SHOULD YOU BUY the M1 Mac Mini for Everyday Use?

there are a lot of videos on youtube talking about the 2020 mac mini from the perspective of a creator and i think that's great but what i want to do is look at whether the m1 mac mini even the least expensive model is a good device for the average user maybe you have to set up a home office doing more studying at home or just want a more complete setup than a laptop what's up guys sagi here and welcome to another tech gear talk today i'm going to take a look at the m1 mac mini and see whether it's a good value for someone who's not a youtuber or a professional video editor looking to edit 12k footage just a regular person who wants a very capable desktop experience without a big computer tower we'll talk about the features and benefits take a look at the different configuration options but more than anything removing all the apple hype is this a device that you should consider getting so let's go if you're just starting your research let me tell you a little bit about the mac mini and if you are already familiar with it i do have this video broken down into chapters probably the best way for me to describe the mac mini is to call it a really small desktop it's a very compact way to get a mac os based system that's not a laptop we're talking about a footprint of 7.7 by 7.7 inches which is 19.7 by 19.7 centimeters and the height is only 1.4 inches or 3.6 centimeters but definitely don't let the small form factor fool you i mean we're getting a lot of connection options which i'll get to in a minute wi-fi 6 compatibility for extremely fast wireless networking bluetooth 5.0 a headphone jack and even a built-in speaker which really surprised me take all that and then add the extremely capable new m1 chip from apple and you get a do-it-all desktop with impressive cpu performance fast graphics and a powerful neural engine for fast and keepable machine learning and all of that starting at 699 dollars which is actually lower than the previous model now if you're curious about what you actually get when you buy the mac mini it's pretty simple you get a mac mini and then you get a power cord that's pretty much it and it's really not different than your average desktop but because it's so small it may not feel the same and that feeling of maybe not getting enough goes away as soon as you start taking a closer look so the design is super clean and elegant which is something you probably expect from apple we've got this milled aluminum body with a satin finish rounded corners and there are no seams doors or any compartments which give it a very refined look and when we get to the back of the mini right here that's when you see a whole lot of goodness so with the m1 models going from left to right we've got a power button power cord input a gigabit ethernet port two thunderbolt slash usb 4 ports with support for displayport thunderbolt 3 usb 3.1 gen2 then we have an hdmi 2.0 port two usb a ports and a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack so that's a ton of very practical and usable i o to fit in such a small device for example you could have three monitors attached and still have two open usb ports now i don't know why anyone would need three monitors oh wait in addition to these physical connections we're also getting wi-fi six connectivity which is absurdly fast and lets me use the functionality of my new orb six which you can learn about in that video we also have bluetooth 5.0 which i use with my keyboard and mouse and i've found it to be fast and reliable which hasn't necessarily been the case with older models so that's nice to see all right so that was a little bit of technical information but what about the setup well actually it was pretty simple if you're new to mac os you just follow the steps on the screen and you should be up very quickly if you're porting over files and apps from another mac then you're looking at a little bit more time depending on your transfer speeds but really in both cases you should be up and running and playing around with big sur in no time now when i talked about design i mentioned that there are no seams or compartments that open up on the mac mini and while aesthetically i think that's beautiful there are some important implications the new mac mini is not upgradable in any way so what you get at the beginning is what you're gonna have for as long as you use this device i'll talk about the options in a minute but for example if you're getting 256 gigabyte of ssd storage and eight gigs of ram like in this machine then it is what it is and there's no way to buy a larger ssd and put it in or add additional ram later on so you can't replace the existing components and you can't add to them at this point alarm bells are probably going off in your head because you might be feeling locked in and this is more true when it comes to ram than when it comes to internal storage but both should be a consideration so let's take a look at the available options the base configuration for the m1 mac mini is 256 gigabyte ssd and then 8 gigabytes of ram so the first choice you have to make is about internal storage you get to choose between 256 gigs for 699 dollars 512 gigs for 8.99 one terabyte for 1099 or 2 terabytes for 14.99 now you can see that apple tiered their prices here but what's weird is that you actually pay more per gigabyte the more you add when upgrading to 512 we're adding 256 gigabytes for 200 bucks because the base model already comes with 256. so we're paying a dollar 28 per added gigabyte of ssd now going to one terabyte we're adding 744 gigabytes for 400 and that comes to 1.86 per added gigabytes of ssd now finally going to two terabytes where we're adding 1744 gigabytes or 1.744 terabytes that ends up being 2.81 per added gigabyte of ssd and that really surprised me because i would expect that number to go down the more we add so something like my favorite external ssd the samsung t7 this costs 80 bucks for 500 gigabytes now when you go to one terabyte so you're doubling the storage the price goes to 150 bucks and that's obviously a little bit less than twice the cost if you go all the way up to two terabytes you're looking at 250 bucks which is a lot cheaper than four times the price of the 500 gigs now i know we're not comparing apples to apples here see what i did there the internal ssd on the mac mini should give you an even faster read write speed than the already blazingly fast external ssd like the t7 but the question you should be asking is does that difference actually matter for what you do if you ask me in my opinion for the average user the answer is no like are there use cases where i would recommend investing in a lot of internal ssd sure for very specific tasks for very specific users but for the average user who's going to use this to browse the web and do some very light work i would go with 256 and add an external ssd or if you need to install a lot of apps which you will want to install on the internal