M2 Mac Mini Review - $600
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- Опубликовано: 24 янв 2023
- My review of the Base Model M2 Mac Mini and upgraded M2 Pro Mac Mini
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crazy good device this year
Lol no audio in the video
content been crazy good this year
Mate a bit of audio would've been good too.
No audio gg
There is audio fellas
I really like the comparison between the $1000 metal stand vs the $600 computer LMAO
I was hoping the Mac Pro wheels were going to make a cameo 😂
How much were they selling the wheels for again on the Mac Pro? 😅
@@eeshan4494 $700 💀
True, lol.
Good content creation.
Nah we need to spec it closer to the $1000 dollar mark, we the mini to have its best chance. Stiff competition
I've had the base MBA M1 for two years now and it's still blazing fast - I couldn't be happier to be honest. It would have been "nice" to have 16/512, but like Dave said: the moment you upgrade the value proposition melts away.
For the music production I've worked on my MBA 8gb ram 512gb ssd has been more than enough. If I was using large orchestral VST libraries then the 16gb would be beneficial.
@@nickpmusic yep, and if you’re upgrading your air to both 16 Gb RAM and 512 GB storage, you should be considering the base model 14” PowerBook, which starts with 16/512 configuration, but gives you a much better CPU package.
It’s great how much the base M1 products have held up over the past two years. Yeah Apple really needs to work on their price scaling on memory and storage for all of their products. It feels like it’s becoming even more of a problem.
I had the base MBA for music production it wasn’t up to par. Idk what you guys use but I use heavy VST’s and plugins. MBA is not for that at all lol
The way those 2 macs are stacked is like something they should make in the future and vent the hot air through tubes out of the gaps to double up as a heater for your room.
a BIg Mac
@@zivzulander LOL
Why did i read that last sentence "for your mom" ?
If you stack them up you can combine the power of multiple Macs
They’re not really gonna spit out much heat though. Those chips don’t draw much power.
Great review, one of the few actually useful for a normal user looking for a PC. Almost all tech channels focus on how fast it can render a video and other useless metrics. Honesty about what you will and will not notice is always greatly appreciated!
I'm so glad you are highlighting music production. These apple chips are incredibly good for those applications and deliver crazy value, especially considering that, storage-wise, many things can be done from external SSDs.
Also the fact that you don't need a good GPU for music production, so the base model is more than enough ( though for a lot of people, 8gb of RAM probably won't be enough )
@@nagynorbie 16gb of RAM are definitely good to have. And 256gb of storage in 2023 is still a joke tbh... Step it up Apple...
@@ko-bikoyou can buy both 16gb ram and an 512 SSD. The 8gb and 256gb options are just there for people to lower the price and the ceiling for buying one even more. They could “step it up”, and start the Mac mini with an 512gb SSD. But then the starting price would be around 800-900 dollars in stead of 599. The 256gb actually gives you more options to choose from
@@nagynorbie I produce professionally on an M1 Mac mini with projects running at least 50 instances of different plugins between instruments and mixing , and I haven’t had an issue so far
@@artofstorytelling9406 Wouldn't you have problems with paging to the SSD unless the plugins are small? I thought that would increase latency on music which is really important and why Apple is great value. And apple SSD's, are suspect at best.
+1 for RAM upgrade. You can easily attach an external SSD and more or less get the same speed of the internal. But RAM isn't something you can just stick up via an expansion port.
8 is good for most though unless you are like an engineering student.
@@doomy_doomy2225 Or any kind of developer, 3d artist, video editor, digital music producer, etc etc
8GB really isn’t future proof. Unless you can do everything you need to on an iPad anyway.
@@pieterrossouw8596 I made it through university on 8GB on the intel mac air when they gave us crappy ram. It really depends what you use. Macs are so optimized now and they are turning it into an iPad experience that I think it may end up like the phones where more ram isn’t truly necessary.
Yeah if they just charge even 100$ for extra 8gb ram the Mac mini would be the best value budget computer for content creators.
finally someone that mentions the mem and storage ... all others just gush over new hardware.. also like that you explain it for those that are new.. great job as always.. greetings from The Netherlands.. keep up the great work.
