Apple is finally updating its Mac mini. It’s the first time the Mac mini has been updated since the end of 2014, and this is a major update. Apple is adding a quad-core 8th Gen Intel processor instead of the 4th Gen Intel Core i5 dual-core processor that shipped in the device four years ago. There’s even an option for six-core Intel Core i7 versions, too. The new Mac mini includes support for up to 64GB of RAM, and every model has flash storage with up to 2TB of space. That’s a big change from the regular hard drives that shipped on most of the 2014 Mac mini models. Apple is also including its new T2 security chip on the new Mac mini, and updating the range of ports to modernize this Mac for 2018. There are four USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports, HDMI, Ethernet, and two USB-A ports on the rear. Grid View Image: Apple Image: Apple Image: Apple Image: Apple Image: Apple Image: Apple Image: Apple Apple has totally overhauled the Mac mini here, but externally, it still looks similar to the model from four years ago. Apple is offering a new space gray finish on the outside, and the company is even using 100 percent recycled aluminum for the enclosure. Apple’s new Mac mini will be available on November 7th for $799. The base model will include a quad-core Intel Core i3 processor, 8GB RAM, and 128GB of SSD storage. You’ll be able to configure this tiny Mac up to 64GB of RAM, a 4.2GHz six-core Intel Core i7 processor, 2TB SSD, and 10Gb Ethernet port.<doc-sep>You asked for it and you got it, now let's see if you buy it. The new Mac mini is a fine machine but it's time to find out whether its fans are numerous or just disproportionately loud versus the market it is aimed at. It may have taken Apple 1,475 days to update the Mac mini, but now it has. The new machine is what you would get if you took nearly every wish of the "professional" Mac mini fan in the world and wrapped it all up in space gray plus 100 percent recycled aluminum. Only, the Mac mini is a stubborn little computer. You can tell us that before this update, the old Mac mini was being trounced by even cheap Windows machines and we wouldn't disagree. It's been beaten by everything else going and yet people who buy Mac minis hang on to them for an extraordinarily long time. That is a sign that the Mac mini is a very good product. People also talk about it a lot, which would be another sign but for the chatter is always about how it needs to be improved, or Apple is doomed, or Steve Jobs would never have allowed such a thing — the latter two being utter nonsense. Our first thought when Tim Cook made reference to a "small but mighty computer our users are waiting for" was obviously that this was the Mac mini. Yet our second thought, before the first was really finished, was that maybe this would put an end to complaints about Apple abandoning markets. It should be the end of the conversation, but it isn't. With this one announcement, Apple should have both quietened Mac mini fans and those who think the company is abandoning professional users in favor of consumers. That's it, job done — but somehow you just know that the best it's going to do is give Apple a tiny respite. Seriously, though, we should be done with all of this. For years we've heard that the Mac mini needs to be faster, it needs to have more RAM, it must have more storage, and it's got to stay cheap. We've been hearing that since the shift to Intel in the Mac mini and we've been hearing that Apple doesn't care about this machine's users before then. Sometimes the argument is specifically that Apple is only interested in consumers because it won't make a more powerful Mac mini. Other times the argument is specifically that Apple doesn't care about consumers or it would make a better Mac mini. We've yet to hear both arguments simultaneously but it's come very close and we may just have glazed over before it reached that far. Take the argument about abandoning professional users. Before the October 30 event, a Mac mini would've cost you $499 and you've have got a 1.4GHz machine with 4GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive. Since the event, you do start out at $799 but you get a quad-core Intel i3 3.6GHz machine with 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD storage. That's not including the fact that the new Mac mini comes with Thunderbolt 3 USB-C connectors alongside HDMI 2.0, Ethernet, USB 3 and a headphone jack. It's not touching the fact that you can upgrade to a six-core Intel i7 processor running at 3.2GHz with 64GB RAM and 2TB SSD plus 10 Gigabit Ethernet. That'll cost you — if you want to max out the Mac mini you'll have to pay $4,199 — but you can do it. This new Mac mini is unequivocally a professional tool. Now take the argument that Apple is abandoning consumers. You can't usually have things both ways but this time the answer is precisely the same. This new Mac mini with its base configuration is a consumer tool. Define pro Maybe this is a perfect illustration of why the terms pro and consumer don't matter or at least are not mutually exclusive. This one Mac isn't designed for the entire range of users but a consumer who buys today is not going to have to throw it away tomorrow when they become pro users. You're a pro user if you need or want a fast machine to make money with, and are willing to pay for it. If that's you then you're also likely to want to protect that investment by being able to upgrade the machine later. We're not saying that to then claim it's unreasonable: we're saying it to point out that, hello, the Mac mini is upgradeable. Specifically, the RAM is. Apple says the RAM in the new Mac mini is socketed SO-DIMM and that means that within limits, you will be able to buy more memory at any time. It has to be compatible and it can't exceed the Mac mini's 64GB ceiling, but it doesn't have to be from Apple and that is always a rather gigantic savings. True, you're stuck with the storage