Apple Mac Mini M4 from $815.10 Delivered @ Apple On Campus (e.g. Australian Education Union)

4040

10-core CPU
10-Core GPU
16GB Unified Memory
256GB SSD Storage
16-core Neural Engine
Front: Two USB-C ports, headphone jack
Back: Three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI port, Gigabit Ethernet port

Variations
The 512GB SSD Storage is $1,103.30
The 24GB Unified Memory + 512GB SSD Storage is $1,391

The Mini M4 PRO with
12-Core CPU
16-Core GPU
24GB Unified Memory
512GB SSD Storage costs $1,967
This variation comes with Thunderbolt 5.

This is the Apple Education store for AOC AU Australian Education Union.
Price is cheaper than your regular Apple EPP.
You do not have to provide student ID or anything related to AOC, just check out normally.

Pick up in store or delivery on 8 Nov.

Related Stores

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Comments

    • +1

      Rumours suggest MacBook Pro update tomorrow, no Mac Studio update till next year.

  • -5

    What is the % performance improvement of M4 over M1 and M2?
    Thanks

    • +5

      Are you confused about this comment box being the google search box, or chatGPT prompt…? Why expect people to do your research for you?

      • -3

        Can you trust the online reviews?

        • +2

          You do realise that this is a pre-order, and that any information that someone here gives you, they read online… right?

        • +1

          I'd certainly trust a credible tech site over someone posting on a forum.

          • @axyh: You might be surprised, don't underestimate the people on OzBargain!
            Many tech websites could potentially have biases or provide misleading information. Which tech site do you trust and recommend?

    • +3

      It is application dependent. Single core performance improvement is 60% better in Geekbench 6 (M1 vs M4), but drops to 22% in Passmark. So it is possible to manipulate the results. Obviously, if you have a 1Gbps NBN with M1 and someone else has 100Mbps NBN with M4, then will M4 actually be faster in Web browsing? Really need to know what apps you will be using.

      M4 iPad Pros have been around for some time now so some tests had been conducted. You can check them out to get a basic feel.

      There are also quality of life improvements. Thunderbolt 4 vs Thunderbolt 3 type of USB4 in M1, more external displays support (and higher res support), WiFi 6E (though it would have been better for M4 Mac Mini to include WiFi 7, guessing without needing a GPS chip, Apple has elected not to upgrade WiFi7). Front USB-C ports are handy as well.

      • I appreciate your insights. I currently have the M1 and M2 models and am considering whether the upgrade would be worthwhile. A 50% improvement sounds promising. The applications I use are standard ones like Office, Safari, Zoom, and Python.

        • +1

          If your M1 and M2 are base models, then it is enticing to get M4. Double of RAM, AV1 encoding / decoding, no base model SSD bandwidth issue (M2). If your Python usage includes AI, then 2X RAM does help. On the other hand, if you have 16GB RAM models, most of the apps listed aren't exactly that demanding (and honestly M1 is already overkill for those apps (except python AI work)).

          It will come down to whether you are able to resist the temptation to upgrade.

          • @netsurfer: Thanks, yeah they are based model 8GB. I also use Python with AI. Thanks.

  • Might be day dreaming here. Just wished if there's an equivalent x86 rig (in price and hopefully performance) to these with a local retailer (well, amazon would also do) for a well known brand name.

    Wanting to replace the family desktop, I just couldn't take the chances with those random chinese nuc alikes esp since I'm buying it for me parents. cheaper big brand nucs looks too weakly equipped and ROGs too much of a premium.

    I don't hate apple except my parents sure don't know how to work a mac but they've been on windows since 20 years back so that's not an issue there.

    • +1

      If your parents can benefit from a fully integrated Apple ecosystem, then Mac Mini certainly is a good buy.

      My parents hardly use a computer nowadays (they normally just use iPhones, iPads). They weren't impressed when I upgraded the family PC to use SSD 3 years ago (because they were used to iPhone, iPad's solid state storage speed). I bought an N100 el cheapo Mini PC for less than $200. It includes 2.5Gbps LAN, 512GB SSD, WiFi 6E (could be upgraded to WiFi 7) and can be powered by an USB-C charger. It even has AV1 decoding support.

      • Gotcha.

        So my parents (and I, really) jumped on the Apple train right round when iPod Touch 4 came out, so we do love our iPhones and iPads and use it to this day like yours. Just that for their work they've always had a windows (almost exclusively Thinkpads) and was happy with them. They are still working (in their 50s) so they still do need a 'proper PC' for WfH (mostly my mum).