Love the editing and the pace on these videos
Always comprehensive yet concise, really appreciate the high quality reviews that don't eat up my time.
I saw other videos about these new devices and they were more than twice as long yet contained less info than what you provided here. Amazing review.
I'm absolutely loving your music production benchmark additions! Thanks for doing that!
Always appreciative of the brevity in your videos for the quality of information
brilliant video. absolutely clear and addressed every essential question i had. thank you!
Appreciate the in-depth comparison in differnt workflows , Also you solved an important dilemma about what to upgrade (if any). Thanks dave.
I always am excited to see your content!
thanks for the tip! i'm getting a tub of ice cream with it lol
I must applaud you for having the most balanced take on the SSD issue and the last advice on upgrading RAM vs. SSD is really helpful. Thank you so much!
i don’t understand - is apple intentionally making the base storage slower? is it different from the ram they use for 512 gb model?
@@gideonkablau ah, i understand. thank you. is this a problem any other 256gb systems face as well?
Very balanced take and thanks for spending time on the base model m2. Things considered, this seems to add value to the m2 pro unit for those who need extra performance, those future-proofing, and even those on the fence. Another that benefits is the m1 16gb ram model even at 256.
so very helpful sir ..thanks so much it helped me more co than the other 15 vid's I have seen
THAT WAS THE INFORMATION I WAS LOOKING FOR! great comparisons!!
As always, your videos are top notch! Thanks😉👌
Another benefit of the M2 Mac Mini is it made the M1 Mac Mini go down in price.
A refurbished base model M1 Mac Mini directly from Apple is $469. With a 10% veterans discount, it’s $422 and that’s what I bought.
Awesome deal, especially coming from directly from Apple!
I'm waiting for them to start popping up on the UK refurbished store! My M1 MacBook Air is still going strong AF but I want to replace my PC and make use of my dual screens so waiting for the M1 Mac Mini base models to start popping up.
just bought the mac mini m1 used for ~450€ used. There is no better value. and if you don‘t need the better media encoding stuff coming with the m2 its just a bit slower but has that better swapping with the 2x128gb flash modules at those 8gb ram
@@siteking4289 This is great to hear! I know first hand that the M1 chip with 8gb ram will more than handle the job, just waiting on the prices to come down. Refurb shops are selling the base models for £50-£100 less than the base M2 which doesn't take sense to me. Hopefully I can find one for -£450 used
Ah, a used computer......well, I guess if you want to buy used that's fine.
@@hermanstokbrood I’m not trying to convince you to buy one, but there’s a very significant difference between a “used computer” and a certified refurbished Mac bought directly from Apple.
It comes with the same one year warranty and AppleCare+ can be purchased for it. Other than the picture on the box, it’s really hard to tell it’s not new.
It’s definitely not the same as buying one from eBay or open box from Best Buy.
Here’s a video on a certified refurbished M1 Mac Mini - ruclips.net/video/-CWTBzZcp_k/видео.html
Awesome review. Precise and concise! Thanks!
Great review Dave
The honesty when you said for 3d work go for windows is EPIC 👌👍
“Pro” laptop but cant do good 3d graphic working, ifan still say Apple SOC stronger than x86. Bullshit mind ever.
"Best laptops of the world" but can't do 3D. Mmm, nice😂 This is the same situation, when trying to explain about Dell XPS performance🤣🤣🤣
Drive speed in music production is VERY important due to the immense sizes of sample library files. These don't only need to load up fast, but you also need good and consistent speeds, otherwise you might get playback hickups. Music composers, especially those who write orchestral music, should have drive speed as a third priority, right after CPU and RAM.
To be honest though, the flagship string library from Spitfire Audio is around 260GB, so I doubt you will be putting that on the main drive anyway.
Most people in music production are still running much older imac’s and older mac pro’s that aren’t half as capable. The raw power this comes with @ its size completely melts that gripe away.
So if all my spitfire and heavyocity libraries are stored on an external ssd, I can get the cheaper 256 gigs version without any performance hit ?
Excellent comparisons and summary, thanks.
