Mac Mini M2 Pro After 5 Months: What You NEED To Know!

My long-term review after using the 2023 Mac Mini with the M2 Pro as my daily machine after 5-6 months.
ALL THE GEAR IN THIS VIDEO IS LISTED BELOW 👇

The M2 Pro Mac Mini has been my go to machine ever since I bought it around 5 months ago. In this video I share the surprises, disappointments, and overall experience with this powerful Mac, with direct comparisons with my M2 MacBook Air. Subscribe for more tech-related content and enjoy the video!

MY DESK SETUP GEAR:

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_______________________________
00:00 | Intro
00:47 | Why the M2 Pro Mac Mini?
01:33 | Design
02:42 | Ports
04:25 | Performance
07:56 | Wireless Connectivity
09:35 | Wrapping Up

#macmini #apple #m2pro

[KyleErickson]

Small correction, as pointed out by one of you guys — the USB-A speed is actually 5 Gbps (not Gen 2), must have had a brain fart on that one 😅

[roryvance]

I use a base M2 512/16 config. My workflow is kinda the more standard mix of zoom, slack, some websites being open, mendeley citation software (web based), and multiple pdfs open, adding in some podcasts, Apple Music, with some light gaming. Even if I have all that open, I don't get to any memory pressure and everything seems snappy and works wonderfully. It integrates with my iPad (which I use as a laptop replacement), and I use sidecar for the additional screen (although it falls asleep and I have to reconnect) . It's my first Mac and I absolutely love it.

[vjseegers]

Today marks a special day: disconnected my Windows Tower PC and brought it to the attic. Since about a year i own a M1 MacMini with 16GB and have never been so happy with a computer. No noise, works always flawless, is super fast, and it’s so small. I’m not a pro user and do a bit of everything and the machine fulfills all my needs without fail. Now looking at the gaping empty spot beside my desk and the little silver box below my monitor i will never go back again!

[ryandemboski]

dont overpay yall, the base model m2 pro mini is enough for a lotttt of people. you’d be surprised how far 16gb of ram can take you with the efficiency of m2 and macOS

[greghudson]

I have m1 Mac mini with 16Gb and 1Tb and I love it. I was waiting for Pro chip version of mini in M1 but gave up and got this one used on eBay after new MacBooks came out and everyone was jumping off of mini to get those. I thought this mini Pro would be the sweet spot for bang for buck and it is in base model but if you upgrade much you are better off getting base Studio with more glue power and memory bandwidth. I feel Apple needs to reduce the base price $100 or so now that m2 Studio is here.

As an aside I have my mini vertically mounted in a stand (ports up/logo right side up) in front of my monitor arm which give monitor floating appearance, makes ports more easily accessible on the top and prevents scratches on the bottom or slippage on desk. Hot air rises out of the top, less dust pulled in intake and makes a nice aesthetic and takes up even less desk space.

[truthteller]

Great video. Lots of good information. Great suggestion about the silicone dots to keep it from slipping around.

[Integrator]

SuperB video…. Very informative with excellent streamlined info. THANK YOU

[BrianHoney]

I work in marketing for a specialty retailer. I also do some side consulting. I bought the base Mac Mini M1 - 8GB, 256GB SSD - a couple of years ago, and it is hands down the best computer I've ever owned. Nearly all my work is done in browsers, but I do need to run Photoshop, Illustrator, Bridge and some Office apps from time to time. I can have all these apps open at once, plus a couple dozen browser tabs- and this thing doesn't break a sweat. I even occasionally run Premier Pro or Rush for some lightweight video editing- and it handles that with ease as well. I've never seen a Windows system, with comparable system memory/storage, do anything like this.

[TriumphTrekker]

I've got a 2018 Mini, with 32GB Ram and 512 GB SSD. I use it with a couple of Windows environments using Parallels for my work and the fan kicks in quite a bit. The performance is OK but I'm ready to upgrade and am seriously looking at the M2 Pro, the only issue is that Parallels will require new VM environments to be built - which is going to take quite a long time! Thanks for the review, interesting to see some of the areas where it's not met your expectations.

