On top of announcing the new MacBook Pro 14 and MacBook Pro 16, Apple also revealed a brand new Mac Mini. However, unlike the last generation Mac Mini, the new tiny computer is now available in both the vanilla M2 processor as well as the more powerful M2 Pro too.
At first glance, the Mac Mini does indeed look exactly the same as 2020’s M1 Mac Mini, with the same silver body that measures 19.7cm wide, though this time it’s ever so slightly shorter at 3.58cm compared to the previous 3.6cm. Under the hood though, you’re able to choose between the M2 chip, which has 8 CPU cores and a 10-core GPU, or the M2 Pro, which packs up to 12 CPU cores, up to a 19-core GPU and has twice the memory bandwidth of the M2.
The M2 of course is already in the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro 13, and with the new M2 Mac Mini, Apple says that you can expect up to 50% faster filter and function performance in Adobe Photoshop, up to 2.4 times the performance for ProRes transcode in Final Cut Pro and up to 35% faster gameplay in Resident Evil Village. Meanwhile, with an M2 Pro, performance jumps even higher with up to 4.2 times the performance for ProRes transcode in Final Cut Pro and overall performance being 14 times faster compared to the fastest Intel Mac Mini.
Furthermore, while the old M1 Mac Mini was limited to just 16GB of RAM, with the M2 Mac Mini you’re able to put up to 24GB of memory on your mini computer, and on ones with an M2 Pro in it you can get up to 32GB of memory. As for storage, the vanilla M2 Mac Mini starts at 256GB of SSD storage and tops out at 2TB, while the M2 Pro versions start at 512GB with up to 8TB of storage possible.
Display output has also been improved. While the M1 Mac Mini only supported up to two displays at a time, with the M2 Pro, you could technically get up to three displays output at the same time, or one 8K display instead. Other improvements include better wireless connectivity with WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 now, up from WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 on the M1 Mac Mini.
There’s better I/O too, albeit only if you get the M2 Pro Mac Mini; you get a gigabit Ethernet port, a HDMI port, two USB-A ports and two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports on the regular M2 Mac Mini, while the more powerful one gets four Thunderbolt 4 ports instead. You can also upgrade the gigabit Ethernet port to a 10Gb Ethernet port for RM400 more. Elsewhere, things are mostly the same, with a built-in speaker, a 3.5mm audio jack (now with support for high-impedance headphones) and support for FaceTime video and audio calls too.
There’s no details yet as to when the new Mac Mini will be available in Malaysia, but in the meantime we do already know how much they’ll cost. The Apple Mac Mini is now actually cheaper than before, with the base model Mac Mini with an M2 processor, 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage coming in at just RM2,499, cheaper than the RM2,999 price tag that the M1-powered Mac Mini went for. If you want a little bit more power, you can also consider the M2 Pro-powered Mac Mini instead, which starts at RM5,599 with 16GB of memory and a 512GB SSD.