This is my first Mac. I'm absolutely loving it. Was originally about to buy the M1 then heard rumors of the M2 and waited seemingly forever for it to finally release. Glad I did.
By far the best review video on these new machines. Concise and packed with good info and advice.
Not really, this was good but I think MKBHD’s was better
@@artofstorytelling9406 MKBHD’s video was much longer and yet it was less informative. That’s my opinion anyway. Not dissing Marques though - both are good videos.
Concise videos are important. I find Mkbhd‘s videos long and sometimes even boring as well.
My guy has a whole other serious career and still swoops in and produces cool reviews like this
Could you please tell me what kind of career he is pursuing outside of youtube?
@@99Zimboyeah tell us
Asians
@@99Zimbo if I remember correctly, he is involved in some medical stuff
@@zkrtl-denis he steals kidney
Really love your perspective and honestly about these product 😊
I can’t thank you enough for being one of the only people to think about music production when reviewing! Even this it’s a simple chart of Serum and omnisphere, at least we’re not being forgotten🙏
Why is nobody talking about that thumbnail, it's fire 🔥
Replaced my Mac mini 2014 with the base. Killer value and killer upgrade.
Hope you don't kill yourself with that 8GB of RAM.
@@constantinosschinas4503 Mainly just a plex box. Use the M2 Pro 16" for more extensive stuff.
Agree 100%. I’ve had an M1 MB Air since 2021, snagged a discount that gave it 16GB of RAM for the base model price. I reckon that little laptop will be good for 10 years, just like one of these Mac minis with upgraded RAM
the light on your studio for this video is different. feels warmer - very nice!
I honestly cannot believe the price per performance on the new Mac Minis! I convinced my company to buy one for iOS/Android development using Flutter and I'm so excited to try it! It's been a while since Apple got me this excited for any of their products.
It’s great option we use M1 Mac minis our team (graphics and media). Works great. With upgraded ram and storage.
Just desperately hoping Apple keep it that way 🤞
Finallly somebody says exactly what I was thinking about the Mac mini base model. Everybody is saying is a great value for non pro people. Thanks love your videos
i am searching for this review. thank you dev
Thanks you for including Audio in your benchmarks!!
As you said, that's the best value Mac you can have, it's amazing how a computer a that price can work just fine for most people
@@1seb11 true :)
damn - i'm 360p early today :D can't wait for your take on it!
Excellent review Dave 😎
Excellent review !
Can you include the monitor stand benchmarks in your comparison?
A non audio review😊 nice!!
Planning to get one for my self. I just got to know a lot about it after the review.
U are the best Dave2D.
amazing videos as always dave!
$600 price is just another bait to get you into the Apple ecosystem
Absolutely
This makes a great power-efficient yet fast home NAS. Especially if you only need it for storage and something like Emby
Amd mini pc and intel NUCs idle ata round 4-5w
@@jonneymendoza No they don't, and they don't offer the same performance
@@techtt6213 yea they do idle at around that
@@jonneymendoza cpu perhaps, but not entire system. Unless they are those Atom ones
@@techtt6213 full system mate. There's even a Intel one that idles at 5w and consumes no more than 15w
Great video. 100% agree on upgrading the ram to 16 gigs.. it will ensure longevity which is key for premium technology
love the music production notes, makes sense for the folks looking at these
Thank you so much for the review. There has been a lot of misinformation about what slower ssd actually means for the average user and you explained it very well
I always suggest more RAM over storage. You can have external storage, you cannot have external RAM. Especially with the Thunderbolt ports, you can get some pretty fast storage to add on, too, if you really need it.
What a great advise, best review I’ve seen so far
Short concise and to the point. Kudos!
I've been told that 8 gb of RAM isn't enough for a modern computer since I bought my first real computer in 2011, and it's still remarkably untrue. I finished a graduate degree in applied statistics with a true base model M1 MacBook air. I'm still using it; I have 14 apps open (including hungry application slike Firefox, Chrome, and Teams), and there is 0 lag in switching apps/spaces, opening files, starting programs, etc.
8GB of ram with the M1 is more than enough for many people. I edited tons of videos and pictures with a base model Mac Mini m1 and had zero issues. If you're going to open 300 tabs at once, then yes, go for 16gb, but IMO that's a very crappy workflow for anything. I work with 4-5 tabs open at most.
