I've made it no secret that I really like the M4 Mac Mini ever since I wrote my initial review of it back in November. It has become my primary desktop unless I'm reviewing another device, and I absolutely love this hardware, even if macOS has some problems.

But finding out that the Mac Mini can be this great has also sort of left me with mixed feelings. While it performs very well for almost anything I do on it, there are times I wish I just had a little bit more power. Here are a few reasons I've been dreaming of an M4 Pro model.

4 16GB of RAM isn't that much

At least for my needs

Now, I'm not one to say that 16GB of RAM is the bare minimum a PC needs these days, because it greatly depends on your workload and use case. I do believe some people will probably be okay with 8GB of RAM, and even more will be extremely happy with 16GB. But personally, I've sometimes felt like a little more RAM would have been helpful.

My workload often demands running Photoshop alongside my browser and Slack, plus other apps that eat away at system resources such as RAM, and I absolutely feel like the extra RAM could benefit multitasking that much more. I wouldn't say my Mac Mini has ever been slow, but sometimes I wish it was just a little bit faster at opening another app or tab.

It doesn't help that I constantly have a Discord call running in the background while I work, but that's why I say I need the M4 Pro, but most people probably wouldn't.

3 More GPU power

Adobe Lightroom could use all the power it gets

Another big part of my workflow is editing RAW photos, whether it's for a review or just a photo I've taken to add to one of my articles. Editing photos on the Mac Mini is a very pleasant experience using Lightroom, and to be clear, the M4 performs exceptionally well for something with this power package. Running the AI-powered Denoise feature in Lightroom takes 30 to 45 seconds, depending on what else I'm doing at the time, which, many times, includes the aforementioned Discord call, so it can often end up on the higher end of that range.

Compared to equivalent processorslike Intel's Lunar Lake lineup, that's not bad at all, especially considering the Mac Mini is dead quiet the whole time. But when I'm editing a lot of photos, that time can still add up, and I know a more powerful GPU could cut down on the wait times and get my photos edited much more quickly. I can get that with a dedicated GPU on Windows PCs, but that comes with a lot more power usage and noise, which the M4 Pro would have much less trouble keeping under control (though I'm sure I would still hear the fan more than I do now).

The extra power could also be useful when I'm editing videos for my personal YouTube channel. Again, I have no real reason to complain here, as DaVinci Resolve runs nearly flawlessly on my Mac Mini, but I do record and edit in 1080p, whereas 4K would probably take a bit more grunt. I don't feel the need to jump to 4K just yet, but having that extra power would make the transition much easier. I also wouldn't dare to run DaVinci Resolve alongside my usual Discord call on the same PC on the M4, whereas the M4 Pro would give me some extra leeway to run demanding apps like that side-by-side.

2 It would still be very efficient

More power, but only when I need it

While I could get more power by using a high-end desktop PC, all of those computers would greatly increase my power consumption. Typical desktop processors are more power-hungry, even for more basic workloads, and they get really loud and hot under more demanding workloads.

The Apple M4 Pro is significantly faster than the base M4, but it's still only estimated to use 80W of power under load, and that's across the entire package, including the CPU and GPU. To get similar performance on a Windows desktop, you'd have to use so much more power. A standard desktop CPU alone is rated for 65W, and it can use more than that under heavy loads. If you had an equivalent GPU alongside it, you're probably looking at 200W under load, and that's being generous.

1 Apple's pricing strategy is designed for this

If you're upgrading, might as well get the M4 Pro

The M4 Mac Mini is one of the best deals in tech and it's because it starts at a very low $599 price tag with the fantastic M4 processor, which already delivers an excellent experience for a ton of people, myself included. But Apple is smart in the way it extracts money from customers. Sure, the M4 processor is very good, but you're only getting 256GB of storage in the base model, so that makes it a hard sell. Plus, 16GB of RAM isn't that much, as I've already mentioned.

Upgrading each of these components by a single step, however, costs $200. So, for just 24GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, you're now paying $999. Going to 1TB of storage, you're looking at $1,199, and at that point, you're only $200 from getting the M4 Pro model, which has 24GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage. So now you're left thinking "I'm already spending this much, why not get the much more powerful processor too?", and that's how Apple tricks consumers into spending more and more on what seems like a good deal at first.

I'm still not getting the M4 Pro, though

As much as all of this is true, I'm not going to lie to you and say I'm definitely getting an M4 Pro Mac Mini. For one thing, my current Mac Mini is only a few months old and still performs admirably for most tasks, as I've already described. Considering the high price of this model, especially in Portugal (1679 EUR after taxes), I can't bring myself to upgrade for the relatively small time savings I'll get from it.

Plus, one of the big faults of this base model is the low storage, but that can be easily fixed by an accessory such as the Satechi Stand & Hub, which I'm currently testing for review, along with an external SSD. For a lot less money, you can get a lot more storage, and you won't miss out on a ton of performance compared to the internal SSD, either. This is why I didn't mention storage as much of a reason to upgrade, and it's why my desire for said upgrade is lessened significantly.

That being said, I will probably be dreaming of that extra power the longer I keep using my current Mac Mini. Maybe by the time I truly feel the need to upgrade, we'll have an M5 Pro model available or something along those lines.