Google Chrome is also available as a native M1 app, as are the Microsoft Edge and FireFox browsers along with Affinity Photo and Adobe Lightroom.įinally, and just for fun, I also ran a comparison of a video render in DaVinci Resolve with my desktop PC (6-core AMD Ryzen 5 3600, 16GB RAM, AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT). A quick straw poll of the apps I use on a daily basis sees that Adobe has a (feature restricted) public beta of M1 Photoshop and BlackMagic Design has a beta of its free video editor/colour grading software, Davinci Resolve. The transition to native M1 applications is already underway elsewhere, too. Pretty much all of Apple’s library of business and creative professional applications has been converted to run natively on the M1 chip and you can run some iOS applications as well. Not much has changed on the software front since I reviewed the M1 MacBook Pro and M1 MacBook Air last year. READ NEXT: M1 MacBook Air review M1 Mac mini review: Software compatibility It is, of course, possible to add fast storage via the Thunderbolt 4 drive if you need to, however. It is possible to pop off the lid and get at the machine’s innards by undoing six Torx TR6 security screws, but the RAM and SSD are soldered to the motherboard and cannot be replaced. The big difference compared with previous Mac minis is there’s no way to upgrade. If you don’t mind being a guinea pig for Apple, however, or you’ll never venture outside the safe boundaries of Apple’s own software stack or other native applications, then the M1 Mac mini is a great choice for a minimalist desktop setup. However, with not all software shifted to the new architecture just yet, you should know that you may need to run some of your favourite applications under emulation at first, and that some of your favourite Mac apps might not run perfectly – or at all. If you need a fast, compact PC for working from home, then there’s a lot here that’s good. Just like Apple’s M1 MacBooks, the M1 Mac mini is very impressive, delivering a huge amount of performance per pound. READ NEXT: M1 MacBook Air review Apple Mac mini review: What you need to know From the outside, the M1 Mac mini looks exactly like the previous model, but it’s on the inside where all the fireworks are happening. Aside from the radical architecture revamp, Apple has otherwise made few changes to its much-loved compact PC. The Mac mini is the third of the first wave of M1-based Apple products we have reviewed since they were announced last year, joining the M1 MacBook Air and the M1 MacBook Pro at the vanguard of Apple’s move away from Intel.

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