        M4 is an overkill but definitely something snappy haha. I will see if they are interesting in learning something new (aha!) but dont think they would pivot their way towards a mac now, its probably too different compared to what they are used to.

    • +1

      Perhaps something like this? It's a barebones kit but pricing will quickly swing the way of the PC if you need more than 16gb/256gb. Performance looks somewhat behind the m4 but in a similar ballpark, likely ample for family desktop duties.

      • Looks good, cheers! Will now wait for a d5 ram sale haha

  • I want to understand when would someone buy a desktop Mac over a MacBook?

    Isn't it convenient to plug in the MacBook to a monitor when needed and then also use it on the go from anywhere in the house or outside? Curious to know as I need one for my highschool son so not sure which one to pick

    • +1

      It all boils down to your budget and USE CASE. Do you require a powerful machine and you need to work on a delicate pigment specific tasks for hours at the comfort of your home? With xdr display, then desktop mac will generally work better in that scenario. You probably dont want to regularly zoom in/out in your mere 16 inches screen macbook pro for 5-8 continuous hours of intricate photo editing. I'm not in that category but I know people who require these specific piece of machines.

    • +6

      I have both. Constantly plugging and unplugging a laptop is a pain, especially if you have quite a lot of files on attached external storage. You need to unmount the external drives every time you want to take the laptop anywhere, and when it's plugged in, it takes up a whole lot more desk space than a small desktop computer like the Mac mini.

      With a desktop device, you can just leave it plugged in, attach storage, and use it as a primary machine at home. Then the laptop just gets used when you need portability.

      But for school work, a laptop makes a whole lot of sense. It can be used anywhere. That's one use-case where a laptop seems like a no-brainer.

      • +1

        Yes thank you. I think at school age a laptop is better. Desktop probably will make more sense when in uni for advanced assignments or if work related

      • +1

        I have both. Constantly plugging and unplugging a laptop is a pain
        If you have a USB-C or Thunderbolt dock, then you can reduce the cables down to a single one at least — the Macbook does need to get charged at some point anyway.

        I have all of my projects hosted on a NAS, so file access is over 10Gb ethernet and it seamlessly falls back to WiFi when unplugged without needing to unmount network shares. If I'm leaving the house, then I just need to make sure I either sync my working folders to internal disk if they're large (by default I work this way for better disk latency) or use cloud sync while offsite.

        If I had the budget, I'd have a Mac Studio and a MacBook Pro M* Max like you described however.

      • Constantly plugging and unplugging a laptop is a pain, especially if you have quite a lot of files on attached external storage. You need to unmount the external drives every time you want to take the laptop anywhere

        I typically just have one cable attached to my MBP and a Thunderbolt dock, which provides power and connects to external displays, storage, and ethernet. I also have a keyboard shortcut defined with Shortcuts that unmounts all external drives. So I don't personally find it a pain to plug/unplug. I'm also fine with the space the MBP takes up since it's being used as a secondary display.

        But I'll still be buying the base Mac Mini M4 for my recently retired dad who no longer needs portability. :)

    • +1

      Missus has a MacBook Pro which we also use when travelling. We’ll be transitioning that to a low end m4 Mac mini and put her data on the NAS as the MMini won’t leave the house

    • If you got a comfortable desk setup looking at a single tiny laptop screen is not worth it.

      Also the size of these things means they are portable.

  • Very tempting - anyone know about m4 air launch date? Saw some dates saying March 25’ and not sure if I can hold out

    • What's the alternative to holding out?

  • Is the tax invoice from purchasing through the AEU portal and normally any different? I've never bought from the AEU portal, so not sure if it says anything about education on the tax invoice? I am planning to tax deduct for work

    • same Apple tax invoice, not showing its from AOC

  • If the mini Mac come with a AirPods would be nice.

    • +6

      If the mini Mac come with a car would be nice.

      • lmao

  • Will I struggle a lot going from Wiindows to Mac? Will all my apps work? Are Macs buggy etc or are they stable like Windows 10?

    • Google is your friend if you can be more specific. What apps? Macs are notoriously not buggy haha.

      If you can adapt to a different UI, the vast majority of stuff you can do in windows you can do on a Mac, it just might have a different key or location.

    • stable like Windows 10

      Because Apple ported their ARM chips from iPhones, the kernel of MacOS is basically a beefed up iOS; so it's actually surprisingly light and stable.

      I've been using an M1 Air as my main laptop driver for the past 3 years and have had little to no issues. The only complaint I really have would be how specific older apps either have issues or just don't run at all; however sometimes the x86 emulation does a reasonable enough job so it's really a gamble and how reliant you are on particular software.

