@@SuperBigwaffle Don't even need an edu email. They don't ask for nor check. I bought my M4 iPad Pro on Apple's edu site without an edu email for $900 that came with a $100 Apple gift card.
@@MKR3238 yeah, soon as you add a bit of ram or storage, it's like just go get an older gen macbook or something. Base m4 is more than enough for probably 75%+ of users. Especially if you don't use AI much then 16gb is more than enough
It's because the others literally aren't worth buying even if you are a multimillionaire (aside from the ram if you are sure you need it). The base model is the best deal and the only reason you wouldn't get one is if you don't want to be in the apple ecosystem
No ads, no sponsor, straight up to the raw content of the video, sharp cut at the the, period, that's it. I love this channel because its videos hook me up even with the attention span that I have because of my ADHD.
As long as you are talking about the base model, the Mac Mini is possibly the best computer out there for the price to performance, along with energy draw. That said, once you upgrade it even the slightest, it's not worth it. Apple's upgrade prices are stupid extensive.
@@Athasin this but the issue is why the fuck do we need to, and why is ssd soldered anyway, it's the first thing to fail (i mean it also is the first thing you usually need to upgrade so it kinda answers)
The base Mac Mini is utterly perfect. Every upgrade option just makes me immediately look elsewhere. No 16 to 24GB RAM upgrade should cost me £200. When any higher end Windows mini PC from Minisforum or BeeLink will let me slap in 64 gigs and 1tb for the same money by that point.
У будь якому випадку вам будуть казати за якусь міфічну "якість" за яку ви платите, звісно єдине у чому Apple неперевершені це продати вам щось за набагато більшу ціну. Як приклад підставка для монітору.
The base mac mini is crazy value for money. Was also interesting getting to see a little behind the scenes of your editing and 3D work, would love to see more!
The quality of your videos is just insane. And I'm not just talking about the image quality and cinematography here. The overall aesthetic and the very calm vibe paired with real knowledge and data is just beautiful to watch. By far the best Tech-RUclipsr out there imo.
If you could game on macOS like you can on Windows, I would never use a PC again. Apple’s M1 Max MacBook Pro still easily handles every workflow I throw at it, with great portability and battery life. Sure, the price is high, but it was the best tech purchase I’ve ever made.
If they competed in the gaming space it would be over for amd Nvidia but they are never going to do that but if they did it would take away choice...not sure that's altogether a good thing for consumers
Pro composer here - I really loved the music editing in this one, Ali. You have such good taste when it comes to music - clearly you're attracted to unusual, well crafted compositions, and it's admirable.
Are you a bot or what, he has a whole content team around him that works with video editing. Sure he started out himself in his first oldest videos, but this amount of subscribers and paid advertisment he ofcourse have a whole company under his youtube nickname
anytime anyone claims to be a "pro composer" or "pro tech support" or literally anything under optimum's videos, i just laugh at their comment. 99% chance youre just another college student with google search level knowledge
People never hated them because of their tech. Its always the ridiculous pricing and artificial limitations. And thats the case here too. 16gb ram just kills most workloads where the beastly m4 chip was supposed to show its power. And ofc the 24gb one is much more expensive (and even that isnt enough for many blender and video editing use cases). Its the same old apple.
Its the price, locked down walled garden, the cult mentality of their customers, and the absolute narcissism of "youre holding it wrong" - absolute disrespect. And apple hasn't innovated anything since jobs.
What innovation? They just slightly modified the chip design they got from ARM andoverpaid for it to be made with the most performant node at tsmc.theres nothing jawdropping like there was with the m1
charging 400 dollars extra for 1tb in 2024 is such an apple thing to do, but the single core preformance is crazy that it's so much better than intel and amd still tho, their upgrade prices are absolutely insane
The storage and memory restrictions are the biggest hang ups for me to touch anything apple currently. Those along with display limitations. I had a Macbook, iMac, and 2 Mac Pros while I was back in college. All of which had 256GB or larger SSDs. Hell I even had the airport express, time capsule, and apple tv along side my iPad and iPhone. The only way I could see myself getting any of the apple silicon is if it's secondhand and manually replacing the nand cells for storage. even then I'd probably be annoyed with the lack of monitor support. Even at work I use 4 or 5 displays. I still have my old Mac Pro from 2008 that I've replaced the CPUs in, maxed out the DDR2 800, boots from PCIe ssd, with a patched kernal so it supports the Vega GPU, and has 4 hard drives. I'm glad apple is improving their CPU and GPU side but the moving away from upgradability just kills me inside. The video was great demonstrating what the new mac mini can do despite the limitations.
This thing has thunderbolt, if you really want fast storage just add an external ssd. This is the most insane tech deal for the price in quite a while.
@@gavynlen yeah with the proprietary key type to blank NAND cells you can upgrade up to 2 TB due to the limitations of the storage controller being in the CPU. Then you do a system restore over DFU mode from another apple silicon mac for around $400.
@@AryaStarky it's probably really great for a lot of people. The initial value is there. It'd be perfect for my parents in their 60s that use a single display and wifi and don't use more than like 150GB of storage. My current PC has 4 internal NVME drives for 14TB of storage, and I access my NAS over bonded 10GB SFP+ The form factor quickly becomes messy if I'm using 2 docks and 4 external drives and daisy chaining thunderbolt to have drives and additional displays and networking. It only supports 2 displays, 3 if you downgrade the refresh rate, and resolution and I currently use 4, 2 super ultrawides and 2 16:9 in portrait. So I'd need to spend $400-500 in docks and adapters and get rid of 2 displays.