Really depends on the use case. Glad to know you know yours. Most people here are overreacting.
Insane for $499. Unbeatable.
I worked extensively on this computer over the past year and a half or so! Relieved to see the reception is good LOL
Perfect little video, thanks Dave!
It costs in Austria 760$. That is a huge difference from USA pricing.
that’s only $60aud extra when you factor in exchange rate
@e93io lol oops
I have seen a few videos comments on the slower 256 gig hard drive, but I haven’t seen anyone mention how fast an external hard drive can be through the thunderbolt ports. Given that you can boot off an external drive, if it’s twice as fast as that, then that solves the problem in the future.
Very succinctly put description of the price point/value proposition. Good analysis.
Loving the lighting in the studio...
I think you’re spot on about this being a great machine for students. With the student discount, you can get the m2 mini and an iPad (or cheaper windows machine) with some accessories for cheaper than the m2 MacBook Air.
How many "students" do you personally know who would chose this completely useless box, without an external monitor, an external keyboard, and external mouse, that they obviously cannnot take to school/uni???
Because the students I know, who have a meager 600$ budget, would rather take a cheap PC laptop or refurbished Macbook, any and every day of the week... :D
@@1650million you ever hear of dorm rooms?
@@CzedYman I´m not a native speaker, but I´d swear it´s hearD*
And no, dorm rooms it´s a totally new concept to me, where I presume a bunch of uni students love to have a shared computer they cannot use at all when there´s someone else using it.
Anyway, I guess a bunch of youporn bookmarks can only make new friends...
@@1650million it doesn’t sound like the students you know need the power. I didn’t say it’s for every student. There are a lot of students that are interested in video editing on Final Cut, but can’t afford a powerful enough MacBook. At least this way you can do heavier computing when you are at your dorm. I spent the first two years of college running off of a super-budget windows laptop while in classes and using a desktop pc in my dorm.
You could get that cheap laptop that you mentioned, also get the 500 dollar mini for less than the cost of an m2 MacBook.
@@1650million I've never seen someone so fucking dumb in my life thank you for this experience.
Curious to where a custom SFF PC with an Intel i5 13400 or 13500 would stack up against the $1,300 Mac Mini Pro 🤔 Practically, though, I'm more considering the $600 entry level one just to have a Mac Mini to play with, as someone who primarily uses Windows and Linux.
@Milda Wirtan only in instances where they include modules for that specific purpose, i.e. photo editing etc
@@hassaanbknah the original M1 didn’t have those media encoders yet and was still faster. The single core scores were also way way faster. On the other chips the media encoders do help
Erm no not really. Many applications on Ryzen or I9 destroy the M2. 3d and many music applications that need more ram or harness the GPU. With Mac you are simply scammed with the added costs and you have to throw the whole system away or sell it. With PC you simply upgrade the ram, cpu or gpu as needed.
Mac as a OS is handicapped for my workload.
check here: ruclips.net/video/m5uhkiDxN5Q/видео.html
The new line up is awesome. I would have bought the mini but i also wanted portability. So i got the macbook pro 12/19. the value of the mini is extraordinary.
Exactly what I needed to hear/know in a video under 6min.
This is the video we are looking for, other channels are crying about the base model has slow ssd, it’s like the end of the world, I totally agreed with you the base model does non large file manipulation job awesomely. I’m building my startup app with the base M2 air and the new base M2 mini loading android emulator and iOS simulator and 2gb figma, it works awesomely, no slowdown in a bit
it's not just the speed, having just one nand flash memory not only cuts your speeds in half, it also cuts the life of the ssd in half... to put it in other words; having two nand flashs will double the speed and the life of the ssd
It's fine it's just half the lifespan of the rest of the SSDs they have shipped in the past. And then you pay a gigantic premium to get an SSD that isn't a second-class product. Then you're paying almost a grand for this and it no longer makes any sense.
200$ for 16g of ram is insane.
It's 200$ for an extra 8gb actually
@@VSR007 True which makes it far worse
Macs don't have RAM, they essentially have on-board cache memory. Very fast, but expensive.
