The 3.2-GHz Intel Core i7 in the prior Mac Mini had a thermal design power of 65 watts. The eight-core CPU is designed not just to improve the performance of applications running on the platform but also to be more power-efficient than the Intel chips the line previously used. The M1 chip plays decidedly to the strengths that the Mac Mini had already laid as a foundation. Demure and inconspicuous, it’s supposed to blend unobtrusively into the scenery, to serve as a quiet workhorse instead of an ostentatious status symbol.
The slim device-just 7.7 inches square, under 1.5 inches tall, and weighing only 2.6 pounds-is designed to be quite the opposite of most Apple hardware. The formula hasn’t ever fundamentally changed. Perhaps the least anticipated among them is this, the fifth generation of Apple’s svelte, low-cost Mac Mini.įor those not in the know, the Mac Mini dates back to 2005 and was most recently updated in 2018.
Apple formally announced the new M1 CPU for its Mac computers less than a month ago, and it’s already shipping in a trio of products. And from every angle I’ve been able to examine it, the company is doing a bang-up job with its own silicon strategy so far. I guess you’re just not a technology company these days unless you’re designing your own microchips.
