While I did expect new MacBooks powered by Apple-silicon at the November Apple Event, what I didn’t see coming was a new Mac Mini. In hindsight, the Developer Transition Kit was a Mac Mini powered by an A12Z Bionic, so maybe it was in front of our eyes all along. Regardless, here’s what we know about it:

Performance

The Mac Mini features the new M1 chip, found in both the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13″. It features active cooling, so the M1 might be able to perform better due to the additional thermal headroom v/s passive cooling in the Air. Apple is touting a 3x improvement in CPU performance compared to the previous version (i3-8100B), and a massive 6x improvement in GPU performance compared to the previous version ( ( Iris UHD Graphics 630).

It also features the 16-core neural engine, which gives 15x faster performance in machine-learning based tasks compared to the previous generation processors. Strangely, there is no 10-gigabit ethernet option, which might be a limitation of the I/O die of the new M1 chip.

Pricing

For all the upgrades it brings, the Mac Mini receives a price drop. Starting at just $699, the price and size is unbeatable compared to any other Windows portable PC. The highest configuration can go up to $1,699.

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A post shared by bytecastr (@bytecastr) on Nov 11, 2020 at 6:34am PST

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Last modified: November 11, 2020