Originally Posted by justanoldmuso
so ive got a further deeper look at the mac m4 mini
at a tech store. did a special trip...lol.

while its a beast with a great processor...
some things troubled me...

1..i thought the boot from cold to desktop (after switching on power) would be faster. my new mini pc takes only a few secs.
talking of switches...
2..the power is on the underside of the mini !...huh ??
so one has to get ones finger underneath.
no biggie...but..why ? if its a case of small form factor my mini pc is small
but has the power switch on the side.
why not make the mini a tad bigger and put the power button so its easily accessible ??
3..the limited ports really troubled me. many mini pc's these days have a generous number of usb and other ports.
eg the geekom i linked to upthread and other mini pc's.
4..also troubling is the unified memory.
i really wish they would allow the ability to use third party memory...twould help musos who havent got a lot of money.
also my concern is producers who use a ton of instrument plugins which might consume lots of resources that need more memory than the basic amount.
5..i also wish like some mini pc's there was more internal expansion.
for example now some mini pc's allow a couple of internal m.2 ssd's or even more storage.

dont get me wrong...the mac mini is very very impressive.
im just troubled re the above points compared to various mini pc powerhouses.
(see the net for further info and competitive comparisons.)

i cant wait to see what further mini generations might be...assuming such come to market. exciting times.


om
My Mac Mini M4 takes around 17 seconds to boot to login. Enter password to ready screen takes another 5-6 seconds
The power switch does not bother me none the thing fits in my hand
As far as ports go I have a USB expansion connected to one of my USB which leaves me 4 extra ports on my mini.
Yes memory upgrades are really out of the question with this little machine. What I did the first thing was use an external SSD to store all of my sound library's.
Apple charges a ton for more memory and storage so them are things you have to consider.
The Mac Mini M4 is a bargain considering how powerful this thing is. This machine really cooks and smokes my PC I also use has a AMD Rysen 7 with 8 core 3.59 Ghz processor with 32gb ram.
I do not do video editing like Mike does which can really put a load on a machine. But it certainly can handle any audio tracks loaded with plugins and instruments I can throw at it. I personally do not need anything more than this for my use with music.

BIAB 2025 Ultrapack- Studio One Pro 7 Windows 11, Mac Mini M4 with Logic Pro 11, Melodyne Studio