The Mac mini had been stranded on Intel since its 2018 space gray refresh, which topped out at $799 just to reach 8GB of RAM. Today Apple moves it onto its own silicon on day one of the M1 rollout — the same chip that debuted in the 13-inch MacBook Pro announced this morning — at a lower entry price of $699 with double the base storage path (2TB) and up to 16GB RAM.
That makes the mini the cheapest way into Apple Silicon and the first desktop to leave Intel in this transition, a line Apple has since kept refreshing — culminating in the 2024 M4 redesign with front-facing USB-C and up to 64GB RAM.
First-order effects
Desktop buyers get an Apple Silicon machine $100 below the 2018 Intel model's entry price, with claimed 3x CPU and 6x GPU gains over the outgoing generation.
Intel loses its last holdout in Apple's small-desktop lineup, leaving no current Mac mini sold on x86.
Second-order effects
The $699 Apple Silicon floor pressures Windows small-form-factor PC makers to compete on performance-per-dollar against a fanless-architecture desktop, while Intel's per-unit shipments from a longtime OEM partner shrink further.
A sub-$700 ARM Mac revives interest in the mini as a headless server and dev-box build target, segments the 2018 pricing had priced out.
Third-order effects
If the cadence holds — M1 in 2020, M2/M2 Pro by early 2023, a smaller M4 chassis by late 2024 — the mini cements itself as Apple's annually-refreshed entry desktop rather than the afterthought it was under Intel, accelerating the broader migration of Apple's install base off x86.
The trend: Apple Silicon is moving downmarket fast, converting the Mac mini from an infrequently-updated Intel niche product into the recurring low-price on-ramp to Apple's own-chip ecosystem.
The previous-generation Mac Mini supported up to 64GB RAM. The new one maxes out at 16GB. So, forget about running virtual machines. Or Slack and Chrome at the same time.
Confirmed: The new Mac Mini w/ M1 chip *will not* have user upgradable RAM, unlike the previous Intel-based Mac Mini. Like iPhones and iPads, the RAM in the M1 is integrated w/ the processor on the SoC. CC @kwiens
A viable Mac mini w/ an M1 inside, bumped RAM and 1TB SSD is now €1,465, which is about half of what I needed before to price up a competitive model to replace my iMac. 16GB of RAM is a bummer, but with the increased I/O I'm not as worried. Apple should have perf per $ charts 😂