Only thing that sucks about Mac is their lack of software support towards real work softwares (Solidworks, COMSOL, Ansys, etc). They always target professionals as artists, why not target us researchers we got money to pay immidiately.
I might be wrong, but I imagine Apple has little control over this. The people behind Solidworks, Ansys and the likes choose not to develop for MacOS or Linux. This might've been because back in the day, the average Mac was less powerful to a price equivalent Windows PC. Most users of these kinds of software would opt to get a better deal, thus provide the larger market for it. Things have now changed, so it'd be nice to see these companies make their software more accesible to MacOS and Linux users. (I imagine they just ignored Linux cuz they could)
@@Derpalerpa As situation with games shows, Apple has control over this. Yes they might need to throw some money into developers to make them reconsider their choice of not developing for mac, but it's 100% possible.
i mean theres no real point in buying a mac workstation since they are legit so overpriced you can legit get a pc that is like half the price which does the same at maybe a tiny bit worse, people who buy macs just do it cuz of the whole eco system and cuz theyre bad at making financial descisions
@@naizy Software that was mentioned by upper comment is used by professionals, who can easily spend 10k$+ on workstation. So Apple prices aren't a concern for them.
You just hit sleep on your mac and that's better as it will save your work and will wake up instantly, and because of ARM it consumes hardly any power. Maybe like 5W which is half of your router. Apple deliberately put it there because you will only use it a few times throughout the year.
Honestly the only thing that makes the tiny SSD In the base model completely tolerable is the fact we have fast external connections like Thunderbolt that are basically just as good as having internal components. Really when you think about it, this Mac Mini is basically like a tiny barebones computer with connections for modular external expansion. You can already find expansion dock "bases" for this new mac mini that add more ports, a card reader etc. Satechi makes one with an M.2 slot in it for the old Mac Mini, so I don't doubt they'll be making one for this Mini as well.
I got the base mac mini and I'm a teacher so it was $500. It has basically replaced my PC desktop since i don't game anymore. And it has motivated me to make a competitive FPS that runs natively on Apple silicon(I'm trying to learn ue5). It can actually game very competently if games run natively. And the form factor is just awesome.
@@mich977f Agreed, but it struggles in games with much lower resolution than 4K. I cannot imagine how poorly the base M4 runs games, especially if you are accustomed to a decent GPU. I say this as someone who has currently owns the Pro version. I was shocked at how poorly it performs.
Apple Hasnt always been a CPU company, but the kind of thing it does at this point, would make mainstream CPU companies hide their faces by shame. They have been at it for decades and Apple beats their socks off.
@@robertp457 this is my only real issue with going apple, their base models are simply put, bad. 256gb ssd is not enough, 16gb ram is not enough. if you want to upgrade either to a usable amount it costs hundreds of dollars extra to the point where you can build a PC for less that you can then continue to upgrade and service for years to come.
Bought the bottom spec M2 around when those launched two years ago and it has been fantastic as a simple and quiet content consumption, chatting, and sysadmin machine. Also capable of some gaming if you really want to too. This new one looks very nice.
Have you ever thought about making material of your studio tour ? Those shots that you make and light that you have in those rooms are out of this world.
This is probably the best computer Apple has made in years. In terms of size, performance, price. I’ve owned Macs going back to the G3/G4 years and despite me wishing they had upgradable components, I really think this is all the ‘computer’ most people could really need.
In the past they had both. The G5 for example was pretty incredible so was the Mac Pro that followed. Expandable/upgradable and beautiful in terms of designs.
@@matejmotuz108 it's overpowered for the price but apples clearly pulling punches for the form factor. They could do better and charge more but they're choosing not to because for God knows why.
What’s scary is that it took Apple only 7 months to go from M3 to M4. Once the M5 Mini drops with more CPU/GPU cores for only $599, I’m sorry but you might have a decent console killer for the price to performance.
But their software barely supports anything when it comes to games, currently it looks like it will never replace consoles. Their hardware packs a punch but the software is a complete letdown for any gaming.
Why not just buy something that fits your needs and you're happy with at the time of purchase rather than worry about what could come later? The Trump tariffs are a couple of months away from the prices of these (and nearly everything that uses raw materials so... everything) *EXPLODING* globally. Are you going to wait forever?
it would be nice to focus not only to the power users who are like the 3-4 % of the customer base but also to the at least 90 % who will need only the basic option with some external drive. This mini is a monster
Let's see: Apple: + Longer battery runtime in general + Faster on mobile platform PC: + Faster desktop CPUs + overwhelming superiority in AI when using dedicated GPU + Widespread hardware and software support + Lower price tag in most cases + Upgradeability + Repairability
2 counterpoints: The desktop CPUs will only be faster until the M4 Ultra and the rumored chip that'll supersede it launches. The AI performance is superior until you run out of GPU memory which Apple will have more of.
@utubekullanicisi There is no M4 Ultra. Maybe there will be one in the future, maybe there will be more powerfull PC CPUs too, but in what actually exists, PC hardware is faster. Also PCs, even the mobile ones, make Apples AI look bad. M4 MAX is capable of 38 TOPS while on PC side CPUs alone can do 45 and up, upcoming Intel claims 100+ and Nvidia GPUs reach 1330 TOPS even now when new gen is already right behind corner. Basic PC hardware supports 128Gb RAM and prosumer/pro hardware like Threadripper support up 2Tb of RAM depending on model. I believe M4 MAX is limited to 64 Gb. So, Apple does nice mobile CPUs, but that is it. I just do not like their over simplified UI, but that is a matter of opinion.