  • +1

    Thermals will be interesting to see when it gets reviewed.

  • +3

    How does apple silicon go as a Plex server? Hardware transcoding?

    • +1

      Friend uses a mini m1. Says it’s awesome. Normally has 3-4 people streaming at a time. This would be overkill.

  • +1

    Will be awesome if it can be modded to accept 20v DC from a powerbank.

    Not sure why Apple chose not to power it with a power brick.

    • To limit dust collection. Looks better without. Personally I hate power bricks. Glad when Xbox did away with them externally. What’s the advantage you’re thinking of?

      • Uh dust collection? Sorry not sure how it is related.
        the enclosure can be shrunk even further and the power adapter will be hidden away at the power point anyway. Also it can become mobile, powered by portable battery. Plug in a headless dongle like Luna then I can have macOS on the iPad. It has active cooling to work in hot environments and is about half the weight and half the price of the cheapest MacBook.

      • +2

        Nothing to do with dust collection, as @bgoldstein84 asked bellow many people would be tempted to use portable Mac Mini as a hackish alternative to Apple's laptops that cost 2-3 times more for equivalent configuration.

        Built in power supply is just to preserve market segmentation and make it more painful to use it as an off-grid portable machine

        • Ya. Wondering how hard it is to bypass the AC/DC conversion session. Maybe drill a hole near the corner and thread a cable through.

    • +2

      I am planning to run my mini off a large LiFePO4 battery. With the right gear. A little larger than a powerbank i know. But for my use case it will be great.

  • How does the storage work? You add a 10 - 20TB hard drive via USB C?

  • Will this drive an LG Ultrafine 5K? I have one sitting in the cupboard collecting dust since I moved away from Apple, but I love that monitor.

    • +1

      Yes, beautifully. Doing it right now alongside a Dell 4K. It looks as good as my 2020 iMac.

      • Thanks legend! Couldn’t find any confirmation elsewhere.

  • Damn that is cheap. Good price. I paid more for my M2 Mini 8Gb. Sigh

    My only solace is that the M2 still outperforms my 32Gb i7 hexa core workstation on one of my use cases. And that is a $4k machine..

    • does it beat the new ryzen cpu's? EDIT: I see it is around the performance level of a Ryzen 9600x which costs $400. Then MB $160, 16GB DDR5 Ram $80, 1TB NVME $80 Case and PS $150 equals to $870. Not bade value from Apple.

      • Nice. I need to check out those new ryzens.

        • +1

          Actually replace CPU with the cheaper Ryzen APU 8600G for $299, save $100 and its near as fast as the M4. Total goes down to $770 drive away no more to pay for a low power mini Windows PC.

  • Silly question but I’ve watched so many tutorials without seeing a workflow.
    In Windows you have a taskbar. If I open a bunch of programs they all appear at tge bottom with a short title. I can clearly see what’s open.

    How do you do this on MacOS? If you have 5 browser windows, 3 word docs and some PDFs how do you clearly see them all?

    • +3

      In macOS, open applications are displayed in the Dock at the bottom of the screen. Each application shows an icon, and if you have multiple windows open for the same application (like browser windows or Word documents), you can manage them in a few ways:

      1. App Switcher: Press Command (⌘) + Tab to bring up the App Switcher. Hold Command and tap Tab to cycle through open applications.

      2. Mission Control: Swipe up on the trackpad with three fingers (or press F3 or Control + Up Arrow) to view all open windows. This provides a clear overview of all your open documents and applications.

      3. Window Menu: Within an application, you can use the Window menu in the menu bar to see a list of all open windows for that application.

      4. Dock Stacking: If you right-click (or Control-click) on an application's icon in the Dock, it will show a list of all open windows for that application.

      These methods help you manage and switch between multiple open documents and applications effectively.

      • Thank you !

      • Hello ChatGPT, that isn't really what they asked…

  • +1

    This is the normal EDU price correct? No rush to buy now? Just want to wait for reviews to buy.

    • +1

      Correct.

    • or you can buy now, check it out yourself and if you dont like return within 15 days?

  • +1

    Can I buy a powerbank or something similar to power it?
    I have a portable display and I could create a laptop.

    Answer:
    With this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BDLDFTZC?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_shar…
    24,000mAh a mac book M1 with portable display (35W+25W) lasts 3h.
    8,000mAh/hour

    • I doubt you will be able to do it out of the box, for the exact reasons you stated as your use case competing against MB Pros that cost 3 times more

    • +1

      I’m using a 12v LiFePO4 battery box with a separate inverter that converts it to 240V. Its larger than a powerbank but your 8,000mAh system might run 15 hours maybe. Less the inverter inefficiency tax, so maybe 13 hours.