[ARKenMan]

Long time PC user...like, 40 years long time. The M2 Pro is the fastest computer I have ever had the pleasure of working on. It's insane. I just bought it a couple of weeks ago. I thought of waiting for the M3 to come out but figured this was plenty fast enough and it is. I'm getting back into music production and this is all I will need for years to come. I will probably start using it for video as well and ditch the i7. Apple doesn't get enough props for the M series chips but they are seriously unbelievable. I 'started' out in my tech career with a Kaypro pc and cp/m operating system, TRS80, on to the IBM PS2, and every pc since. You guys don't know how good you have it today. Anyone that says this isn't enough computer....well, you're spoiled...hate to break it to ya. I'm moving super slow on the Mac OS but I hope to be a pro at it after about a year. Imagine yourself racing along with a Prius at 100 mph for all these years to now be in a Mclaren P1 driving 40mph. That's what it feels like now...soon, I'll be adjusted to it and get to see what this baby can really do. How do I know it's fast? I've loaded tons of unnecessary plugins in Logic Pro X and mixed it down while flipping around loading everything else I can think of and not even a burp. My pc would have slowed to a crawl. Long time doubter who now sees the light although the intel macs and motorola ones never did impress the way the M chips do. I figure a person could rule the world with the M3 Pro. In theory anyway.

[sharingmatters]

Kyle. I am new to your channel and I really like your „Keep it real” attitude and your desk setup. Trying to build something similar now :)

[stephanemignot]

I picked the Pro because Apple tax on Ram on storage is incredibly high! :) The extra GPU cores are welcomed too even if I don't care about new games. I use Wineskin to play GOG games and it helps. Overpowered for GarageBand and light gaming but it just replaced a 2008 iMac so we'll see in 10 years!

[RonaldCa]

Great video! Thanks so much for it. Today I got my first Mac mini ever. Looking forward to the journey 👍

[MulliganAl]

Had been toiling over getting the Mac Mini or the new 15” MBA but decided on the Mini since I don’t travel much with a laptop. I was thinking I made the mistake by ordering the 32GB and 2TB 10CPU/16GUP version but it popped up on their refurb so I jumped on it. I’m sure I could have gone with the 16GB and 1TB 10CPU/16GUP version but they seem to be harder to get. Well, great channel, keep up the good work and thanks for the help with deciding, I’m sure I’ll be happy with it.

Now I need a monitor for photography print work and for some video and I’m thinking about getting the Dell U2723QE that you recommended.

[blackchristiangeek]

I'm a first time viewer and have subscribed, you rock dude. By the way, I recently ordered the Mac Mini base model, I need to ease back into the Mac environment, as I am mainly a Linux guy nowadays. Thanks for the review and God bless. 👍🏾🤓

[obeelaynemusiq]

I have one for about 3-4 months now and I'm loving it...I'm using it for music production with Logic pro x and so far so good, no problems whatsoever....😊🎉❤

[pauljakeman]

Looking to replacing my old Mac mini with a new one, when it breaks, so appreciated this review.
By the looks of it the base model would be ok for me!
Really great review mate!

[freeloader]

Just purchased the same machine except with 512 GB HD. Getting delivered in a little over a week, and super excited. My last Mac was a 2020 IMac, and even though it was great to have that big 5k screen, I'm way more excited to have this Mini with an M2 Pro. I want to get into motion graphics, and this is the first machine I will ever own that I'm absolutely positive will allow me to go as hard with that as I want.

I might be back in a few weeks to let you know what I think.

Thanks for this review so I know my decision wasn't horrible, although I'm starting to wish I had gone a few hundred cheaper for the M2 with more cores, and/or more RAM. I think you could get more RAM with the regular M2's, right? Not sure how that all works with these integrated cores.

Anyway, I think I got a great deal. Looking forward to tearing this box open!

[jwnusser]

I have the same config with a 2TB SSD, and its a beast. I have to agree with you on all points. I dont use the WiFi as I have a 10GB network. I mainly code and use the Creative Cloud. Not much video editing.

[robdevlin]

I have a 2021 14” MacBook Pro with the M1 Max and 64GB of RAM. Recently realized I wanted a desktop for certain tasks, so I bought the Mac Mini with M2 Pro and 32GB of RAM. Both machines also have 2TB SSDs. I mostly do light video editing and music production, so one of the first things I did was take 4K footage shot on my iPhone and use Handbrake to make it smaller for distribution. Ran the same 4K to 4K compression on both machines and the Mini was only 46 seconds behind the MBP. Ran it again as 4K to 1080p and the Mini beat the MBP by 7 minutes. 😳 Was also the first time I ever heard the fans kick on in the MBP, but the Mini stayed silent. Love this new machine and can’t wait to do more with it.