The New Mac Mini Is Amazing, Now Go and Buy the Old One
Tim Brookes

Corbin Davenport / How-To Geek
The redesigned 2024 Mac Mini has impressive specs, with a more powerful M4 chip, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and Thunderbolt 5, starting at only $599.
The older M1 and M2 Mac Mini models still hold up, though, making them perfect cost-effective entry points into Apple's ecosystem with years of macOS upgrades to come and Apple Intelligence support.
These older Mac Mini models make for cost-effective "hobby" machines for projects like file and media servers, media centers, game emulation, testing out Apple's ecosystem, or installing Linux.
The M4 Mac Mini is smaller and faster, with a new cooling system, more ports, and the same $600 price tag as the outgoing model. Its awesome. So why would you buy the old model instead?

Do You Really Need the Latest and Greatest?
You should always buy the right tool for the job, as long as it fits in your budget. So if youre buying a MacBook, we recommend getting enough storage for the entire life of the MacBook. This is a less pressing issue when it comes to the desktop Mac since you can easily expand storage with static solutions like external drives.

The big benefit to the 2024 Mac Mini is in its raw power: a more powerful chip, with more cores, higher clock speeds, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, a better GPU and AV1 encoding. Its a $599 masterpiece.


Andrew Heinzman / How-To Geek
But if all you want is a Mac on which to browse the web, answer emails, and do a bit of office work, the M4 is overkill. Theres nothing wrong with having plenty of grunt under the hood just in case you need it, but you should ask yourself whether youd rather have the cash in your pocket instead.

The Mac Mini Is a Hobbyists Dream
There are plenty of people who depend on the Mac Mini as their primary computer. It fits just about anywhere and it does anything an iMac or a MacBook can do. It runs macOS, pairs exceptionally well with an iPhone or iPad, and allows you to bring your own peripherals and displays.

Its arguably the most customizable Mac experience because it forces you to consider what you really need to get started. For that reason, its also the perfect hobby Mac.

The Mac Mini is a headless wonder. Its far smaller than an iMac or even a MacBook, since it has no built-in display. It doesnt take up as much room as the Mac Pro or its more capable cousin the comparably chunky Mac Studio. Its great for set-and-forget projects, or putting a Mac somewhere unusual.

Djordje Novakov\/Shutterstock.com<\/a>"">

Djordje Novakov/Shutterstock.com
Best of all, you dont need an M4 with 16GB of RAM and Thunderbolt 5 to get creative with a Mac Mini. An older model with an M1 or M2 processor will do the job just fine (you might even find that an Intel model fits the bill, though wed argue the time to go Apple silicon is now).

So what exactly is a hobby Mac? Its a file server that you can configure once, then throw in your office or put next to your router to access all of your files across the entire network. Its a computer that's ideal for use as a Plex or Jellyfin server to broadcast media over the entire network, to virtually any device thanks to uPnP.

With an HDMI connector, you can plug your Mac Mini into your living room TV and install XBMC or Stremio for use as a media center. Unlike the laggy software on your smart TV, these apps will absolutely fly on a Mac with a desktop-class processor. An old Mac Mini also makes for a powerful Home Assistant server.

Theres enough overhead for you to install emulators like RetroArch or OpenEmu so that you can emulate systems from 8-bit classics through to modern 3D platforms like the Xbox and PlayStation 3. You can even play real games if you want to get creative with DirectX to Vulkan translation as part of Asahi Linux.