Mac Mini M2 Pro: Is It “PRO” Enough for Videographers and Photographers?

this is my 2019 specked out MacBook Pro that has been the editing machine for my photo video business since then and it also cost me forty five hundred dollars honestly it's been pretty great up to this point except it lacks in one major department and that's video editing and dealing with the Codex for newer cameras like the one that's filming me right now my Canon R6 just makes the process awful so much that I straight up couldn't finish a recent client project and I didn't really know what else I was going to do so instead of upgrading this laptop and getting the new M2 version maxing it out spending probably close to the same amount I went a different direction I got the Mac Mini M2 Pro and it costs less than a third of the price it's for my mouse so that's great and all but the question is is it powerful enough for videographers photographers even filmmakers working with Cinema cameras let's find out so first off this is the base model of the Mac Mini M2 Pro meaning I didn't upgrade this CPU storage memory anything just as is for 12.99 and like other reviews on my channel I'm not really concerned so much about specs I'd rather make product reviews based on real world use how you would also possibly use them and showcase the results and I've now been using the Mac Mini M2 Pro for about a month so the Mac Mini M2 Pro comes with a 10 core CPU 16 gigabytes of unified memory and a 512 solid-state drive which was honestly really hard to imagine that would be enough because my laptop alone has much more than that it has 64 gigabytes of memory more CPU and more storage so kind of nervous about that but I figured if it didn't work out I could simply return it and upgrade what I needed and I was also really interested in upgrading to a computer desktop setup instead of a laptop because I just realized that I've only been using laptops in my eight nine years as a photographer videographer kind of crazy I've never just been invested in a desktop and so I had all the parts that I needed you know I have this this is an LG Ultra wide monitor it's kind of old but it still works really well I have it on an arm where I can just swing it swing it out of the way like when I'm making videos adjust it really easily and then a wireless keyboard and mouse so I had all the components I needed I just needed the computer and because I also don't really travel anymore back then I did a lot more traveling worked more remotely like in offices and things like that but now all of the editing is done right here in this office so it honestly just made the most sense and I also really love the fact that it has four Thunderbolt and two USB a ports those are really handy especially when you're dealing with a bunch of drives you can have them all plugged in at the same time and the only thing I really wish it had though is an SD card reader it could go right there but until then I'll just have to continue using a dongle and of course you also have all your other standard ports like HDMI and ethernet so honestly all the ports that you really need aside from an SD card reader and I know it's not really easy for someone to just go out and drop 12.99 even though for me that's just sounds like an amazing deal but it's still 1300 so here's a pro tip I almost always never buy gear just simply using cash or you know straight from my bank account I always try and utilize some sort of incentive whether it's using my business credit card that gets cashback trade in Old gear or anything else I can do to offset the cost or win money back and in this case I did that very same thing but I also made sure that the project I was working on that I couldn't finish but I finally could with the Mac Mini M2 Pro I made sure that that cost would also cover the investment of this and still give me profit try and utilize the work you're doing the gigs that you're shooting to pay for the gear you're using so I also decided not to upgrade anything on the Mac Mini M2 Pro because it seems like it's pronoun off but I also wanted to see if it was enough for regular creators that are creating video content social media videos photography and even filmmakers that are working with Cinema cameras especially because of the price point that it's at sure you can upgrade everything but then you're gonna be spending a lot more so I just really wanted to see what this base M2 Pro could do I didn't really worry too much about upgrading the memory because 16 gigabytes should be enough especially because I typically just work on fairly simple video edits whether it's real estate YouTube videos social media content and I typically only work in one app at a time I don't have Premiere Lightroom Photoshop all open so I don't think it would be an issue and I also kept the storage at 512 because I fully work off of solid state drives for example this two terabyte SanDisk Extreme SSD is really fast really reliable never had any of these crash on me and I keep my current projects on these and then when I'm done shooting I upload and make copies of the projects on the slower Lacy drives and then also upload the cloud just so I have enough copies but the great thing about this is whether I'm working on this computer or I switch