00:00 At the start of the year I didn't think this would be the Apple product that I am most
00:03 excited about, but unless they come out with an iCar or some Apple glasses any time soon,
00:07 then I think this is going to take the trophy for me.
00:09 At £599 the Apple Mac Mini M2 is faster and cheaper than its predecessor.
00:15 The new Mac Mini is the first Apple desktop to get upgraded with its M2 chip, and for
00:20 the first time you can choose to upgrade the Mac Mini with an even more powerful version,
00:24 the M2 Pro.
00:26 Our £599 entry-level model packs an M2 chip with an 8-core CPU, a 10-core GPU, and 256GB
00:34 of SSD storage.
00:36 If you want even more power under the hood, you can pay extra for more memory, more storage,
00:41 a faster ethernet port, or the more powerful M2 Pro chip.
00:45 The Mac Mini with the M2 Pro starts at $1,299, making the price of that upgrade roughly $700.
00:54 Of course for that upgraded price you get more than just the upgraded M2 Pro chip.
00:58 You get more memory, more storage, and more ports.
01:01 The design of the new Mac Mini is almost identical to the previous Mac Mini, and that's absolutely
01:06 fine by me.
01:07 At just under £3, the Mac Mini M2 fits easily and discreetly into almost every desk arrangement.
01:15 It looks good too, with rounded corners and a silvery aluminium chassis, sporting a big
01:21 black Apple logo on top.
01:23 Just like its predecessor, the Mac Mini M2 can appear as though it's floating slightly
01:27 above your desk thanks to the elevated base.
01:30 Don't be expecting to open up the case and upgrade the internals yourself though.
01:35 These machines are designed to be serviced by Apple and Apple alone.
01:39 There's a decent array of ports on the back of the M2 Mini, and obviously that gets even
01:45 better when you upgrade to the Mac Mini M2 Pro.
01:48 On the base model you'll get a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, another pair of USB-A ports, an HDMI
01:53 out, an ethernet port, and a 3.5mm audio jack.
01:58 Upgrade to the Mac Mini M2 Pro and you'll get double the Thunderbolt 4 ports.
02:02 You also get improved external display support thanks to the added power of the HDMI 2.1
02:08 port on the M2 Pro version.
02:10 But for true multi-monitor fiends, the Mac Mini with the M2 Pro can support up to three
02:16 external displays via Thunderbolt.
02:19 The entry-level Mac Mini is no slouch in this department either, and it can support up to
02:24 two external displays at up to the same resolutions, 6K via Thunderbolt 4 and 4K via HDMI.
02:32 In my first time using the Mac Mini M2 for work and play, I found it to be more than
02:37 capable of handling just about anything I throw at it.
02:40 I had no trouble flipping between 30+ tabs in Chrome and Safari while listening to music
02:45 and playing a game in windowed mode, and with all of that going on, still being able to
02:49 open an application like Lightroom almost instantaneously.
02:53 I was also surprised at how much fun I had playing games like Metro Exodus and Resident
02:58 Evil Village, which run better than I expected on the upgraded M2 Pro chip.
03:02 The Mac Mini M2 is a capable gaming machine, especially when fully upgraded.
03:08 Although let's face it, if gaming is the main reason that you're looking for a desktop
03:12 machine, then Apple should not be your first choice.
03:15 When we put our review unit to the test using Geekbench 5.4 multi-core CPU benchmark, it
03:21 earned a score of 15,038.
03:24 That's good, and better than what the M1 Pro chip earned when we put the 2021 MacBook Pro
03:29 through its paces.
03:31 Of course, the M2 Pro in our Mac Mini review unit can't keep up with the top tier of Intel's
03:36 latest 13th Gen CPUs.
03:39 I know, because we recently tested the 13th Gen Core i9 CPU in an Origin PC, and it achieved
03:45 a multi-core score of 24,054 in the same Geekbench 5.4 benchmark test.
03:53 Still, the M2 Pro delivers absolutely incredible performance for the Mac Mini.
03:58 Of course, we didn't stop there.
04:00 When we put the Mac Mini M2 SSD to the test, we discovered that it was faster than just
04:05 about any Mac that we've ever tested.
