Apple today announced a major update to its Mac mini lineup, bringing new configurations with M2 and M2 Pro chips inside. Along with these top features, there are a few other interesting changes and tidbits in this year's Mac mini update. See below for details.
External Displays
The previous generation of Mac mini with the Apple M1 chip was quite limited in terms of external display support. You can connect one external display up to 6K resolution using Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C port) and another external display up to 4K resolution using HDMI. This situation has improved somewhat with the advent of new versions of the Mac mini M2 and M2 Pro.
A Mac mini with an M2 chip inside can still power up to two external displays, but there are some detail changes here:
- One display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz via Thunderbolt
- One display up to 5K @ 60Hz via Thunderbolt
- OR: One display up to 4K @ 60Hz via HDMI
- Up to three displays: two up to 6K@60Hz display via Thunderbolt and one display up to 4K@60Hz via HDMI
- Up to two displays: one display up to 6K@60Hz 60Hz via Thunderbolt and one display up to 4K @ 144Hz via HDMI
- Single display: up to 8K resolution at 60Hz or 4K resolution at 240Hz via HDMI
- Up to 24 GB combined.
- Increased from 16 GB for M1 Mac mini.
- Up to 2 TB storage
- Same as M1 Mac mini
- Up to 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine
- M1 Mac mini: 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
- Up to 32GB combined storage
- Up to 8TB storage
- Up to 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine
- The M2 and M2 Pro Mac mini have a 3.5mm headphone jack with enhanced support for high-impedance headphones.
- Wi-Fi is supported for the first time 6E.
- Bluetooth 5.3 (up from Bluetooth 5.0) of previous model)
- H.264, HEVC, ProRes and ProRes hardware accelerated. RAW
- Video decoding engine
- Video encoding engine
- ProRes encoding and decoding engine
- Desktop: one ( 1) Available per year
- Mac mini: one (1) available per year
- Notebook: One (1) available per year per year
- iPad: You can purchase two (2) accessories per year
- Accessories: You can purchase two (2) accessories per year at an educational price
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In the meantime, the new Mac mini with the M2 Pro chip inside can support up to three external displays with different configurations and resolutions:
Configuration options
Here’ ;s a breakdown of the configuration options for the new M2 and M2 Pro Mac mini models.
M2 Mac mini:
M2 Pro Mac mini
Connectivity
A few things to note here:
Media Engines
The new M2 Mac mini line also supports Apple's custom media engine features, unlike the previous generation M1 Mac mini:
Pricing
Perhaps the M2 Mac mini is more noticeable than any change in performance or specifications. cheaper than its predecessor.
The entry-level M2 Mac mini is $599, up from $699 before. For education buyers, the starting price drops even further to $499. That's an incredible price to pay for how good the M2 Mac mini is.
Meanwhile, a Mac mini with an M2 Pro chip inside starts at $1,299. This makes it a tempting alternative to the base Mac Studio, which starts at $1,999. The M2 Pro Mac mini for Education starts at $1,199.
Apple does not require verification for purchases from the US Education Store, but there are some purchase restrictions that have become more restrictive over the past year:
You can learn more about the rules Apple on Education Stores in our report here.
