[bsg75]

I will go a step further and state that they appear to top out at 32GB which is asinine. These are not manilla envelope laptops, but semi-compact bricks where the form factor in other brands can commonly take 64GB or more.

Its sad for me that my initial reaction to this is where previously a corp Windows laptop was for email and MS Office, and the Mac was for "actual work", now Mac's are headed to the "email and Office" role, and a halfway decent machine running Linux is where "real work" happens.

[coob]

I'm sure Apple would point you in the direction of a Mac Studio instead…

[trynewideas]

That's kind of a problem, too.

A top-spec M2 Pro Mini on CPU and RAM (12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 32GB unified RAM) is $1,999.

A bottom-spec M1 Max Mac Studio (10-core CPU, 24-core GPU, 32GB unified RAM) is $1,999.

Since the low-end Studio has 10Gb Ethernet and four Thunderbolt ports at the same price, and neither has upgradable RAM, there's no reason to buy the high-end Mini.

[aclatuts]

The mac mini is less than half the size which may be important in some cases.

[coder543]

> and four Thunderbolt ports

The Mac mini with M2 Pro includes four Thunderbolt ports too, just FYI.

[trynewideas]

I know — the only thing a new M2 mini might've theoretically brought is going all-in on Thunderbolt ports vs. the Studio, even at the cost of the HDMI or built-in LAN ports, but it doesn't do that either.

Same RAM, same performance, slower built-in LAN, less storage expansion, same price. Is the smaller form factor really worth it? If not, why would anyone who'd consider that spec not get a Studio (or wait for an M2 Studio bump to get a M2 Max)?

[coder543]

For $100, you can opt to have 10Gb ethernet as well, so it's not really slower LAN. Personally, I think choosing the higher end M2 Pro doesn't make the comparison more fair than the lower end M2 Pro, so you can get 10GbE and "save" $200 (compared to the Mac Studio) by choosing the base M2 Pro Mac mini for the comparison and including 10GbE.

But, I agree. I don't understand the purpose of the M2 Pro Mac mini very well.

Apple is charging way too much for the M2 Pro upgrade, which makes it a confusing option. Is the fully enabled M2 Pro chip really worth $600 more than the base M2 chip by itself? That's the cost of an entire base Mac mini! I don't understand why Apple is charging this much. I think $200 for the base M2 Pro chip and $400 for the fully enabled variant would have been a more sensible price structure. Still a bit expensive, but less confusing.

[bitL]

My NUC11Pro has 64GB of RAM and 2x SSD, and is way smaller than Mac Mini. Not sure why Apple thinks they need to dumb down smallest form factor for market segmentation reasons.

[kylec]

It's way smaller, but only if you ignore the external power supply. The Mac mini has an internal power supply.

[icedchai]

(I was wrong here! oops!)

[coder543]

(not relevant anymore)

[icedchai]

Oh, you are correct! Sorry! I didn't even realize I was selecting the "Max" when going through the configuration screens.