@@tonyburzio4107 The RAM on board is DDR 5. Today 8GB of DDR 5 does not cost $200....
The Apple upgrades are extremely expansive. The $799 Mac mini should come with 16GB and 512 GB RAM.
i love how you gave your thoughts on which upgrade was more useful if you had to pick because im in that situation right now. Ram cant be upgraded but i can always get an external SSD
The 256gig ssd is super slow though (compared to other variants) just a heads up for others. See if the speed will affect you.
Bro he spent like a third of the video on this topic
Holy shit only 600??
I thought they would be like 1500 lmao
Edit: no sound
Your camera quality is awesome ❤️❤️ and your content too
Thank you so much for your valuable advices!!! Carlos from France
No audio?
I was surprised by the RAM vs SSD consideration. My wife would likely get by with 8gb as she only uses general productivity apps but she’ll long be accumulating photos and videos. It’s hard to get her to use an external drive even for Time Machine but perhaps a stationary Mini would be another story.
One word that should hopefully convince you to upgrade the ram: Chrome.
Smaller rams means your ssd is gonna be used for virtual memory more often. And if you want more storage, an external storage device is much cheaper than Apple’s upgrade. For the dollar of another 256GB, you can buy 2T SSD
It’s better to just buy an external HDD for the photos: you pay $50 instead of $200 and you get more storage
@@ariellubonja7856 It's much slower however. So we must be careful what type of media.
Probably OK for Mac Mini since it will be parked in a single location. There are options in Photos and iTunes to change the location of the media library.
@@semi59o It’s like the base model is just designed to wear out faster. Hammering a 256GB drive as swap memory is brutal. You’d render the whole computer unusable in 2 or 3 years because you can’t replace the parts.
Videos are always straight to the point! that's why i prefer my dude Dave
Thanks! Really refreshing perspective! I have a lot open/multitasking, but mostly for a basic office workflow, with some Lightroom at hobby level - but this 256/512 drama has had me frozen in indecision whilst my current Mac slowly dies in the meantime..
My jaw dropped when you showed how many instances of Serum and Omnisphere it can handle. That is such a niche metric that not many people show. The fact you know about that as a benchmark of music production computing power is nothing short of astounding!
$600 sounds like too much but $599 is just right 👌
Marketing 101 lol
I love the minimal nature of this channel.
Damn that intro bass drop I’ve been rewinding that multiple times over
On one hand it's amazing. On the other hand... $200 for an extra 8gb of ram should be illegal.
Selling a desktop computer with 8GB of RAM in 2023 should also be illegal
so true lol
This really starts at 800. Getting it without the 16gb is a waste
How? 8gb works fine for 95 per cent of people.
Depends. If you are a messy user than constantly keeps 24 applications open, 16G is a minimum, but if you are disciplined and focus on one task at a time, 8G is hard to fill.
@@ia285 It, uh... definitely does not. A good 2gigs is going towards the OS alone. Factor in having multiple applications open and yeah, you will run out of memory. You just won't notice it, because the OS will swap on disk. But if you do anything that requires some read speed, trust me, you will notice it.
@@ia285 for normies who just use web and office
Beautiful animations for such a simple video.
thank you for including the music production thing
No sound?
No sound bro
It'll take some time
What was that?
Very good advice at the end.
Cool! Thanks for sharing it ✌️
360p
"...after 4-5years, 8gb ram will hurt" 4 to 5 years? Dave? Real apple user buys every release. Otherwise user's social score goes down, and Tim Apple won't adopt them.
sweet review bro
Thanks, Dave, for the great, straight-forward, 2023 Mac Mini/ Pro video!
360p club
Really awesome and useful video in terms of length, details and advice...Thank you so much brother Dave 😊
Great video, as always!
Tiny wish: you use the same color per pc in your diagrams, but not always the same order (this video just once). Would make it easier to read the results and keep consistency;-)
Disk speed does have an impact in music production, but it is not measurable in exports or real time performance.
It is measured when you load things into your session or change instruments in a sampler like Kontakt etc.
Good advice about the ram