They have since ceased the lines in favour of conventional desktop PCs and all-in-ones. Still, if one looks hard enough, there are quite a few capable machine that will go against the Mac Mini. Dell used to offer the Inspiron Zino mini PC and Inspiron Micro Desktop. The mini desktop or small form factor segment has seen a decline as more people move to an all-in-one machine or a laptop. Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini 5i desktop Top 5 Best Mac Mini Alternatives The biggest price tag when the system is configured by choosing the maximum options available for memory, storage and networking (not including pre-installed software is $1799.īudget conscious consumers looking for a mini desktop are left with the entry level Mac Mini with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD. Obviously, when you start configuring the system, the price will balloon up. That is ten times more bandwidth that the standard Gigabit Ethernet that it comes with. If you are using the Mac mini as a server and need super fast network access, you might consider configuring the computer with a 10Gb Ethernet. So make sure you know pick the right upgrade for your application.Īnother area that you might consider is the Gigabit Ethernet. As it uses unified memory, there is not user upgradeable.

You will also need to configure your memory at the point of purchase to push it up to 16GB. If you plan on using the Mini for more than just your standard everyday computing such as 3D rendering, photo and movie editing then you will need to the higher model with more storage. Two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports and two USB-A ports, HDMI 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, 3.5mm headphone, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0.Apple M1 chip (8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine).

Apple mac mini 2012 configuration