Yesterday, Apple announced the new M1 chip for the Mac, its start for replacing Intel in its lineup and as well as making its way into the MacBook Air, it is now also in the 2020 Mac mini. We haven’t seen any update for the Mac mini since it was refreshed back in 2018 and the move to Apple Silicon is most likely why.
The Mac mini is very popular for use in small deployments, in home theatre situations and for data centres since it is headless. The new Mac mini now only comes in silver if you are getting the M1 version, as Apple has left a higher spec Intel model in the lineup which comes in Space Grey.
With the addition of the M1 chip, the new Mac mini is up to 60% more energy efficient than the outgoing model and with the new chip we have an 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU like in the latest MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13-inch. The specs are similar to the laptops too, with the option of 8GB or 16GB of RAM andapto 2TB SSD storage.
In terms of ports on the back, we have two USB-C ports which now support the USB 4 standard as well as Thunderbolt 4, two USB-A ports, ethernet and one headphone jack. Notably, the option for 10 gigabit ethernet is no longer an option, unless you go for the slower Intel model.
Orders for the new Mac mini are being taken as of yesterday and prices start at £699 in the UK and $699 in the US, which is £100/$100 less than the outgoing model.