What's really important here is the the M4 is doing this with 20W of power. Not a typo, actually twenty watts. Compare that to new x86/nVidia builds which basically need a small power station to feed them.
I wanna get this so bad. I've been wanting to get into MacOS, I guess this could even be as portable as a laptop, just need a monitor, two cables and a dongle for peripherals.
"This thing does one or two specific functions (that only I care about the speed of) marginally faster than the very expensive set up I have" (16gb of ram and 256 of storage, almost impossible to upgrade btw) *Says "PC killer" in the thumbnail* Absolute cinema
The thing is, for the average person who does not care. Being able to just go and buy a computer that just works that is more powerful than almost any "normie" computer and is practically no maintenance is important. It will sell like hotcakes despite its anti consumer practices.
There’s going to be a lot of hate for Apple in the comments, but as a life long windows user turned Mac user, this was a good watch. I also picked up a base m4 mini as my first Mac and it’s completely changed my perspective on Mac’s. This thing is actually insane. Thanks!
I don’t think that apples “walled garden” is quite a sound business strategy as apple thinks. I don’t even seriously consider buying any apple computers just because of all the strings attached.
The Mac isn't "walled garden" any more than Windows really, you can install / compile whatever you want on it. It's boot firmware is a little more locked down than UEFI to be fair.
I'm using Apple macbook since 2012 along with an iPad and a PC Workstation and I really have no issue switching from one and the other or sharing things between them. Sure the functionality peaks between Apple's products but nothing that could make you feel stuck or walled.
My wife and I do wedding photography and videography and use my own built PCs for our editing. Well, she was on a 6yr old pc and decided to buy her the new mini m4 base model. For the price, it was an excellent choice. Very snappy and fast compared to her ancient pc. I'm going to stay with my PC since I just upgraded my graphics card. I was curious though and edited some video clips on the mini m4 and editing was very nice however the rendering and export time wasn't faster than my pc. However, price for price the mini m4 is a beast and better value than my pc
I appreciate the mention of single core performance. My main power use case is audio production, and single core performance is still most important for that.
I wouldn’t go that far. I can put 32GB of RAM and 2TB professional SSD in a computer I built myself and pay less than 256GB additional stage and 16GB additional RAM.
The end especially, you know when he's zooming out so you can see he's literally just holding it in one hand and the previous scenes were just too zoomed in to see it xD
Professional video editor here! I want to ask, why do you de-noise your footage at all? Myself and many of my peers will only use Resolve's NR for shots where there's a lot of noise because of the shooting conditions, i.e. outdoor night shots with limited lighting so the DP has to crank the ISO, or shots with a lot of dynamic range like where sunlight is visible but there's also a tunnel underpass, we have to boost shadows to make it visible, and that adds noise we have to remove. Your setup is in a studio, a controlled environment with artificial lighting. I'm not seeing why you would need to de-noise your footage. As a video editor, we would actually recommend against it because the slow down in editing speed isn't worth it when people aren't going to be able to notice the noise in the first place. I recommend you leave the de-noising out of your next handful of edits and see if anyone notices, and I don't think they will. Isn't it like 0% of people watch RUclips on their phones at 1080p? You'll enjoy a faster editing experience. 😁
5:49 "...considering that's a CPU you couldn't fit in a complete $600 PC build" No but the 7600X performs the same in and is dirt cheap right now. I like this channel but he makes some super obvious omissions sometimes.
Yeah, but in multi-core performance 9950x outperforms M4 almost 3 times. The vast majority of applications work in multi-core mode, all these single-core tests are kind of meaningless in my opinion
imo the real price is £800+ since nobody will run 500GB storage, fortunately they upgraded base memory to 16GB from 8 before cuz otherwise it would be 1k. Looks great design wise (except power button)
The Mac Mini is very weird. The M4 is godtier, but whats the point of it when you are mostly going to be limited by the 16 RAM? Like, can't really work on large 3d scenes, nor large video projects. Nor on large unreal or unity projects. And when you buy the 24gb one, it loses its economical value too.
It’s more than capable of the workflows you mentioned, even with 16gb. Also a great little machine for general software development. Just watch some tests or test it yourself.
@@tbbmalloc no its not, medium scale blender scenes take around 28gb on my pc with large scenes taking upwards of 40gb. I dont do video editing myself but the guys on my team require 32gb machines at the minimum. Ue5 with a large open world uses around 24gb. I tried opening the scene on 16gb machine and the performance was abysmal. Also for software dev, we have to run multiple android emulators at once and 16gb is far too low for that too. Same when we have to run a bunch of docker containers. This thing is good for hobbyists and light tasks like web dev maybe but definitely not for professionals and demanding tasks. And in the light tasks, the m4 is useless anyways.
I got the base model for 580€ already including the German sales tax for my mom using student discounts. Honestly an amazing machine. She has been absolutely loving it.
I recently picked up the M4 Pro Mini with maxed out 64GB of RAM and so far it is keeping pace surprisingly well with 3D work and motion graphics compared to my RTX 4090 laptop! A brutal Cinema 4D render is only 2x longer than using the 4090 laptop GPU. It's wild what Apple is able to pack into such a small package. And barely a whisper from the fans vs. the laptop which sounds like a jet engine LOL
the biggest problem is that you cant color calibrated mac on normal monitors that easy also oled monitors are very expensive and not worth the combo so the best option is still getting imac 4.5k unless u want to use mac mini with your tv
I've seen a lot of Mac Mini content already but there isn't anyone out there I trust on mini PCs more than Optimum
Real me to 😂
Facts
The authority on making PC’s look better than companies ever could
i can't believe i'm watching an optimum reveiew on an apple product over MKMPH
For sure. Especially because he is a PC guy, rather than a pure Apple guy.
