Choose the right Mac Mini: Mac Mini M2 vs Mac Mini M2 Pro

Best value in computing, but which one is the right one for you? Posted by erwinkarim on 7:54 AM, February 21, 2023 Last updated on 7:00 AM, January 30, 2024 Filed in: mac mini, m2, m2 pro, comparison, macos,

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The Mac Mini is one of Apple’s best product. Small, value for money, and low barrier to entry. Apple updated the Mac Mini in January 202 and made a lot of improvements. Apple not only spec bump the Mac Mini to include the M2 chip, but also lowered the base price by $100 to $599. If you are a student, you can even get a $100 discount making the Mac Mini a sub $500 computer which can do 8K video editing. Apple also put a “professional” chip the M2 Pro in the Mac Mini chassis replacing the aging 2018 Space Grey Mac Mini.

The M2 Mac Mini starts at a low base price, but the add-ons can really push the price up to the M2 Pro Mac Mini territory. So which one you should get??

M2 Mac Mini


The beauty of the Mac Mini, other than the lowest price to get a macOS device that you have a small box. And with that small box, you can customize your setup to your own liking. In other words, there are many Mac Mini in the world, you can make this one yours.

The M2 chip is as basic as you can get from Apple. Although this is a base chip in Apple’s lineup, it still packs a punch. With the specialized Media Engine on the chip, you can do heavy lifting workloads like 8K video editing, something that almost no sub-$600 computer can do just a few years ago. The M2 is designed to work with no fan and Apple put a beefy cooling fan on the Mac Mini. This will ensure that you can expect steady performance in long-running workloads.


The only way to tell between a M2 and M2 Pro Mac Mini is the number of ports available. The M2 Pro has 2 extra USB-C ports.

However, the M2 Mac Mini is not without faults. The major one is the Apple Tax. To make everything run faster and more reliable, Apple soldered everything on the circuit board. The memory, storage, and other controllers are all soldered on a single board. So, if you want more memory or storage, you have to decide at the point of sale. And Apple’s upgrade is not cheap. Storage upgrades are sold in $200 increments. You can spend upto $800 in storage upgrades alone. Memory upgrades is also sold in $200 increments.

Another issue is the base spec is … very basic. Yes, you can get away doing a lot of things with 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage. However, if you start to push the Mac Mini a bit, you will hit the wall pretty quickly. 8GB of memory will fill up quite quickly and the OS will take some storage space for swap. And since you have only a single lane between the chip and storage, that data lane will get congested quickly. The best setup for a Mac Mini will be 16 GB of memory and 512 GB of storage, which will make the Mac Mini a $999 machine instead of a $599 machine.


The M2 is very capable chip for the price and if you add 16GB of memory to your Mac Mini, it basically can cover 99% of test case.

However, if your budget is limited to only 1 upgrade, take the memory instead of storage. Storage can be upgraded by buying an external SSD drive, which is fast enough to act as scratch storage for video editing, while memory is basically non-upgradable after the fact.

M2 Pro Mac Mini


If you are a power user, you are in for a treat. Apple has finally put its professional SOC, the M2 Pro, in the Mac Mini. The starting price of $1,299 might be high, but do take into consideration that the base Mac Mini M2 Pro can outperform a $5,999 Mac Pro that Apple has in their stable. Think about that.


The M2 Pro is a professional grade chip from Apple. So if you making money from your Mac Mini, the investment is totally worth it.

What’s more promising is the base configuration is very capable. With 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage space, the M2 Pro Mac Mini is a very practical machine right out of the box. If you have some extra dough to spend on upgrading, I would recommend pushing the memory to 32 GB since you can essentially add an external SSD to “upgrade” your storage space.

Recommendations / Conclusions

So, which one is the best Mac Mini for you? The M2 or the M2 Pro? To answer this, first, you have to examine your workload. What do you do with a Mac all day and every day? Watching Youtube videos? Programming? Video editing? Writing articles for a blog? Here’s a simple table to help you make your decision.

Mac Mini Shopping guide based on your workflow
ConfigurationM2 Mac Mini M2 Pro Mac Mini
Base
  • Watching streaming content
  • Surfing the web
  • Office productivity work (MS Office / Google Workspace)
  • Light (1-2 4K streams) video editing
  • Light photo editing (resizing photos, batch editing)
  • Playing games when you are bored
  • All The Mac Mini plus ...
  • Heavy programing work
  • Moderate (1-2 8K streams or 3-4 4K streams, some color grading, tracking 1 object) video editing work
  • Heavy photo editing (multiple filters, multiple 50 MP photos for a single canvas)
  • Constantly having 10-20 browser tabs open for work
Upgraded memory or storage
  • Playing games causally
  • More streams in your video editing
  • Light photo editing, but want things to be done faster
  • Playing games almost exclusively (at this point you might be playing on PC or console)
  • More streams in your video editing software
  • Running multiple Virtual Machines in your Mac Mini
  • Running several development servers for your programming work
  • Constantly having 20-30 browser tabs open for work

The main rule is that if you are not pushing your M2, having the M2 Pro will not make things faster as both are cut from the same cloth. So if you are a casual user, take the M2, if you constantly waiting for a program to finish because it is heavy, take the M2 Pro.

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Base Pro
iPhones iPhone 15 / iPhone 15 Plus (Renewed) - (Amazon) iPhone 15 Pro / iPhone 15 Pro Max (Renewed) - (Amazon)
Watch Apple Watch SE (Amazon) / Apple Watch Series 9 (Amazon) Apple Watch Ultra 2 (Amazon)
AirPods AirPods 3 (Amazon) AirPods Pro 2 (Amazon) / AirPods Max (Amazon)
iPad iPad 9 (Amazon) / iPad Mini (Amazon) iPad Air (Amazon) / iPad Pro M2 (Amazon)
Laptops MacBook Air (Amazon) MacBook Pro M3
Desktop Mac Mini (Amazon) / iMac (Amazon) Mac Studio / Mac Pro
Displays Studio Display (Amazon) Pro Display XDR (Amazon)

Other Ecosystem Items

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