over to my laptop everything that I need for a project that I'm working on is on here meaning I can easily plug it in here plug it into the laptop and I'm gonna have everything I need for the project even how I did these tests when I did the video test rendering off this or my laptop all I had to do is plug it in and Premiere knew exactly where everything was so it's really handy and I have to note this as well this actually crashed on me this crashed about earlier last year and I had to send it in luckily it was covered by AppleCare but everything that I had on this laptop I lost and luckily I had nothing on there other than my apps so yeah that was kind of scary okay and now for the most important reason for upgrading can this run everything that this had struggles with can it run everything from my photo video business the answer is yes it definitely can right off the bat I went to that really extensive video project that I seriously couldn't finish on my laptop I opened up the project and to my surprise it ran everything fine when I was scrubbing through the project it looked like I was editing 720p video and in this project particularly it's a transportation testimonial video where we shot it on the cinema cameras using the C70 the c200 my Canon R6 really heavy video codecs for most computers to run all shot in raw video aside from my camera on top of that I had a bunch of effects in this project as well I had diffusion layers grain color grade sound effects visual effects titles all on top of these really heavy video codecs so honestly on my laptop it really struggled to run that but using on the M2 Pro gave me no issue like I said it was just like editing 720p video and it was so refreshing and I was honestly getting really nervous because I was really not wanting to deal with the fact that if it couldn't run that and I'd have to return this upgrade to another one and I was getting really behind on that project it's just such a good feeling when Tech just works like it's supposed to you know not just lagging and all the time because if I open that same project on this laptop it would lag like crazy not play when I would press play just completely Skip and it just made the whole process Dreadful practically impossible to get through that one minute edit let alone four video deliverables for this project so not only is editing time much faster but sore export times this really extensive video project that was just one minute took four minutes and 45 seconds on the M2 Pro to export and 4K and it took almost 8 minutes 7 minutes and 39 seconds on my laptop so I'm currently exporting that Victory video which is a really heavy duty extensive editing project but the thing I want to know is listen it's silent my laptop whenever I do this test on my laptop it's probably going to be blasting the fans are going to be so loud okay so it's still sitting at five minutes it's already been a minute 40 seconds but listen to those fans it's only gonna get louder and that's what I hear all the time when I'm editing like the fans are never on so it's almost weird that there's no noise from the M2 like it's completely silent so there's a significant difference and that's a one minute video imagine if you were doing a five or ten minute video with all of those same cameras makes a big difference another really heavy codec that my laptop always struggled to edit that I really love is black magic I've shot with the Blackmagic pocket Cinema Camera 6K a couple of times the video footage looks amazing but again this has such a hard time running that it just makes it frustrating especially if you color grade or add effects it just lags like crazy and then again on the M2 Pro no issues at all as you can see right here you can play it back fine even scrub through it and it's a breeze and I know that there's workarounds I know you can make proxies you can transcode your footage and I've done all of those things and I did them for a while but it just adds a whole nother step to the editing process makes you fill up your drives faster and it's just not something that I was wanting to do so like I said it's just nice when Tech works and it speeds up your workflow especially in your business and then if you're not really working on really extensive video projects like just regular real estate video content like I normally am it runs that even better because even shooting footage from my R6 that's filming me right now really struggles on this laptop and so being able to just Breeze through it put the edit together no problem with no lagging on the M2 Pro is so nice now before getting to the last topic I'd like to thank the sponsor for this video Cuts now think twice before skipping this section especially if you want the most amazing shirt ever so let's quickly jump back to the first year I ever got cuts and that was in 2021 not sponsored then just found out about them watching some of my favorite creators and swear by their shirts plus at the same time I was on a mission to find the perfect shirt to wear for shoots every day just all the time since I've bought that first shirt I've bought multiple aots from cuts since then because I was seriously so happy with the fit the quality of the shirts the rounded bottom and subtle details super breathable