For anyone with a Costco membership it regularly goes on sale for $499.99, it is currently on sale for that price now!
Same for anyone who is a teacher/student with a .edu email as Apple provides a $100 educational discount.
Just grabbed one from Costco at that price. The price to performance is something we haven’t really seen.
@@SuperBigwaffle Don't even need an edu email. They don't ask for nor check. I bought my M4 iPad Pro on Apple's edu site without an edu email for $900 that came with a $100 Apple gift card.
Meanwhile me living in Hk 😭
@@SpaceChickenare you using that Performance though?
Rare for reviewers to review the base spec model. Good job!
it’s easily the better deal so i think all reviewers have decided it’s the one most worth buying
EVERYBODY reviews the base M4 lol. its the only one offering good value
@@MKR3238 yeah, soon as you add a bit of ram or storage, it's like just go get an older gen macbook or something. Base m4 is more than enough for probably 75%+ of users. Especially if you don't use AI much then 16gb is more than enough
It's because the others literally aren't worth buying even if you are a multimillionaire (aside from the ram if you are sure you need it). The base model is the best deal and the only reason you wouldn't get one is if you don't want to be in the apple ecosystem
@@casey206969The M4 pro with 14 cores and 48gigs is like $1500 lol. "Multimillionaire"
No ads, no sponsor, straight up to the raw content of the video, sharp cut at the the, period, that's it. I love this channel because its videos hook me up even with the attention span that I have because of my ADHD.
As long as you are talking about the base model, the Mac Mini is possibly the best computer out there for the price to performance, along with energy draw. That said, once you upgrade it even the slightest, it's not worth it. Apple's upgrade prices are stupid extensive.
Yeah $400 for a 1TB SSD is just ridiculous, just get a 1TB nVMe and a m.2 USB enclosure adapter that will run you $100 at most (including tax).
@@Athasin this but the issue is why the fuck do we need to, and why is ssd soldered anyway, it's the first thing to fail (i mean it also is the first thing you usually need to upgrade so it kinda answers)
@@ser_igelit’s not
@@ser_igelIt can be removed, but it’s proprietary.
@@ser_igelIts not soldered. SSD a non standard 😂 m2 looking board.
i love how Ali is more productive than ever in the channel now!
4 VIDEO in 14 days is just blessing
Must be the efficiency he's gaining from the Mac Mini!
When the products Launch all in the Same time.
Better then pumping out 3x per week and reheating stuff that has been Said 100x.
The base Mac Mini is utterly perfect. Every upgrade option just makes me immediately look elsewhere.
No 16 to 24GB RAM upgrade should cost me £200. When any higher end Windows mini PC from Minisforum or BeeLink will let me slap in 64 gigs and 1tb for the same money by that point.
Yeah but you get 1 thread which is 25% faster! lets not under play the power of the 1 thread!
@@lapis.lazuli.ideal for running apps in 2006
@@lapis.lazuli. is this ironic?
Not even 32gb and it costs 3X more than regular ram sticks?
У будь якому випадку вам будуть казати за якусь міфічну "якість" за яку ви платите, звісно єдине у чому Apple неперевершені це продати вам щось за набагато більшу ціну. Як приклад підставка для монітору.
The base mac mini is crazy value for money. Was also interesting getting to see a little behind the scenes of your editing and 3D work, would love to see more!
5000 dollar for a mini pc craaazy value hunny
@@majbrittsvensson 600$?
@@majbrittsvensson u can't read the word 'base' ?
@@zadsazhad UH U CENT REED THE WORD BUUUSE UUUUUHHH
@@majbrittsvensson are u special?
The quality of your videos is just insane. And I'm not just talking about the image quality and cinematography here. The overall aesthetic and the very calm vibe paired with real knowledge and data is just beautiful to watch. By far the best Tech-RUclipsr out there imo.
If you could game on macOS like you can on Windows, I would never use a PC again. Apple’s M1 Max MacBook Pro still easily handles every workflow I throw at it, with great portability and battery life. Sure, the price is high, but it was the best tech purchase I’ve ever made.
I just watched the Macbook Pro M4 Max video by MKBHD and it's really mind-blowing that the M4 Max is double the performance of the M1 Max
@@nickyyves2678 Considering M1 Max was released in 2021, it only took them 3 years to do that.
completely agree, my M2 Max MBP is incredible; will probably spring for a M6 Max upgrade in 2026, but only because their rate of progress is insane
If they competed in the gaming space it would be over for amd Nvidia but they are never going to do that but if they did it would take away choice...not sure that's altogether a good thing for consumers
nvidia geforce now
Pro composer here - I really loved the music editing in this one, Ali. You have such good taste when it comes to music - clearly you're attracted to unusual, well crafted compositions, and it's admirable.
Hey man thank you. Glad that you like my choices bro. Bless you. I work hard
Are you a bot or what, he has a whole content team around him that works with video editing. Sure he started out himself in his first oldest videos, but this amount of subscribers and paid advertisment he ofcourse have a whole company under his youtube nickname
@@usemorebrainplz-is7gy ? I'm pretty sure he does everything himself buddy
Do y'all know if the music at 0:25 is just some b-roll music or if it's an actual track? If it's a track, I need the naaaaaaame.
anytime anyone claims to be a "pro composer" or "pro tech support" or literally anything under optimum's videos, i just laugh at their comment. 99% chance youre just another college student with google search level knowledge
People love to hate Apple, but we can’t deny, when they innovate they do it right.
