Over the years, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Apple. When the iPad pro first came out, I decided to give them a try. It was one of my favourite devices so when the iPad Pro 12.9 inch came out, I got that one too. Then I decided to get the Magic Keyboard along with the Apple Pencil. I was suddenly able to work so much more efficiently BUT I was still restricted to apps and couldn’t edit videos the way I wanted to.
I have a Dell XPS which is amazing but then I noticed it was a bit of a nuisance to edit just little videos. It was perfect for when I was filming on my camera and piecing together different pieces of footage together. The iPad has a great camera, but I didn’t see the point in using it to film if I couldn’t edit in Davinci.
Anyway, I ended up getting the iPhone 13 Pro since it had the biggest camera upgrade and I thought it was time to give iPhones another chance. The last one I had was the iPhone 7 and I didn’t love it. Recording videos on the iPhone was great, but again, I was hitting a bit of frustration when editing videos because of transferring them from my phone to the laptop.
Since it was time for a new desktop PC anyway, I started looking at the iMacs and as I was, the new Mac Mini was released. It had the new M2 chip in it and supposedly was good enough to run Davinci resolve. I was pretty much sold. The price point was perfect, especially for an Apple product. I think it was around £750 and for my last desktop PC, I had spent around £500 but it wasn’t powerful enough for video editing and that was years ago. Admittedly, the price goes up if you opt for the Studio Display and Apple’s accessories but this review is really about the Mac Mini.
Pros:
Airdrop makes it so much more confident with content creation.
Fast with most software
Apple suite included
Works seamlessly with other Apple products
Perfect for creativity with included tools
Really quiet
Takes up barely any space on the desk
Cons:
Don’t love the intersect compared with Windows
Reloads the web pages automatically if it’s taking too much memory (not great if you’re using online software)
Restrictive with ports (you end up having to purchase additional docks, and Apple doesn’t provide one that is perfect)
Not as powerful as Dell XPS
Apple’s mouse speed is slow… even at its fastest.
Overall, I think that it’s definitely a great option for a desktop PC for pretty much whatever you want to do. If you can afford more, then it’s worth going for a higher spec model so that you have more internal storage, more ports etc. but even the most basic model is powerful enough. However, it you are someone that uses a lot of online programs rather than installed applications, it may not be the one for you. I haven’t tested it with games, but I assume it would be able to run most of them.
If you’re looking for a PC that will help you with content creation, the Mac mini is the perfect option if you have an iPhone. For me, Airdrop is a huge advantage, but if it isn’t for you, then the ports really do make it restrictive. Given its price point, I think it’s one of the best PC’s available, especially if you are an Apple user.