model equipped with a new chip can take the lead.
M1 Mac mini vs. M2 Mac mini: Price and availability
The M1 Mac mini It hits the market in 2020 starting at $699 (£699 or AU$1,099) alongside the MacBook Air (M1, 2020) and MacBook Pro 13-inch (M1, 2020). The trio introduced Apple’s first in-house silicon chips and demonstrated how powerful the first Apple chips could be compared to established competitors like Intel.
The base model’s $699 price tag is cheaper than its 2018 predecessor which started at $799 (£651 or AU$1,141) at the baseline. However, in typical Apple fashion, you can no longer purchase the M1 Mac mini from its website.
The new Mac mini (M2, 2023) starts at $599 which is an amazing launch price for Apple. Considering you’re getting twice the memory bandwidth, 8K and gaming capabilities all in one small box, that’s a pretty big deal.
For a lower price, you obviously get double the productivity in basically every aspect of video editing, encoding, photo editing and anything else you can think of to hit it off in terms of performance. Of course, we can’t be sure until we have the kit in our hands, but on paper from what we know, the M2 Mac mini takes the cake for value.
Don’t forget that Mac minis come as is, and mouse, keyboard, and monitor are sold separately.
M1 Mac mini vs. M2 Mac mini: Design
Obviously, in terms of actual aesthetics, there’s absolutely no difference between the M1 and the M2 Mac mini. The latest MacBook Air (M2, 2021) was the last major design change the company attempted, but we don’t see anything like that with Mac minis.
Changing the design doesn’t matter as much with Mac minis as it does with MacBooks, though it’s a shame to see Apple double down on its terrible aesthetics when the latest iMacs were lauded for their colorful redesigns. The M1 and M2 Mac mini look identical and that’s fine, but not great.
In our M1 Mac mini review, we acknowledged that the appearance of the Mac mini doesn’t really matter because it’s designed to sit on your desk and take up as little space as possible. We note that even with a strict dress code, the Mac mini looks stylish and modern.
We can only speak from what we see in the pictures and on their site, but the hardware is exactly the same in terms of things like weight and depth, and support for headphone jacks (the M2 Mac mini supports high-impedance headphones, too). In terms of ports, the M2 Mac mini has two Thunderbolt 4 ports (four for the M2 Pro version), two USB-A ports, and one HDMI port.
So, we have to call it a bow tie in terms of design. You cannot pick a winner here if they are an exact match.
M1 Mac mini vs. M2 Mac mini: Performance
Again, we can’t say much about the performance of the M2 Mac mini yet, but we can get mixed up between the M1’s performance and what we know about the M2 chips and how they compare.
In our review of the M1 Mac mini, we praised its performance during benchmarking and everyday use tests, making specific note of how silent the little box of bits is throughout it. The M1 mini has unified memory shared between the CPU and the GPU, which is either great or awful depending on how you use your Mac. On the one hand, your computer has unlimited access to this large pool of memory, which makes it extremely fast. On the other hand, if you are running more than one memory-intensive program, and you also need some of that memory for graphics, your Mac will not be happy.
With the M2 chip, you get an eight-core CPU with a 10-core GPU The new Mac mini (2023) also features the M2 Pro, with up to a 12-core CPU and a 19-core GPU – a first The Mac mini has a really professional chip. These specs are definitely impressive compared to the M1’s CPU and GPU.
Apple has made some pretty bold claims regarding the M2 Mac mini, such as the 35% faster GPU that it promises to run No Man’s Sky and Resident Evil: Village (again, not sure why Apple got into the gaming market) at Frames are amazing considering it uses the integrated GPU. Compared to the previous generation, the M2 is supposed to provide 2.8 times faster gameplay in Resident Evil Village and according to Apple’s chip to M2 will offer speeds 15 times faster than the fastest Intel-based Mac mini.
conclusion
Overall, we have to give the win, which isn’t surprising for the M2 Mac mini. The newer model is priced too well and packs too much potential to be a winner in this showdown.
Of course, our full review will reveal whether it can stand up to our tests and live up to the hype, but on paper, the M2 Mac mini is shaping up to be a very popular, versatile, and affordable desktop computer that will certainly grace the small desktop lists.
While there’s nothing overtly wrong with the M1 Mac mini, it just doesn’t hold up. Of course, the M1 is now three years old at this point, and we’ve seen a huge jump in performance between the M1 and M2 chipsets with MacBook Air (M2, 2022) Compared with the MacBook Air (M1, 2020)And So we have a feeling that there will be a noticeable jump.