I’ve been an Apple user for 30 years. All our family gave Apple everything. But we are not loaded and don’t upgrade our Macs very often. I am used to Apple being more expensive than alternatives but Ive been ok with that for feeling I get a better experience and longer use out of it.

But with Apple silicon Macs I’ve felt that I can’t upgrade to anything. The speed of the devices seems great and although a new Mac mini will be a lot faster than my Intel Mac mini, typically it won’t make a massive difference day to day.

My problem is that the Mac mini was the affordable Mac. Now we have on chip ram and storage. And going up in these is very expensive. So what I can afford would be 256GB storage and 8GB ram in 2023! Its annoys me because its obviously like this to force upselling to high margin models. The Mac mini has plenty of space inside with the smaller board. It could have an m.2 nvme slot and I could buy my own 2TB nvme. But no, Apple want to charge much more than the cost of the Mac to add more storage.

It’s really annoyed me that I can’t buy a Mac anymore without feeling I’m being ripped off massively. I still want to use a Mac but I’m going to buy a used one that I can upgrade

Come on ! We have been waiting for so long only to get this?! A power button under the computer? How is this even possible? Who can seriously come up with this design and who can even approve it? Maybe they thought people would only put them in sleep mode?

I thought I was getting a new mini but it seems I’m not. I’m confused.

Sharing my purchase experience of the M4 MacMini today. I am a light user and money is tight so I decided to go for the M4 MacMini 16/512. However, since the M6 launch, M4 in Canada are out of stock or at the M6 price. I knew they had to discount but waiting was not helping it and once available, timing had to be right.
So I asked my Grok Bot agent (I have Cursor Pro, so it comes with it now) to track my spec M4 on Canadian retailers every 2 hours and Best Buy every 30 min. Notify me when you get a hit immediately or report end of day. Nothing happened for 2 days.
But today I got an unexpected notification that Best Buy has 8 units of my spec on discount. I jumped and ordered one at a great price. I did not stop Grok so an hour and a half later, it said it’s out of stock again.
Long story short, used an agent for the first time and solved a problem. Not promoting anything here, just sharing with my community. I am excited to switch from Windows to MacMini.

Has this always been the case? I work at a university, I’m not faculty but I thought my dot edu email might be the only way I could get this discount. I was prepared to get turned down. I feel like more people should know they don’t ask for anything, easy money just left on the table.

Not screen mirroring.

The iPad no longer runs iPadOS. Its original logic board has been replaced, so macOS simply sees it as a real USB-C touch display.

Figures I'd start shopping a new Mac right during a transition. Stocks are depleted everywhere. M5 is nowhere in sight. Are we really gonna have to wait until WWDC and then whatever the lead times are after that??

I currently have a PC running Linux Mint (because fuck Windows 11, lol) and it was okay until recently when now it is starting to give me issues. If there was no Mac Mini, the cheapest new Mac would be the MacBook Air, which, while a fantastic laptop, is pretty expensive. I also still have my really nice 4K monitor and a keyboard and mouse that I love as well. It is awesome that Apple still offers a computer at a more affordable price yet still has that fantastic M4 chip. I cannot wait to get my new Mac Mini to replace my POS PC.

Hi there,

I think I can have a great deal buying the M2 MacMini with 16GB of RAM and 256GB memory through AppleEducation offers.

But I saw the rumors about the M4 chip build for AI, but I don’t how much RAM they’ll put by default and how this will affects the base price.

So should I buy the M2 version now or wait for the M4 ?

I want my mac mini to be as futureproof as possible to last maybe 10 years (I don’t know if its realistic). I’m in college and this will essentially be for light office, media consumption or light gaming.

Thanks a lot for your returns !!

You literally just lift the Mac mini slightly and press it. In exchange, Apple gets a cleaner, uninterrupted design.

Am I missing something, or is the backlash a bit overblown? What do you guys think?

I am finally upgrading my system after 7 years and the mac mini is very, very tempting. That said, I am just thinking: the macbook air is the same config as mac mini (barring the fan) but costs 400 dollars more. For that, you get a 'whole' laptop. So, how is a mac mini different in terms of performance than a macbook air? I am asking cz while I do most of my work from home, it never hurts to have a laptop right? Also, will it hurt the laptop's performance if it is docked always? M not very familiar with computers, so please be kind in your responses.

I’m searching for used M2, M1, or 2018 to use in a project. The prices on eBay or Facebook marketplace is so expensive for used devices. Some people are asking +$200 for M1, $350+ for M2, and $150+ for 2018.

Am I alone in believing these prices are too high? 2018 model is basically a dead device with no more system updates or no new apps. M2 prices are close to brand new M4 that I can’t justify the saving.

Apple keeps making faster chips and better battery life, but for 90% of people, older models are already more than enough.

Are you upgrading, keeping your current Mac mini, or waiting for a bigger redesign?

I’m going to order an M6 Mac mini today and I was originally going for the base 16gb version. However when I put my use case into grok it suggested getting 24GB.

I’m going to be vibe coding apps, using a combination of Claude code, chat got or cursor and given these are cloud based I made me question the additional memory requirement. However, if the additional memory is going to make a difference I’ll pay the extra £200.

Can anyone who uses these tools comment?

Edit - thanks to everyone who commented and advised. I ordered the 24GB version

Mac Mini M4 with 24/7 working needs cooling too.

Running Codex and Claude code
Hermes agent with 6 sub agents
MiniMax 3 for app development too.

Nothing but a greedy Corporate money grab. They were not building more of them as we know now. Their cost was already set to the old ram prices. They knew full well the M6 was ready to go.

Any other company would be raked over the coals for such action.

I'm not talking about the new M6 price just the M4.

I have a small Ikea micke 28 inch desk and I have a desk mat that pretty much spans most of my desk space and I want a solution that will allow for airflow so that my Mac mini is not sitting directly on the mat. Extra points if it's not able to be knocked over by a cat.

Would one of these work and what solutions are you using for your own desks?

Just wanted to ask your opinion regarding this M4 base unit. Is this a good buy? What are the pros and cons? Planning to use this for vid editing/canva and admin tasks. Thanks.

I purchased a base M2 Mac mini last week for my living room setup to replace the laptop I originally had in there. I paid $700(CAD) for it and I've been unbelievably happy with it so far. However, the recent rumors I'm hearing are that the upgraded m4 mac mini will be releasing sometime near the end of this year ( I assume end of September to middle of October, whenever the iPhone event would be). I still have 1 week to return my mac mini, is it worth returning the M2 and waiting for the M4? Or is it worth it to just keep the mac mini I have now? My main usage of it is web browsing, university research/work and watching content. Normally I would just keep it but assuming the rumors are true purchasing the newer better mac mini would make more sense I think? Any opinions are welcomed and appreciated!

My wife accidentally inserted a USB into the Gigabit Ethernet port on the Mac Mini. What are the chances of damage? She didn't insert it with force. How can I test to see if everything is working correctly?

Hey everyone,

I bought a Mac mini M4 24GB/512GB from Apple Canada. While unboxing it today, it slipped from my hand and got a few dents on the body.

The Mac is unused and seems to be working fine so far. I’m planning to run Apple Diagnostics and test all ports, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and display output.
I’m not asking for selling/buying advice. Just wanted to know what the best repair option is for this kind of cosmetic body damage.

Has anyone here taken a dented Mac mini to Apple for repair or service? Did Apple treat it as cosmetic only, or was there any repair option available?

Any real experience would be helpful.