that you buy when you order and it's not possible to put a greater capacity or faster drive later. Yet this Mac mini doesn't come with old-style SATA storage running at 550 MB/sec. This is at least four times faster in theory and in our experience, SSDs like this are in practice six times faster. Then, too, you are also stuck with the processor that chose at time of order. You won't get any disagreement about that from us. Except that hoping to swap out the processor when the entire machine is designed around that from technical, electrical and thermodynamics seems less professional and more like tinkering for the sake of it. And, nearly nobody does it. Nearly nobody has ever done it, and Apple hasn't given explicit ability to do so since well before the second coming of Jobs. If you find yourself needing a faster processor in a couple of years, buy the version of the Mac mini that Apple sells then, since either you've already made your money back from a professional standpoint, or your cost of ownership is less than a dollar a day. Pros and cons Last year we got the iMac Pro. This year we've got the Mac mini, a pro machine in all but name. Some time in 2019 we'll get the Mac Pro. Also this year, we got a 12.9 inch iPad Pro with 1TB storage and which under the right circumstances can drive a 5K external monitor. It's also got an Apple A12X Bionic chip which the company claims "makes iPad Pro faster than most PC laptops." Alongside all of these professional tools there are consumer ones to match. There is the basic iPad from $329, there is the iPhone XR from $749, and there is this new Mac mini from $799. Insofar as it ever has and probably ever will, Apple is addressing both the consumer and the professional market. Or as we'd rather see it, the casual user and the heavy-duty one. So let us please just abandon the complaints that Apple is not serving this market or that and instead concentrate on the far more important issues facing us all, such as why there wasn't an iMac update at this October 30 event.<doc-sep>Valentina Palladino Valentina Palladino Valentina Palladino Valentina Palladino Valentina Palladino Valentina Palladino Valentina Palladino Valentina Palladino NEW YORK—Apple led today's event by talking about two of its most-loved devices: the MacBook Air and the Mac mini. While Apple customers may have loved these devices since their debuts, Apple hasn't shown them much love over the past couple of years. That changed today with the introduction of the new MacBook Air (which includes updates like a Retina display, Touch ID, and Apple's butterfly keyboard) and a new Mac mini (which got a big spec bump with quad- and hexa-core processors). Today's event brought the biggest hardware changes that both devices have seen in a long time, and yet they still have a lot in common with their predecessors—and that's a good thing. A sleeker MacBook Air The MacBook Air began showing its age long before the 12-inch MacBook and the new MacBook Pros entered Apple's laptop lineup. But the stale, circa-2010 design is almost gone now (keyword almost), as the new MacBook Air takes notes from its more expensive siblings. It's still a sleek, all-metal notebook that's 10 percent thinner than the old model and weighs just 2.75 pounds. The Air is noticeably heavier than the 12-inch MacBook (2.06 pounds), but I appreciated the weight of it when I picked it up. Despite the various ways Apple managed to shrink the device, it still felt like a MacBook Air in my hands. Its tapered profile, with the widest point at the back, feels familiar and sturdy, and now the device is made of 100-percent recycled aluminum. Apple also added new colors to the lineup and will offer the MacBook Air in silver, space gray, and gold. Gone are the wide, metal bezels around the 13.3-inch display, as they've been replaced by the glossy black bezels we're accustomed to seeing around new MacBook displays. But the fact that the new MacBook Air has a Retina display will be enough to make fans swoon. The 2560×1600 display is a huge upgrade from the old Air's 1440×900 display, and it's about time that Apple included it on this laptop. The old Air was the final Retina holdout after the high-quality screen already made it onto the 12-inch MacBook and the MacBook Pros. Advertisement Apple opted not to put its full Touch Bar on the new MacBook Air, but instead it carved out the Touch ID fingerprint reader and stuck it on the top-right corner of the keyboard. You won't find Face ID on this device (it's still sequestered to iPhones and iPads), but including Touch ID brings a much-loved feature to a much-loved laptop. The device is also more secure thanks to the inclusion of Apple's T2 security chip. Apple made the right call by forgoing the Touch Bar, because including that OLED strip would have added to the price of the device, and it may have had a negative effect on battery life. There are also some users who simply don't want or need the Touch Bar, so keeping the new MacBook Air simple will likely speak to those users. The keyboard and trackpad area looks similar to its counterpart on the 12-inch MacBook: there's little space between the bottom keys and the enormous force touch trackpad, and the keyboard uses Apple's butterfly mechanism. That may scare off some users since butterfly keys have had problems in the past and have been known to be polarizing. But Apple clearly hasn't been deterred by the naysayers: it has put butterfly keys on the 12-inch MacBook and the MacBook Pros. It was only a matter of time before Apple retired the MacBook Air's chiclet keys and brought in the butterfly switches. The speakers still sit on either side of the keys, but Apple promises they'll be 25-percent louder than those on the old Air. The new MacBook Air's hardware looks more streamlined than that on the old Air, but it's not as dramatic as that of the 12-inch MacBook. The former device was never for me, particularly because I felt like it would