Is the latest Apple Mac mini likely to be any good for music-making?

We’d been waiting so long for an update to the Mac mini that, despite Apple’s assurances that it still had a future, we were starting to wonder if we’d ever see it. However, it finally landed in early November, and first impressions are that, if you’ve been holding out for a more powerful Mac mini, you’re not going to be disappointed.

The new machine might look very similar to its predecessor, but on the inside it’s a different story. In fact, Apple say that this latest Mac mini is five times faster than the one that came before it: you can now choose from quad- and 6-core processors and have up to 64GB of memory. Storage is now all flash, and capacities run to 2TB. Oh, and before you ask: yes, there’s a headphones socket, along with four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) and two USB 3 ports.

That’s the good news, but there are also a few things you should be considering before you hit the Buy Now button. The entry-level price of £799 isn’t outrageous when you consider the specs, but that’s for a quad-core model with 8GB RAM and only 128GB of storage. Go up to a 6-core model with 16GB RAM and 256GB of RAM and the price then almost doubles.

This isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker, but remember that you can’t add more RAM yourself after you’ve bought your machine, so you may feel compelled to pay Apple’s prices and spec-up at the time of purchase. Of course, you could get around that by buying an external drive, but do you really want to?

Nevertheless, we’d still say that the Mac mini looks like the best bet for music-making if you want an Apple desktop machine. Yes, you have to factor in the cost of a mouse, keyboard and monitor (and possibly the odd dongle), but it’s still a worthwhile purchase.