My enjoyment of the M1 Mac Mini has been anything but mini.
This is easily the best overall computer value I've ever used,
and now that I've had it for over a year and a half, let's talk
about why the M1 Mac Mini is a great choice for almost Mny1.
Now I don't just want to repeat everything I've said in my previous videos about
the M1 Mac Mini, but this thing has been an absolute workhorse for the past
I think it's 20 months
that I've had it.
I know there have been new releases and new computers,
and the M2 processor is out,
but I think it's still worth revisiting the idea of what is currently the
cheapest computer that Apple makes.
Maybe the cheapest one they've ever made?
The base model M1 Mac Mini,
this has 8 gigabytes of RAM, 256 gigabytes of storage.
It typically retails for $700
but you can find it on the Apple Refurbished Store, which is a great
option for sometimes under $600.
So everything you get for either of those prices is pretty incredible.
Now I will say right off the bat, that before I had this, the computer
that I had was the 16 inch Intel
i9 MacBook Pro
and that computer was pretty spec'd out.
It cost over $3,000 and this computer beats that in every
way...except for heat and noise. 🔥
This computer never gets hot, even though it never shuts down.
The fact that I have it unplugged, this is one of the few times
I've actually had it shut down
in the past 20 months or so, so I'll share how it fits into my workflow
so that way maybe you can see how it might fit into your workflow.
At the time it was "Peak Pandemic™" which sounds like an
album from like an indie band.
And at the time I was a high school teacher and I was teaching online
all day, every day, six or seven hours of just teaching online.
And my Intel MacBook Pro could handle the like streaming teaching part of it, but it
was so loud and it would get so hot every time I did anything, there was just this
constant loud fan noise in the background.
And before anyone brings it up– no, the fans were not dirty.
I checked that. I cleaned those.
That computer was just notorious for running extremely hot
and so the fans constantly had to turn on to cool it down.
Sounded like it was going to blast off into space all the time.
When I was recording podcasts and making videos
I was having to like hide the computer under my desk to
try to reduce the fan noise.
So I needed something that was going to handle all of that a little bit better.
The M1 Mac Mini at the time, I had heard great things about it,
so I got the cheapest one I could find, and it immediately made
things so much better because it was so silent and so powerful.
It outperformed my much more expensive Intel MacBook Pro in every single way,
and it costs literally like one fifth, the price. Last fall, I did get the
14 inch M1 Max MacBook Pro, mainly for the portability and the extra
power for video editing and stuff.
This is my main computer, but this is still like my almost main computer.
Maybe it's like a 60/40 split between them.
This M1 Mac Mini has still run every stream on my YouTube channel,
every video call, every online class, every thing.
All of that.
Every one of them since January of 2021 to now has been run through this computer.
So if you've seen me streaming on my channel at all in that time, it's
been going through this right here.
Now the thing that made me comfortable getting this computer was the price,
because it was
relatively inexpensive
I felt okay
taking that leap ,and it ended up being my only computer for about 10 months until
I got the new MacBook Pro and it did everything I needed it to do in that time.
If I upgraded it, like if I added more RAM or more storage or more
power, it definitely would be a better performing computer,
but then it would push the price point to a level where I would've been a little
more hesitant to want to spend, I don't know, $1500, $1700, maybe even over $2000
on a Mac Mini that's fully spec'd out.
I have an external hub that I put an SSD into
so that way it expanded the internal storage and the 8 gigabytes of RAM
works great, because I've said this in other videos, 8 gigabytes
of M1 RAM, isn't the same as 8 gigabytes of Intel RAM.
And I don't really know of like a scientific way to explain that, but
it just has to do with like how we are perceiving those benchmarks.
I think a lot of us are used to knowing this is what 8 gigabytes of RAM gets you.
"You definitely need a lot more than 8 gigabytes of RAM."
But just the way that the M1 chips are built, the way that they work,
and the way everything comes together,
that 8 gigabytes of RAM means something different.
Like it just functions differently in terms of overall performance
than 8 gigs of Intel RAM.
So I'm in-telling you there is a difference, and even though this is
only 8 gigabytes, it absolutely outperform 16 and 32 gigabyte
Intel chips that I've used in the past.
Now that being said, if you can upgrade the Mac Mini, you're never
going to regret having more RAM or more hard drive space, but that also
then bumps up the price quite a bit.
If you had to choose between one upgrade, I would definitely say the
RAM. Might as well just go for 16 gigs.
It's not a crazy expensive.
It's what like $200 I think?
And then you're going to be pretty well set for a long time, because it's
easier to just add an external hard drive and then use that to expand your
storage versus being able to expand the RAM.
As much as I do love Apple computers,
and I understand how things are all put together on single chips and stuff,
now it is a bummer that you cannot upgrade them once you get them.
So you're stuck with the configuration that you get.
So you gotta configure out what's best for you
at that time and what will be good for you going forward.
But my whole point here is how good the absolute base model is,
so you can extrapolate how good the more upgraded versions must be too.
Now, as I just mentioned, those upgrades do then raise the cost and
that's where things get confusing. To me when this computer is $600 or
$700 it's a pretty easy no brainer to me, but once you start upgrading it
and then it gets into the price of
a MacBook Pro or even like the 14 or potentially 16 inch
MacBook Pro or a Mac Studio...