material they're made out of since I live in Texas and the clean minimal and modern approach to all of their clothing so if you want to check out cuts and support me and my channel check out the affiliate Link in the description below use my code so you can get 15 off your purchase thanks again to cuts for sponsoring this video and supporting the channel back to it lastly what about photo editing are we to the point where just every computer and laptop is just extremely good at photo editing and that can't be approved wrong there was definitely a difference editing photos on my laptop compared to the M2 Pro so that was nice especially the fact that sometimes my laptop would still lag depending on how many photos I was going through the type of photos whether it's higher resolution photos and even for Real Estate photos we shoot Auto exposure bracketed photos anywhere from three to five photos and merge them in Lightroom so that process can really take a long time especially if you're merging multiple photos from multi listings constantly so I did a test of one of our recent listings and I merged 37 Auto exposure bracketed photos this was anywhere from three to five photos being merged into one HDR photo so my laptop merged the photos in eight minutes and then the M2 Pro did it in just over six minutes so again faster on the M2 Pro then I also exported the same listing after the HDR photos were merged quickly put my real estate preset over all of them and the laptop did it in two minutes and 30 seconds which is pretty good and then the M2 Pro did it in 42 seconds exported like 53 photos in 42 seconds just pretty crazy fast and so again all that time adds up especially if you're doing all this stuff on a daily basis and so something to think about okay so final thoughts here's the most important thing to take away from this yes it is super nice when a computer just works and can do everything you need it to do and have a way better video editing experience but the most important thing I realized was how much time video edited on a slower computer was taking away from me working on my business shooting more projects family time and anything else the testimonial video project that I couldn't finish was one of four video deliverables it took me about two weeks of multiple sittings to get through that one minute Video Edit that I exported and when I finished the other video deliverables on the M2 Pro it took hours not days or weeks but hours of just one or two sittings because I could easily scrub and watch everything back and completely just think about the creative process not wait for things to load hit play not have it play Skip crash it just made such a difference and honestly blew my mind because I thought that this project was going to take like four to five months at the rate that the first video took so honestly since then it's been so great at how fast I can finish you know my regular real estate videos social media projects YouTube videos just so nice that it works and it speeds up the workflow so the bottom line do I recommend this to photographers videographer first even filmmakers out there that are looking to upgrade their computer definitely yes absolutely I'm seriously so happy with it so glad I made that investment again video editing is now more enjoyable than it was before and I can speed through edits get work done faster and focus on the next project especially if you're on an Intel based computer like this one you know that's kind of a drawback because this I think was the last Model that was on the Intel CPU system before they switched over to the M1 chip so if you're on one of these computers that's 2019 or older I believe or 2020 maybe I definitely look at the new M2 that came out and if you're already on an M1 I feel like you wouldn't see much of a difference because from what I've seen the M1 is just as powerful as the m2s that came out and can pretty much run anything as well and I also just love that I can still get so much more use out of my laptop and it honestly has some new purposes for me and my business I can still take this on trips getaways like I already have and it was so nice to have this even if it's the backup footage or do basic video editing and everyday work for my business whether it's scheduling work client communication uploading work and anything else and it's also so nice that the battery lasts how it's supposed to now you know it'll last for hours and hours and not just like 30 to 45 minutes if I don't have it plugged in and I'm working on a video project so that's it for this video leave a like if you enjoyed comment down your thoughts on what you think about the Mac Mini M2 Pro are you going to be upgrading to this are you looking at something else I'd love to know your thoughts subscribe if you haven't already I would love for you guys to be part of the channel and I'll see you guys in the next video see ya

Channel: Andrei Restrepo

Views: 40,512

Keywords: Mac mini m2 pro, Mac mini, m2, m2 pro, Apple Mac mini, photographers, videographers, real estate, video editing, best computer for video editing, photo editing, desk setup, ultra wide monitor, MacBook Pro

Id: YX8hVEMmG0o

Length: 14min 28sec (868 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 27 2023