storage then get to 512 and then again add external storage for files and documents doing quick math you can get six terabytes of t7 storage for less than the 1.74 terabyte of additional storage and that storage is also portable so you can use it on multiple devices so if you have another device like a laptop or an ipad you can access this same data from multiple devices now talking about ram is another story altogether so apple says that the unified ram and the m1 chip creates a single pool of high bandwidth low latency memory which allows the apps to efficiently share data between the cpu gpu and neural engine and unfortunately there is no way to improve this performance after you buy your device if you opt for the baseline 8 gigabytes of ram now the more ram you have the more apps you can run simultaneously and the better they'll perform so if you plan on running a lot of resource intensive apps i can see spending the additional 200 bucks and doubling the ram to 16 gigs this is your only chance to make this upgrades it's not like with the storage where you can just keep adding external drives so if you think you need 16 gigs now or if you might need it in the future just go ahead and add it now before i move on to the next section if you like what you've seen so far and have gotten value from this video go ahead and give it a thumbs up it helps the video and the channel and it lets me know what kind of content you like so that i can make more of it and if it's your first time here go ahead and hit the subscribe and notification buttons to stay up to date on all the latest apple gear and tutorials as far as the performance of the m1 chip you may have already looked at benchmarks or test scores and i'm not going to waste your time with any of them in this video because the average user isn't going to care if you're a video editor or a hardcore gamer you probably already know what you need to know and i'll have dedicated videos for those particular use cases for those who want a little bit more info i'll quickly mention that the apple m1 chip has an 8 core cpu with 4 performance cores designed to handle processing intensive tasks and 4 efficiency cores to handle less demanding tasks while preserving power for the everyday user the m1 chip is very powerful it's more capable than what most people are going to need and it's going to be a good option for years to come i'm working on a super fun comparison between the mac mini and another device let's just leave it at that and if it's published by the time you're watching this video you'll see a link up in the corner and at the end of this video so far i've used the mac mini to consume content work on documents edit photos and even video with the non optimize for silicon premiere pro and this little fellow did great and even though it has an active cooling system inside it's super quiet which is something that i really appreciate with some of my other systems or components you can hear the drive spinning or the fans and it can get a little bit loud now no matter what i threw at the m1 mac mini it stayed super cool and quiet so i think i'm going to name it cool hand luke or or cool hand mac i don't know i haven't decided yet so let me know in the comment section which you like better or if you have a better name again put it in the comments and if i choose it i'll mention you in a future video all right so you've decided that you want a mac mini and before i get to my final thoughts let me quickly discuss a couple of accessories that you're going to need now i have a full accessories video coming very soon so this is just a quick overview of a few of my choices for a keyboard i went with a magic keyboard with numeric keypad in space gray i love how this keyboard looks and i think it fits perfectly with the sleek and minimalistic design of the mac mini for a mouse i opted for the logitech mx master 3 for mac i absolutely love this line of mice from logitech and i've been using them for over 10 years this is the latest model and like the previous models it's extremely comfortable i can control my main workstation the mac mini and my ipad air 4 with one mouse by simply clicking the button on the bottom to toggle and it's designed specifically to match the apple space gray so it's a perfect partner to the magic wireless keyboard for a monitor i'm testing a couple of different options but right now i have it set up with the benq ex 2780q it's a 27 inch 1440p so 2k ips 144hz refresh rate freesync premium hdri monitor and has built-in speakers this could be a great option if you'd rather not add desktop speakers because you're short on space or simply prefer a cleaner design like i said i'll have a dedicated video where i show you all my accessories so if that's something that you're interested in smash that subscribe and notification buttons all right so to sum things up is the 2020 m1 mac mini a device that i think would fit the needs of the average user now and in the future well we're getting a wonderfully compact and streamlined design plenty of input and output ports or i o and a very capable processor unless you need a ton of the absolute fastest internal storage i would look at getting 256 or 512 gigs and then adding external ssd storage i would also recommend upgrading to the 16 gigs of ram if you plan on simultaneously running a lot of resource intensive apps if you're looking for a powerful and compact desktop or want the cheapest way to get into the mac ecosystem if you need a device to use for consuming content for work for school or even to attach to a tv this is definitely an absolutely great option for you if you're looking for a device to be used primarily for gaming or if your plan is to spend less now and then upgrade later then this is not going to be the best fit for you all in all starting at 6.99 i think it represents an excellent value for what you get and i'd love to know what you think so fill out that comment section i'll put links in the description to where you can buy the mac mini as well as some of the accessories that i mentioned in the video and i really hope that i was able to give you a good overview of the m1 mac mini from the perspective of an everyday user if i did please let me know by giving this video a thumbs up tweet it share it and if you haven't yet join the community by hitting the subscribe and notification buttons you can always find me on instagram twitter and facebook at techgear talk you know what i always say buy it nice or buy twice good luck and see you soon you

Channel: Tech Gear Talk

Views: 470,892

Keywords: M1 Mac Mini, M1 Mac Mini Review, M1 Mac Mini Work From Home, M1 Mac Mini WFH, M1 Mac Mini for Students, M1 Mac Mini for School, Should You Buy the M1 Mac Mini, M1 Mac Mini 2020, Mac Mini 2020, Mac Mini 2020 Review, Mac Mini 2020 Good Value, Cheapest Mac 2020, Best Budget Mac, Mac Mini M1 Review, New Mac Mini, Budget Mac

Id: NFde9rsSlJE

Length: 14min 8sec (848 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 21 2020