Apple is really good at creating a product line where it's like, "If I just
spend this much more, then I'll get this over here. But should I get this?
And wait, the M1 Max is more powerful than the M2, but the M2
is more powerful than the M1?"
And you can just find yourself in that kind of like buyer's dilemma
for a really long time,
and it's a very frustrating place to be.
What I love about this base model computer is
it's kind of an outlier.
It's so inexpensive for what it is, and it works incredibly well.
So it's just such an easy thing to recommend.
I've now had quite a few different friends and people I know who might not
even be Mac users, but they buy this base model Mac Mini just specifically
for streaming and video calls.
They just put Ecamm Live on it
and then that is their entire setup for anything like that,
even if they use Windows as their main computer the rest of the time.
And that's only possible just because of how mini the price is on the Mac Mini.
Now, another really important thing to mention is that in my last video about
the Mac Mini, which was from now about 10 months ago, I mentioned
a few issues I was having with it.
Some Bluetooth connectivity issues, some restarting issues,
and there was like one other thing– the display not waking from sleep!
That's what it was.
Sometimes the computer would be asleep and I would try to wake it
up and the display wouldn't wake up.
I don't know what it was, but since I made that video, I've not
had any of those issues anymore
in the past 10 months (knock on wood)
I think a big part of that was upgrading to MacOS Monterey.
It seems like they just sort of refined things, fine-tuned things,
and I haven't had a single issue like that since then, which has now been
most of the time that I've owned this computer. It's not my main video editing
computer anymore because that's what the M1 Max MacBook Pro is for,
but a big reason for that is, yes, this does work better for editing like layers
of 4K footage and stuff like that,
but also just the portability.
I like being able to have it connected to my display and then
unplug the computer and take it somewhere else and continue working.
It's the benefit of a notebook.
This is still a great video editor.
It handles 4K footage reasonably well. If you have a 1080 workflow with video,
this will just blaze through everything.
The important thing, when it comes to video on the M1 Mac Mini is
really more to pay attention to the codecs that you use, because I've
really not had any issues with it.
However, some other people like my friend Rafael Ludwig, who shoots
on a Canon C200 or was shooting on a Canon C200, those files just did not
play well with this computer at all
and he ended up having to get a more upgraded version to work
well with his camera's files.
So there are a lot of variables, but speaking very generally for
at least basic video editing and
some pretty advanced video editing too,
this works incredibly well.
If you're somebody who spends a lot of time in 3D applications like Blender
or something– I have definitely done some blender tutorials on here,
you're probably not going to get the absolute best performance.
Although I should also say that for the past, like two months, my wife has
been playing Final Fantasy XIV on her base model Mac Mini sometimes while
also rendering out Final Cut Pro
video files and then
also having like a bunch of Chrome tabs open and running dual
displays, and the computer's been fine.
I know the graphics aren't like absolute maxed out graphics on
Final Fantasy that they could be,
but it's a really great experience on a $600 or $700 computer.
It's absolutely crazy.
And I know a lot of people also get frustrated because if you watch
YouTube computer reviews, people often talk about video editing.
If you're someone who makes YouTube videos, you
do a lot of video editing
so it's a good benchmark.
And even if you are not a video editor yourself or a media maker yourself,
those are very rigorous tasks for a computer to complete.
So if it can handle video editing and streaming and all that kind of
stuff, it at least gives you an idea of how it might perform for
other tasks that you need it for.
You might have seen some of the stress tests that I've done for the M1 Mac Mini.
I've done live streams where I'm editing
multiple 4K videos while also doing a Zoom call and recording audio.
I just try to open every application that I could and everything runs fine.
Even the Adobe applications like Photoshop and stuff are now
running incredibly well on here.
Everything has just become more and more optimized for the M1 architecture.
I have a feeling that sometime this year, or at least within the
next year, there will probably be an update to the Mac Mini lineup.
If Apple can maintain this price point with a future model, that's
obviously going to be an absolutely
great choice too, but even still, just because this gets a little bit
older or just because something new comes out doesn't mean this is any
less capable than it was before.
So especially now when there are no other options in terms of Mac Minis, but even later
if a new one comes out and you can still jump onto that re Refurbished
Store or get some clearance sales, you can probably get some incredibly good
deals on the base model M1 Mac Mini,
and I think you might be really surprised at how well it
fits into your workflow and how much it levels things up for your workflow.
If you want the same power, but you want the portability of like a notebook,
just the original M1 MacBook Air, which is a relatively inexpensive too,
it's going to have this same power here.
This is the baseline for all M1's,
so anything here
and going forward is just going to be at least as powerful as
this, if not more powerful.
And if you think about where computers were just a few years ago,
that is a powerful statement to make.
So at the time I bought this computer, it was the least expensive computer I'd
ever owned AND the most powerful computer
that I had ever owned.
It's not the most powerful computer I've ever owned anymore, but with the
power and the price combined, it's definitely the absolute best overall
computer value that I've ever owned.
And speaking of things that are high value, thank you to everyone who helps
support my channel through Patreon and YouTube Channel Memberships.
And if you want to know a little bit more about the M1 Mac Mini or
the M1 Max MacBook Pro, check out these videos right here.