People never hated them because of their tech. Its always the ridiculous pricing and artificial limitations. And thats the case here too. 16gb ram just kills most workloads where the beastly m4 chip was supposed to show its power. And ofc the 24gb one is much more expensive (and even that isnt enough for many blender and video editing use cases). Its the same old apple.
Especially the SFF/MFF community. PC builders are scared of this Mchip
Its the price, locked down walled garden, the cult mentality of their customers, and the absolute narcissism of "youre holding it wrong" - absolute disrespect.
And apple hasn't innovated anything since jobs.
What innovation? They just slightly modified the chip design they got from ARM andoverpaid for it to be made with the most performant node at tsmc.theres nothing jawdropping like there was with the m1
@@askeladden450 absolute facts.
i swear if apple teamed up with amd to make an x3d chip we'd have a revolutionary piece of hardware... at nvidia prices
6:12 pocket lion
a 1TB SSD from Apple, is $400. my god. 1 TB !!!!
Its apples 1TB. 1 TB on apple = 1 Exabyte on windows.
@@korosoidnope
charging 400 dollars extra for 1tb in 2024 is such an apple thing to do, but the single core preformance is crazy that it's so much better than intel and amd
still tho, their upgrade prices are absolutely insane
Just recieved my Optimum Wooting ❤
Have to be honest, apple cooked with how optimum the Mac mini is.
when a PC builder guru does Mac stuff.
Great Content!
The storage and memory restrictions are the biggest hang ups for me to touch anything apple currently. Those along with display limitations.
I had a Macbook, iMac, and 2 Mac Pros while I was back in college. All of which had 256GB or larger SSDs.
Hell I even had the airport express, time capsule, and apple tv along side my iPad and iPhone.
The only way I could see myself getting any of the apple silicon is if it's secondhand and manually replacing the nand cells for storage. even then I'd probably be annoyed with the lack of monitor support. Even at work I use 4 or 5 displays.
I still have my old Mac Pro from 2008 that I've replaced the CPUs in, maxed out the DDR2 800, boots from PCIe ssd, with a patched kernal so it supports the Vega GPU, and has 4 hard drives.
I'm glad apple is improving their CPU and GPU side but the moving away from upgradability just kills me inside.
The video was great demonstrating what the new mac mini can do despite the limitations.
This thing has thunderbolt, if you really want fast storage just add an external ssd. This is the most insane tech deal for the price in quite a while.
You can change the internal storage now
@@gavynlen yeah with the proprietary key type to blank NAND cells you can upgrade up to 2 TB due to the limitations of the storage controller being in the CPU. Then you do a system restore over DFU mode from another apple silicon mac for around $400.
@@AryaStarky it's probably really great for a lot of people. The initial value is there. It'd be perfect for my parents in their 60s that use a single display and wifi and don't use more than like 150GB of storage.
My current PC has 4 internal NVME drives for 14TB of storage, and I access my NAS over bonded 10GB SFP+
The form factor quickly becomes messy if I'm using 2 docks and 4 external drives and daisy chaining thunderbolt to have drives and additional displays and networking.
It only supports 2 displays, 3 if you downgrade the refresh rate, and resolution and I currently use 4, 2 super ultrawides and 2 16:9 in portrait. So I'd need to spend $400-500 in docks and adapters and get rid of 2 displays.
I think we need a thunderbolt enclosure that can hold multiple PCIE gen4 SSDs. Then the storage issue will be solved.
The apple mac mini is really underrated
Only thing that sucks about Mac is their lack of software support towards real work softwares (Solidworks, COMSOL, Ansys, etc). They always target professionals as artists, why not target us researchers we got money to pay immidiately.
What do those real softwares need?
I might be wrong, but I imagine Apple has little control over this. The people behind Solidworks, Ansys and the likes choose not to develop for MacOS or Linux. This might've been because back in the day, the average Mac was less powerful to a price equivalent Windows PC. Most users of these kinds of software would opt to get a better deal, thus provide the larger market for it. Things have now changed, so it'd be nice to see these companies make their software more accesible to MacOS and Linux users.
(I imagine they just ignored Linux cuz they could)
@@Derpalerpa As situation with games shows, Apple has control over this. Yes they might need to throw some money into developers to make them reconsider their choice of not developing for mac, but it's 100% possible.
i mean theres no real point in buying a mac workstation since they are legit so overpriced you can legit get a pc that is like half the price which does the same at maybe a tiny bit worse, people who buy macs just do it cuz of the whole eco system and cuz theyre bad at making financial descisions
@@naizy Software that was mentioned by upper comment is used by professionals, who can easily spend 10k$+ on workstation. So Apple prices aren't a concern for them.
I feel like I know everything about this Mac. But I can't avoid this guy's review
This + a 4TB thunderbolt nvme seems like a god tier budget setup
See how he didn't even mention the power button at the bottom & understands its just a marketing thing.
Mac users don't care coz we rarely use it. It wasn't an issue. People just made content about it to generate audience engagement.
Wait what
@@joshtomato It can be an issue if you mount it behind the monitor. But in case of mac mini it's uncommon setup.