shatter (or, at the very least, be severely damaged) if I were to drop it, and because I don't like the look of the cramped keyboard-and-trackpad area. The new MacBook Air seems to marry the most crucial parts of the 12-inch MacBook's design (butterfly keyboard, huge trackpad) with a chassis setup that will feel familiar to MacBook Air lovers. Valentina Palladino Valentina Palladino Valentina Palladino Valentina Palladino Valentina Palladino In addition to the butterfly keys, the new MacBook Air's port situation may turn bothersome. It has two Thunderbolt 3 ports on its left edge and a headphone jack on the right edge. It's slightly too thin to fit a USB-A port, which is a bummer, and it means that Mac users will continue to live the dongle life for the foreseeable future. I also wish Apple put one Thunderbolt 3 port on either side of the device—being able to charge up or connect to peripherals from both sides of a laptop is useful, particularly when you're in a tight space. Advertisement Let's recap the new MacBook Air's specs: it'll run on 8th-gen Intel Core i5 CPUs and support up to 16GB of RAM and 1.5TB of storage. While we're disappointed that there's no Core i7 option, those specs are significantly improved from the old Air (it was lagging on a 5th-gen Core i5 chip). Apple claims the new MacBook Air will last 12 hours on a single charge. A stronger Mac mini The last time Apple talked about the Mac mini on stage was in 2014, and some did not like what the company had to say. Apple got rid of the four-core CPU option for the Mac mini at that time, and the device became harder to upgrade. While we can't speak to the new Mac mini's upgradability, Apple rectified the device's performance problems by including quad- and hexa-core Intel CPU options, as well as support for up to 64GB of RAM and 2TB of storage. Along with the addition of the T2 security chip, the new Mac mini has an array of ports on its back edge: four Thunderbolt 3 ports, two USB-A ports, an Ethernet port that can be configured to support 10Gb speeds, an HDMI port, and a headphone jack. All of the Mac mini's significant changes lie within the device itself. The outer shell doesn't look much different from the previous model, aside from the fact that it now comes in space gray. It takes up a small 7.7×7.7-inch footprint on a desk, and you can stack them on top of or next to one another if you need the power of more than one Mac mini at once. The Mac mini's small frame remains one of the best things about it, because it saves space on users' desks while also providing a decent amount of power. We're eager to get our hands on one to test out the new internals and see just how well the new Mac mini stands up to the newest competing desktop PCs. The new MacBook Air starts at $1,199, and the new Mac mini starts at $799. Both are available to order today, and devices should arrive on November 7. Check back for Ars' full reviews of both devices in the coming weeks. Listing image by Valentina Palladino<doc-sep>
It's been four years since Apple last updated its Mac mini, but the company apparently heard calls to refresh the beloved headless Mac and on Tuesday delivered a machine worth waiting for. The mini was unveiled during Apple's recent media event on Oct. 30. In its marketing materials Apple seems to be positioning its diminutive Mac at professional users, showing off rendering farms with hundreds of Mac minis working together, touting its capabilities as a server and even illustrating how well the machine can handle live music gigs. But how will the new Mac mini benefit the average user? Simply put, it's the cheapest way to get a Mac outside of buying one used. Just bring a mouse, keyboard and display, and you've got a full-fledged Mac that packs some serious power. For 2018, Mac mini ditches the raw aluminum look for a Space Gray finish. On the back are a variety of ports, including HDMI 2.0, two USB 3 ports, four Thunderbolt 3 ports, a headphone jack and — for an extra $100 — a 10-gigabit ethernet port. With the Thunderbolt 3 ports, users can transfer data at blazing fast speeds, connect an eGPU or even run up to two 4K displays. Mac mini sports a wide array of ports. Like the rest of Apple's recent Macs, the Mac mini comes with a T2 security chip, which handles different system functions including automatic storage encryption. The machine sports SSDs with up to 3.4GHz sequential read speeds, and users can configure their mini with up to 2TB of storage. This year's machine gets the same base 8GB of RAM that was offered with the 2014 model, except the memory is now much faster. The Intel processor powering the desktop can address up to 64GB of RAM, which users can configure at purchase or add on later. A new cooling system doubles the airflow, allowing the machine to run at a maximum sustained power that is 70 percent higher than before. The improved cooling system, and four years of advancements in the chipmaking industry, equate to massive performance gains. According to Geekbench 4 scores, the standard 4-core CPU nears the performance of the 2017 5K iMac's base processor. Mac mini benchmarks based on previous i3-8100 tests. Compared to the previous Mac mini, Apple claims the 2018 model boasts 60 percent faster integrated graphics and a five fold boost to overall system performance. Those numbers are based on a Mac mini with a 3.2GHz 6-core 12-thread Core i7 processor that turbo-boosts up to 4.6GHz. The base $799 model gets buyers a 3.6Ghz quad-core Core i3, which interestingly lacks support for Turbo Boost and Hyperthreading. A 6-core processor with those options is available as a $300 upgrade. The entry level mini comes with 128GB of storage, with an options to upgrade to 256GB for $200. A step-up model includes a 6-core processor and 256GB of storage, but that chip also lacks Hyperthreading. Overall, the Mac mini is the cheapest way to get a Mac, and this year performance is up there with the rest of Apple's lineup.