New Mac mini leak suggests rumors were right: Apple’s revamped PC is smaller, has M4 and M4 Pro CPUs – and there’s a welcome surprise when it comes to memory
Apple’s Mac mini with M4 processor could well be revealed later today – or perhaps tomorrow – but Amazon has already spilled the details on the revamped compact PC.
MacRumors picked up on Amazon US accidentally listing the Mac mini M4, showing that just as rumored, it will come with a choice of the M4 and M4 Pro CPUs – with the top-end chip offering 14-cores (paired with a 20-core GPU).
Notably, rather than a maximum of 32GB of RAM as is the case with the Mac mini currently, the M4 spin on the PC can be loaded up with 64GB – assuming these product details are on the money in all these respects, of course.
Storage, however, will remain the same with the new Mac Mini, with a top capacity of 8TB for those who need plenty of drive space.
Accompanying the spec details is a tiny picture and as MacRumors notes, it’s very blurry, but appears to confirm that there will be two USB-C ports on the front of the device. If the rumors are right, those could be complemented by three USB-C connectors on the rear for some models, with a grand total of five ports in theory.
Another major thread from the rumor mill regarding the Mac mini M4 is that the new model will be a good deal more portable than the current offering, and based on the comparative pics shown by Amazon, this appears to be the case. The Mac mini is apparently set to be silver only, with no other color options.
There’s also what looks like it might just be a headphone jack on the front of the PC, though it’s difficult to make it out exactly (and could just be a power button, or indicator, even).
Analysis: Mac mini in the middle?
Yesterday saw the big reveal of the iMac 24-inch (and some controversy around the Magic Mouse that’ll be bundled with the all-in-one), as the first of Apple’s M4 Macs for this week of announcements we’ve already been primed for.
As we observed yesterday, we reckon the MacBook Pro M4 was either coming first, or being saved for last, and so given that the iMac was pushed out initially, we’re expecting the laptop tomorrow – therefore the Mac mini today. Amazon pulling the trigger a day early on the product details makes sense in this light, too, in that the new Mac mini is literally about to be launched – all in theory of course.
We don’t know that for sure, and neither can we take the specs aired for granted either – though it seems unlikely a retailer with the clout of Amazon would get things wrong.
It seems the rumors about the Mac mini M4 were pretty much bang on, at any rate, and most of this is speculation we’ve already heard, save for the upping of the RAM to 64GB (and the apparent confirmation of the top-end CPU configuration). It seems a beefy and potent – yet nicely compact – computer is about to arrive, and the Mac mini M4 is a product a lot of folks are looking forward to.