You just hit sleep on your mac and that's better as it will save your work and will wake up instantly, and because of ARM it consumes hardly any power. Maybe like 5W which is half of your router. Apple deliberately put it there because you will only use it a few times throughout the year.
@@SahilP2648 the mac mini is actually insane, it uses 0W when in sleep mode. it will occasionally go to 1W but in general it will be at 0W
Bro is giving us a cinematic experience on a weekly basis so good I would pay to watch
Video production insane as always, keep it up!
The fact I was just looking at this product yesterday is crazy.
I purchased the base model, best decision I ever made and I was an anti-mac.
May god have mercy on your soul if you ever need an upgrade
I have my gaminc pc for my gaming and tinkering needs.for everything else, mac just runs well.
Honestly the only thing that makes the tiny SSD In the base model completely tolerable is the fact we have fast external connections like Thunderbolt that are basically just as good as having internal components. Really when you think about it, this Mac Mini is basically like a tiny barebones computer with connections for modular external expansion. You can already find expansion dock "bases" for this new mac mini that add more ports, a card reader etc. Satechi makes one with an M.2 slot in it for the old Mac Mini, so I don't doubt they'll be making one for this Mini as well.
man i love how high quality your content always is
The production quality of Optimum's videos never fails to amaze me. Not to mention the details, great explanations and practical use cases
I got the base mac mini and I'm a teacher so it was $500. It has basically replaced my PC desktop since i don't game anymore. And it has motivated me to make a competitive FPS that runs natively on Apple silicon(I'm trying to learn ue5). It can actually game very competently if games run natively. And the form factor is just awesome.
Define “very competently.” I had the M4 Pro and it does not hold a candle to a gaming PC, even running native games.
@@jmilesfox Not everyone needs Triple A graphics, 4K with 240hz+. It can run most of the most popular games just fine.
@@mich977f Agreed, but it struggles in games with much lower resolution than 4K. I cannot imagine how poorly the base M4 runs games, especially if you are accustomed to a decent GPU. I say this as someone who has currently owns the Pro version. I was shocked at how poorly it performs.
Apple Hasnt always been a CPU company, but the kind of thing it does at this point, would make mainstream CPU companies hide their faces by shame. They have been at it for decades and Apple beats their socks off.
The way RAM is shared across the whole platform, I can MAYBE justify the cost to upgrade. But the storage upgrade is ludicrous
No way. RAM is cheap. Why would you pay $200 to upgrade? It’s just rewarding Apple.
@@robertp457 this is my only real issue with going apple, their base models are simply put, bad. 256gb ssd is not enough, 16gb ram is not enough. if you want to upgrade either to a usable amount it costs hundreds of dollars extra to the point where you can build a PC for less that you can then continue to upgrade and service for years to come.
It's actually not good, since in a normal computer you have much more RAM to work with, if it's shared it's less RAM overall
@@LeonOwO So... who is stopping you from building a computer?
Dude the sheer quality of your videos always get me hooked!
apple needs to hire this man for their teasers
Bought the bottom spec M2 around when those launched two years ago and it has been fantastic as a simple and quiet content consumption, chatting, and sysadmin machine. Also capable of some gaming if you really want to too. This new one looks very nice.
Have you ever thought about making material of your studio tour ? Those shots that you make and light that you have in those rooms are out of this world.
Finally someone that understands that an MX Master with an Apple Studio Display is a subpar experience.
Having that G305 in that apple setup is so based
I thought that was Apple's B roll on their mac mini for a moment. Amazing photography work.
8:30 in 2025?
This product is targeting the 2025 year
2024 it’s almost over
The comparison to the 120mm fan had me giggling like a kid, thank you for that, that clicked in my brain 😂🧠
This is probably the best computer Apple has made in years. In terms of size, performance, price. I’ve owned Macs going back to the G3/G4 years and despite me wishing they had upgradable components, I really think this is all the ‘computer’ most people could really need.
Came for new video drop, stayed for the m2 video footage in the editing shot 👀
This is literally the best review of mac mini, now u convinced me to buy one for my 3D workflow as a student. The price is the main reason
B roll is crazy in this video, props!
God I love the aesthetic of your channel and your studio etc.
lookin sterile like some Aperture Science type shit
holy cinema! intro was crazy!
Imagine what apple could do if they cared more about function over form
In the past they had both. The G5 for example was pretty incredible so was the Mac Pro that followed. Expandable/upgradable and beautiful in terms of designs.
That's a weird way of saying they scam people on good looking underpowered devices
@@matejmotuz108 it's not underpowered AT ALL
@@matejmotuz108 it's overpowered for the price but apples clearly pulling punches for the form factor. They could do better and charge more but they're choosing not to because for God knows why.
😂 it’s literally smashing every performance metric while also looking better than anything else on the market.
PC Stans addicted to copium.
I have a 9800x3d but may grab the m4 mac for 3d from lychee/chitubox/fusion and bambu studio.
What’s scary is that it took Apple only 7 months to go from M3 to M4. Once the M5 Mini drops with more CPU/GPU cores for only $599, I’m sorry but you might have a decent console killer for the price to performance.
But their software barely supports anything when it comes to games, currently it looks like it will never replace consoles. Their hardware packs a punch but the software is a complete letdown for any gaming.
@@epicswordmewz7007 apple support everything to do with games except vulkan, game devs dont support apple.
Why not just buy something that fits your needs and you're happy with at the time of purchase rather than worry about what could come later?
The Trump tariffs are a couple of months away from the prices of these (and nearly everything that uses raw materials so... everything) *EXPLODING* globally.
