It only takes a Mini

With a temptingly miniaturised price compared to the almighty MacBook Pro 16in, this entry-level Mac still packs a punch with its M2 processor

- Craig Grannell

from £649 / go.stuff.tv/MacMini

Squeeze days

The Mini doesn’t come with a mouse or keyboard – and if you don’t use HDMI for your display you’ll be down to one Thunderbolt 4 port.

Apple hasn’t updated the Mac Mini’s design since 2010, but its innards have evolved more rapidly: 2023’s model is powered by the latest Apple silicon, and even with the basic spec it barely blinked as we edited video, music and photo projects. It’s mostly quiet too.

The default 8GB RAM is fine for mono-tasking, but we found leaving dozens of browser tabs open could sometimes grind the machine to a halt. If you’re not disciplined that could be a problem… but doubling it to 16GB costs a frankly absurd £200 extra.