The eyes of the world may be on the MacBook when it comes to Apple computers, but the firm’s lineup of Mac Minis is well worth considering too – given they offer the same performance and the same software for far less money. In fact, these machines can even outgun Apple’s (still on sale) Mac Pro from just a few years back, making them an incredible value. Today, for instance, you can pick up the M2 Mac Mini for just £585, a historic low price and less than half what you’d pay for a similarly-equipped MacBook Air.
The headline feature here is that new Apple Silicon M2 processor, which features eight CPU cores and 10 GPU cores, making it a powerful chip for video editing, web browsing and other creative endeavours. The M2 may only be more of an incremental upgrade on the older M1, but that chip was such a relevalation in terms of its performance that you’ll be hard pressed to find a more powerful computer for the asking price.
For such a small computer, this connectivity, both in terms of physical ports and wireless, is exemplary. There’s everything from a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports to HDMI out and a pair of full-size USB-A, with gigabit ethernet and Wi-Fi 6E for networking. This allows you to take full advantage of fibre broadband, and with those Thunderbolt ports you can even add in up to 10-gig ethernet via an adapter if you need truly rapid access to storage or other machines on your local network.
The inclusion of 8GB of RAM is certainly enough for typical workloads, and while we’d recommend 16GB for Windows computers, the efficiency of Apple’s M2 processor and the macOS operating system mean that only really 8K video editing is likely to be a step too far for this configuration – not something that the vast majority of people considering a cut-price Mac will really need to do. This spec M2 Mac Mini also comes with a 256GB SSD, which is sufficient for your programs but we’d recommend getting a fast portable SSD or other external or network-attached storage if you’ll be doing video editing or storing large media libraries.
For £585, it’s hard to ignore the excellent value for money on offer with this Amazon deal on an M2-powered Mac Mini. If you were thinking of investing in an iMac, you’d be better off grabbing this newer Mac Mini and spending the extra on a quality monitor, or if you want to get into the macOS ecosystem with a more affordable choice, then this deal is for you.