Are you going to wait forever?
it would be nice to focus not only to the power users who are like the 3-4 % of the customer base but also to the at least 90 % who will need only the basic option with some external drive. This mini is a monster
80% dont even need the M4 mimi
@ if u fail to understand the word , google it and don’t ridicule yourself.
Yes, 80% would be satisfied with a phone.
Maybe not even an external drive, depending on whether they are into photos or video.
@@LishtenbirdTech yes if you can barely pay your rent and watching tik tok all day long.
Even his cat is majestic
Let's see:
Apple:
+ Longer battery runtime in general
+ Faster on mobile platform
PC:
+ Faster desktop CPUs
+ overwhelming superiority in AI when using dedicated GPU
+ Widespread hardware and software support
+ Lower price tag in most cases
+ Upgradeability
+ Repairability
😂 nope
2 counterpoints: The desktop CPUs will only be faster until the M4 Ultra and the rumored chip that'll supersede it launches. The AI performance is superior until you run out of GPU memory which Apple will have more of.
@utubekullanicisi There is no M4 Ultra. Maybe there will be one in the future, maybe there will be more powerfull PC CPUs too, but in what actually exists, PC hardware is faster.
Also PCs, even the mobile ones, make Apples AI look bad. M4 MAX is capable of 38 TOPS while on PC side CPUs alone can do 45 and up, upcoming Intel claims 100+ and Nvidia GPUs reach 1330 TOPS even now when new gen is already right behind corner.
Basic PC hardware supports 128Gb RAM and prosumer/pro hardware like Threadripper support up 2Tb of RAM depending on model. I believe M4 MAX is limited to 64 Gb.
So, Apple does nice mobile CPUs, but that is it. I just do not like their over simplified UI, but that is a matter of opinion.
M4 has faster single core than current x86 desktop CPUs
5:21 ahh the classic finger skinpull, lmao
Great to see a reasonable review of this little unit. The other PC lover boys will be making videos about how it's not great compared to a $10,000 PC.
Really appreciate your efforts brother !
But can it run crisis?
i saw this comment coming a mile away
yes
Hey optimum! Have you ever thought about sharing your workout routine? You seem to be in great shape for someone so versed in hardware.
За ці гроші тут немає абсолютно нічого що було б краще у конкурентів нажаль
Even his cat matches the greyscale palette of his studio.
An M4 Mac Mini is 5 inches by 5 inches in width and length. Thus the diagonal would be approximately 7 inches.
You know what else is 7 inches? 🌚
What's really important here is the the M4 is doing this with 20W of power. Not a typo, actually twenty watts. Compare that to new x86/nVidia builds which basically need a small power station to feed them.
I wanna get this so bad. I've been wanting to get into MacOS, I guess this could even be as portable as a laptop, just need a monitor, two cables and a dongle for peripherals.
Same, would an m4 MacBook Air be worth it though compared to it?
@@GmasterCrafter Depends on what your needs are
@@v0.1-y1j yeah case of portability. What I wonder is is that price difference worth it in the long run.
used m1 macbooks are incredibly cheap right now. Still very good battery life and amazing screen + speakers
I'm pretty sure the M4 Pro is faster than my gaming PC (R5 3600 GTX 1660S)
This guy really needs to make a film making channel. The production quality is insane!
He's a great videographer no doubt, but when it comes to movies that's only a small piece of a giant puzzle
That alien animated emoji is just superior in every way. I have it on my work PC too. Always brings me joy, when he makes that evil smile >:)
"This thing does one or two specific functions (that only I care about the speed of) marginally faster than the very expensive set up I have" (16gb of ram and 256 of storage, almost impossible to upgrade btw)
*Says "PC killer" in the thumbnail*
Absolute cinema
The thing is, for the average person who does not care. Being able to just go and buy a computer that just works that is more powerful than almost any "normie" computer and is practically no maintenance is important. It will sell like hotcakes despite its anti consumer practices.
Bros cinematics got me feeling some typa way
There’s going to be a lot of hate for Apple in the comments, but as a life long windows user turned Mac user, this was a good watch. I also picked up a base m4 mini as my first Mac and it’s completely changed my perspective on Mac’s. This thing is actually insane.
Thanks!
seeing optimum using a g304/5 for work makes sense, now for gaming on the other hand
I don’t think that apples “walled garden” is quite a sound business strategy as apple thinks. I don’t even seriously consider buying any apple computers just because of all the strings attached.
The Mac isn't "walled garden" any more than Windows really, you can install / compile whatever you want on it. It's boot firmware is a little more locked down than UEFI to be fair.
Aren't they literally world's largest company in the world? I'm pretty sure they are doing fine.
Oh no! Quick! Somebody get Tim Cook on the line! Apple is losing the crucial @ccr_noctu market!
Calm down sweetheart, no one cares about you
I'm using Apple macbook since 2012 along with an iPad and a PC Workstation and I really have no issue switching from one and the other or sharing things between them. Sure the functionality peaks between Apple's products but nothing that could make you feel stuck or walled.
@@VascovanZellerNo they aren't . Nvidia are. Kind of ironic too when apple don't support CUDA which is being 95% of the worlds AI .
Great overall review... Altough f360 still a hobbies program, not listed in engineering job applications its great to see it reviewed.
"PC killer" is also (kind of) a hyperbolic statement in any circumstance. Each certainly has its place.