04:08 In the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, the Mac Mini M2 earned a write score of 6,186 and
04:14 a read score of 5,057, which are way better than what we saw from the original 2020 Mac
04:21 Mini M1.
04:22 If you care more about how fast you can crunch through video or launch Adobe apps, I've got
04:26 good news for you.
04:28 The Mac Mini with the M2 Pro is plenty fast enough at both.
04:32 We've timed how fast it took our review unit to transcode a 4K video down to 1080p using
04:37 Handbrake, and it managed the task in a speedy 4 minutes and 26 seconds, and just a bit faster
04:44 than the 2021 MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro chip.
04:49 To evaluate its performance in Adobe's suites of apps, we put a copy of Puget Bend on our
04:54 review unit and let her rip.
04:56 This software is designed to test a PC's performance in the most popular Adobe apps, and the Mac
05:01 Mini M2 put up scores that are pretty beefy for its size.
05:05 Our review unit earned a score of 964 in the Puget Bench Photoshop benchmark and 847 in
05:12 the Premiere Pro benchmark, and that's leagues better than the Mac Mini M1.
05:17 The M2 Pro chip couldn't keep up with the M2 Max chip inside of the 2023 MacBook Pro
05:23 that we tested, but that's to be expected given that the M2 Max is a more powerful chip
05:28 and that the MacBook Pro has double the memory of our Mac Mini M2.
05:32 Finally, let's talk about gaming on the Mac Mini M2.
05:36 The top tier M2 Pro chip that Apple put into our review unit has a 12-core CPU and a 19-core
05:42 GPU, and it's good enough to run many of the latest MacOS compatible games at solid frame
05:48 rates and graphics set to medium or higher.
05:51 Obviously, this machine isn't really built for gaming, but my hands-on testing suggests
05:56 that you can play a lot of the latest Mac compatible games at 1080p or higher on the
06:01 Mac Mini M2, and you can get decent performance from one upgraded and maxed out with the M2
06:07 Pro chip and 16GB of memory.
06:10 When we ran some of our favourite Mac compatible game benchmarks on the Mac Mini M2 with the
06:15 M2 Pro chip, we saw pretty good results that back up my own experience.
06:19 When we ran the Rise of the Tomb Raider graphical benchmark, our review unit managed 53.2fps
06:25 at 1080p resolution, and hit just 8.7fps at the Studio Display's native 5K resolution.
06:33 While these scores pale in comparison to the best gaming PCs, they're quite good for a
06:37 desktop Mac, and prove that the Mac Mini M2 is more than capable of playing the best Mac
06:42 games, especially when fully upgraded.
06:45 After spending some time with the Mac Mini M2, it's not hard to recommend.
06:50 The base model is faster and cheaper than its predecessor, making it the de facto best
06:54 choice for anyone in the market for a pint-sized Mac desktop.
06:57 Plus, the option to upgrade it with the M2 Pro chip is a welcome one, that can turn this
07:03 PC into a half-decent gaming machine.
07:05 Sure, it can't compete with the best gaming PCs on the market, but it's far cheaper, smaller,
07:11 and quieter than they are.
07:12 And really, the biggest limitation of the Mac Mini M2's gaming potential isn't the hardware
07:17 itself, but the lack of official MacOS support for many of the best games.
07:22 While you can get better raw performance out of a Mac desktop if you splurge for a Mac
07:26 Studio with an M1 Ultra or old-fashioned MacBook Pro, both of those options will cost you several
07:33 thousand dollars more than a fully upgraded Mac Mini with an M2 Pro chip.
07:37 They're great PCs for those that need and can afford them, but for the vast majority
07:41 of us, the new Mac Mini M2 seems like a solid deal that delivers power and versatility at
07:47 a fantastic price.
07:49 Let me know in the comments below what you think of Apple's latest Mac Mini with the
07:53 M2 chip, and while you're down there, make sure you subscribe to Tom's Guide here on
07:56 YouTube, and I'll see you on the next one.
07:58 [outro]
08:00 (whooshing)
08:02 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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