I Bought A Mac Mini M4!

Due to the recent Claude fervor, I'd been having a difficult time finding a Mac Mini to replace my base M1 Mini.

Maybe a week ago, I found one that was a 16GB memory 512GB diskspace M4, for $900, before tax.  I canceled the order because I wanted to use the money for something else.  I was disappointed because I was waiting a LONG time for that unit - someone has been buying up ALL the refurbs on the Apple Refurbished store.  Everytime they'd restock, the items would be out of stock within the hour.

Today, someone posted on the r/macmini subreddit that there was a bunch of machines at the refurb store.  What's nice is they pasted each unit's specs in their post, along with the links to each.  Instead of having to search on the website, I chose which I wanted, from the reddit post and immediately commenced to buy it.

I bought a 16 GB / 1 TB Mini M4, for $908!  This will be the latest M version in my inventory.  My MBP is an M3 (bought new, April 2025).  Between the two, I'm not sure which is the strongest.  The MBP is a Pro model.  This new Mini is not.  It matters not which is stronger, though, because both will be far more capable than my base M1 systems.

The trend for Minis is to buy a bigger SSD, but with giant surge of SSD and RAM prices, it'll be a LONG time before those prices will lower to pre-surge levels.  Plus, I hate hacking things...I'd rather keep this system OEM.

Some folks were holding out for an M5.  F that...why wait?  I'm not trying to chase the latest M model.  I'm going from M1 to M4, so I'm happy enough...the topper is that I got into a 1 TB while staying under $1K.  Most folks would focus on additional RAM, but for my use cases, 16 GB of RAM is adequate...I also wasn't trying to bust the bank with this.

I'll soon be packing up the M1 Mini and either gifting it to someone or selling it (it won't draw a lot of money).  

I also have a base M1 MBA - I'd been thinking of selling it but found that it carries extremely well when traveling, so I'll keep it for travel duty.

The new Mini will arrive Thursday. 

UPDATE (4/8/2026):  The Mini M1 has been replaced!  I'll speak more of the replacement effort soon.

Apple Certified Refurbished Products Site

For those of you that want certified refurbished Mac hardware, the following is Apple's site for refurb items:  Certified Refurbished Products - Apple

I've been thinking of replacing my iMac with a Mac Studio (which would require me to find another display or use some type of monitor switch). 

I've also been thinking of a higher end Macbook.  MBPs are expensive and I want a decent amount of drive space (natively), so a decently spec'd MBP is going to run probably $1700, even refurbished, so I probably won't go that route.  Another option is to buy the latest M-variant of the MBA, with 1TB of drive space, which is doable.

I'm not sure which I want yet, but once I do, it will be bought from the Apple refurb site.