My wife and I do wedding photography and videography and use my own built PCs for our editing. Well, she was on a 6yr old pc and decided to buy her the new mini m4 base model. For the price, it was an excellent choice. Very snappy and fast compared to her ancient pc. I'm going to stay with my PC since I just upgraded my graphics card. I was curious though and edited some video clips on the mini m4 and editing was very nice however the rendering and export time wasn't faster than my pc. However, price for price the mini m4 is a beast and better value than my pc
Wallet killer
😂 how broke are you? I can buy one for $499
I appreciate the mention of single core performance. My main power use case is audio production, and single core performance is still most important for that.
This is JUST the 600€ base model, not the Pro and not the Max. Apple is going absolutely crazy crushing Intel and AMD for sure.
I wouldn’t go that far. I can put 32GB of RAM and 2TB professional SSD in a computer I built myself and pay less than 256GB additional stage and 16GB additional RAM.
Ngl this is the best tech youtube channel right now
bro your intro is far better than apple teaser ads
The end especially, you know when he's zooming out so you can see he's literally just holding it in one hand and the previous scenes were just too zoomed in to see it xD
Professional video editor here! I want to ask, why do you de-noise your footage at all?
Myself and many of my peers will only use Resolve's NR for shots where there's a lot of noise because of the shooting conditions, i.e. outdoor night shots with limited lighting so the DP has to crank the ISO, or shots with a lot of dynamic range like where sunlight is visible but there's also a tunnel underpass, we have to boost shadows to make it visible, and that adds noise we have to remove.
Your setup is in a studio, a controlled environment with artificial lighting. I'm not seeing why you would need to de-noise your footage. As a video editor, we would actually recommend against it because the slow down in editing speed isn't worth it when people aren't going to be able to notice the noise in the first place.
I recommend you leave the de-noising out of your next handful of edits and see if anyone notices, and I don't think they will. Isn't it like 0% of people watch RUclips on their phones at 1080p? You'll enjoy a faster editing experience. 😁
he does it because he values things sounding, looking and feeling as clean as possible
5:49 "...considering that's a CPU you couldn't fit in a complete $600 PC build"
No but the 7600X performs the same in and is dirt cheap right now.
I like this channel but he makes some super obvious omissions sometimes.
Of course Ali just had to recreate Apple's mac mini photo and made it look better for the thumbnail👏
Yeah, but in multi-core performance 9950x outperforms M4 almost 3 times. The vast majority of applications work in multi-core mode, all these single-core tests are kind of meaningless in my opinion
True but it isnt the m4 pro or max chip just the base m4
As it should, considering that the 9950x alone costs as much as the entire mac mini...
i would hope that a CPU that costs $100 more than this entire computer had more total performance lol
This is an invalid comparison. The cpu costs more than the whole PC. This is also the base m4 chip
another day, another bullshit argument
It's nice to see that peaks everyone's intrest at times.
imo the real price is £800+ since nobody will run 500GB storage, fortunately they upgraded base memory to 16GB from 8 before cuz otherwise it would be 1k. Looks great design wise (except power button)
it has 256 actually in base, not 512 gb.
"nobody will run 500GB storage" you overestimate the storage needs for a lot of users.
i have 320 gb left from my main use 512 gb mac lol
I think we've peaked in computer tech for the average user. Now we need computers to be more powerful for creating things. What a time tio be alive.
PC killer unless you need more than 256GB storage.
Kinda want to try the mac mini when optimum starts reviewing it
Love the single core performance...when I revisit 2005.
i love vids anytime im eating or bored i gotta put on a optimum tech vid
The Mac Mini is very weird. The M4 is godtier, but whats the point of it when you are mostly going to be limited by the 16 RAM? Like, can't really work on large 3d scenes, nor large video projects. Nor on large unreal or unity projects. And when you buy the 24gb one, it loses its economical value too.
Maybe for their AI stuff, I don't know.
At this point I think its impressive it has 16 gb of ram, I was betting it would launch with 8.
It’s more than capable of the workflows you mentioned, even with 16gb. Also a great little machine for general software development. Just watch some tests or test it yourself.
@@tbbmalloc no its not, medium scale blender scenes take around 28gb on my pc with large scenes taking upwards of 40gb. I dont do video editing myself but the guys on my team require 32gb machines at the minimum. Ue5 with a large open world uses around 24gb. I tried opening the scene on 16gb machine and the performance was abysmal. Also for software dev, we have to run multiple android emulators at once and 16gb is far too low for that too. Same when we have to run a bunch of docker containers. This thing is good for hobbyists and light tasks like web dev maybe but definitely not for professionals and demanding tasks. And in the light tasks, the m4 is useless anyways.
I got the base model for 580€ already including the German sales tax for my mom using student discounts. Honestly an amazing machine. She has been absolutely loving it.
This guy is misinformed.
How?
What did he say wrong ?
This is probably the worst take I’ve seen in months
What is he misinfored about?
elaborate
I recently picked up the M4 Pro Mini with maxed out 64GB of RAM and so far it is keeping pace surprisingly well with 3D work and motion graphics compared to my RTX 4090 laptop! A brutal Cinema 4D render is only 2x longer than using the 4090 laptop GPU. It's wild what Apple is able to pack into such a small package. And barely a whisper from the fans vs. the laptop which sounds like a jet engine LOL
1 view after 1 min? Bro fell off.
Hahahahahahahaahhahahahahaah
How many views do you get in 1 min bro?
the biggest problem is that you cant color calibrated mac on normal monitors that easy also oled monitors are very expensive and not worth the combo so the best option is still getting imac 4.5k unless u want to use mac mini with your tv
LMAO😂 APPLE. No thanks