New Mac Mini Reviews: A Good But No Longer 'Insanely Great' Deal
The first reviews of the new Mac mini with M6 and M5 Pro chip options have been published ahead of the computer launching this Tuesday.
While the Mac mini now starts at $899 in the U.S., up from just $599 for the previous model when it first launched, WIRED's Luke Larsen said it is "still a good deal" because of the impressive performance of the M6 and M5 Pro chip options. To borrow a famous Steve Jobs phrase, it just might not be such an "insanely great" deal anymore.
This is the gist of most Mac mini reviews published today: the new model is extremely capable, including for AI, but the $300 price increase is unfortunate. Apple said it has raised prices on many products due to the ongoing memory chip shortage, with the company passing on the skyrocketing prices of RAM and storage chips to customers.
Here are some other Mac mini reviews: Tom's Guide, CNET, Engadget, 9to5Mac, and Six Colors.
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The first unverified benchmark result for Apple's new M6 chip surfaced in the Geekbench 7 database today, offering a look at the chip's performance gains. The new Mac mini will be Apple's first device to be equipped with the M6 chip, which is 2nm.
Here is how the M6 chip scored:
Single-core CPU score: 4,071
Multi-core CPU score: 22,783
Here are the average M5 chip scores for...
As confirmed by the website "Expand Mac mini," NAND storage in the new Mac mini models with the M6 and M5 Pro chips is soldered to the logic board, whereas the previous models with the M4 and M4 Pro chips have removable storage that can be upgraded.
In other words, the new Mac mini does not support aftermarket storage upgrades.
"Expand Mac mini" offers plug-and-play SSD modules that are...
Last month, Apple announced new Mac mini and Mac Studio models, and the computers are finally set to launch this Tuesday, September 22.
The new Mac mini is available with M6 and M5 Pro chip options, while the new Mac Studio can be configured with M5 Max or M5 Ultra chips.
There are no major design changes, with both computers receiving spec bumps only.
To learn more, read our previous...
