[navjack27]

I have a base m1 mini also. Ever since I bought it I've only used it hooked up to my 4K TV in my living room. I use it all day long. I have it connected to an external hard drive or two sometimes. It's connected to the network using the gigabit ethernet. I don't notice any slowdowns with it and I've always been on the beta updates for the operating system. I use edge as my browser. Sometimes I mess around with xcode or other background stuff with no issue. Sometimes I'll mess around with games on the device or mess around with emulators or DosBox. Usually I access my main PC using parsec over the local network and I'll use my Windows PC that way or I'll play games on it sometimes on the big TV. I'm tempted to upgrade but not all that much. Basically this m1 Mac mini would have to break for me to need to want to upgrade it. But when I do have to replace it it will be another completely silent system. I love how the fan has never turned on even once.

[solardev]

FWIW, I've had a M1, M1 Pro, and M2 Max laptop (different work/personal machines) all with fans, but I've never heard them turn on in several years of development work, no matter how many windows, apps, etc. I had open or how many things I was compiling.

The only times I heard the fan turn on were when the GPU was heavily burdened, like AAA games, especially when they're emulated in Rosetta or Wine. But for everything else, the fans never came on. These days, I suspect they'd come on for AI training (but I never tried).

Just anecdotal data for anyone contemplating an upgrade to one of the fanned versions. They tend to be more powerful than the non-fanned versions, but in regular everyday use you would likely never hear them. I didn't even know they had fans until I tried to play graphics-intensive games on them.