The Mac Mini, along with its more mobile Mac cousins the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, was the first Apple computer to shed Intel silicon in favor of Apple’s new M1 processor. Our early tests of the M1 machines show a significant improvement in performance compared to their predecessors, and now we are seeing discounts on the new machines.
You get discounts on the M1 MacBooks, but the Mac Mini remains the cheapest access point for MacOS. The base model of the M1 Mac Mini costs $ 699 and features 8 gigabytes of RAM and a 256 GB solid state. The boarding model costs $ 899 and doubles the storage capacity to 512 GB. Amazon currently offers both configurations at a discount; you can save $ 99 on the baseline configuration and $ 50 on the step-up model.
However, one advantage of the full price and purchase of Apple is that you can customize the machine and add more RAM or a higher capacity SSD, while the models sold on Amazon and other retailers are fixed configurations. And unlike most other desktops, the RAM of the Mac Mini cannot be upgraded by the user. Apple’s M1 system-on-a-slide integrates the CPU, GPU, RAM and other components for greater power and efficiency, but the downside of this integration is the lack of DIMM slots that allow you to add additional RAM after purchase.
It is also noteworthy that the Apple Store offers students an educational discount, but you only save $ 20 on the price of a new Mac Mini, though some upgrades are also discounted. Doubling the RAM to 16 GB, for example, costs $ 180 with the education discount instead of the usual $ 200.
Read on to see the best prices currently available for Apple’s Mac Mini. We update this page regularly.
Mac Mini Discount, Compare
|
Model, CPU, storage capacity |
List price |
Best price (current) |
Best price (all the time) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Mac Mini, M1 chip, 256 GB SSD |
$ 699 |
$ 600 |
$ 600 |
|
Mac Mini, M1 chip, 512 GB SSD |
$ 899 |
$ 849 |
$ 829 |
* Note that ‘all times’ is the best price we’ve seen in an Apple Authorized Reseller in the lifetime of the product.
When you arrive at Amazon’s page for the basic Mac Mini with the M1 chip, 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD, you see a price of $ 669 and wonder how I came up with the $ 100 discount. Look at the green picture below the price on Amazon – it says you will save $ 69.01 at checkout. And if you add the Mac Mini to your cart, the price drops to $ 600 for a total saving of $ 99 – the initial $ 30 plus the extra saving of $ 69 at checkout. This is the lowest price we have ever seen for the M1 Mac Mini.
Dan Ackerman / CNET
You won’t find any extra savings if you add the Mac Mac to your Amazon cart, but this model is currently $ 50 off. At $ 849, it’s $ 20 above the everyday low of $ 829.
Look at this:
Practical with the all-new Apple Mac M1 series
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