      You might be able to find a power bank with built inverter by Bluetti thats all in one. But if you dont mind having more parts, you can get separate gear from Adventure Kings and the solar panels to charge it too.

      • I’m using a 12v LiFePO4 battery box with a separate inverter that converts it to 240V

        Where did you get it and for how much?

  • +1

    Jesooze Krist, one thing you have to give Apple is the crazy resale value. My friend just told me he sold his 4 year old base spec Mac Mini M1 for $700! To some chick on Gumtree. Bloody hell. He can literally grab this new M4 Mac Mini for $115 for double the speed and double the Ram.

    • +3

      She probably didn't know, probably not an ozbargainer.

  • +1
  • +1

    Does anyone know if it can be packaged? I don't want to spend 2.5x more on a MBP.

  • As far as the pro version goes, it has Thunderbolt 5 ports, which means if you get one of the new nvme caddy's with a gen 4 drive, you'll be able to reach speeds of 6GB read and over 5GB write! No reason to pay the exorbitant prices of Apple's nand chips!

    • only the pro version?

      • only the pro version has TB5, yes.

        This is how Tim cooked it.

        • God damn, that's $2000. Probably costs Apple 80 cents more for the TB5 port. Also $130 for a lan port upgrade. Basically a bait and switch ladder of price increases. Also WTF is with Mac software prices, it's nuts.

  • +1

    So I configured it as a video editing spec Windows PC which cost around $2500 with an Intel video card. M4 Pro 12 Cores, 64GB Ram and 4TB SSD, 10Gb Ethernet and the price is $4429.70? How come? Is this what they call 'Apple Tax' on Reddit? Should I save $2000 and build something like this for $2500? 12 Core Ryzen 9900x CPU $650, X870 Motherboard $500, Intel 770 Video Card 16GB $440, 4TB SSD $400 and 64GB Ram $350, Case & PS $200 instead? Which one would OZbargainers recommend for 4K video editing?

  • I was looking at used M1 Studios, M2 16gb, M2 pro. I read the basic M4 16gb outdoes all these which are selling for more. Is this true?

    • +1

      Unlike the previous gens, the m4 does not come with keyboard and mouse
      You need to spend few hundred dollars more if you want the Magic Mouse and keyboard for native Touch ID and native touch gesture etc…

      • I was referring to benchmarks. However, I don’t use the apple mouse and keyboard so this doesn’t impact price. (I have a m1 8gb)

        • +1

          I see. Regarding the benchmark, it is improbable that the m4 can outperform m2 pro on gpu test. CPU test wise, yes this m4 will be faster, at least on short burst workloads.

      • Thank the lord it doesn't come with that god awful mouse.

        The only thing that was good for was selling it to someone who didn't know better.

  • I bought it yesterday.
    However, my order is still as processing and it hasn't taken the money from my account.
    Is that right?

    • +1

      you'll be charged once a Mac unit has been assigned to your order, and gets ready for shipping.

      Congrats :)

    • Apple won't do something as vulgar as take money from your account straight away. They will do it tonight when you are sleeping, quietly and gently and with a special arrangement with your bank, you won't even get a notification.

      • It is still processing (after 3 days).

  • Pay through Cashrewards for 1.3% back and pay with zip pay for another 1% back. Total comes to around $796 ish. Not bad.

    • Waiting for 10% off Apple Giftcards.

      • I wouldn't dream of getting a bucket load of gift cards this week from Coles(10% of),uploading them to the phone (to check validity) then ordering and paying using the cards…

        • Why? You expecting a stampede of Ozbargain savers running for the giftcards?

          • @Dollar Dreamer: Even resorted to “misplacing” a couple (which exceeded my daily limit). Went back the next day and all the $200 cards were gone. Fortunately I was able to find those from the previous day.

            • @roonie: Can you get $800 in giftcards and then pay $15 with credit card? Or it has to be all with giftcards?

              • @Dollar Dreamer: I had a similar Q - if the item was $99 could I pay with a $100 GC. It was suggested that I put it all on my apple wallet. Couldn’t be easier. (And you also ensure validity of the cards asap.). I wouldn’t imagine your scenario will be a problem. I could see many people could get say a $100 GC as a present and would use that to go against an item costing much more

              • @Dollar Dreamer: doesn't have to be all gift cards

    • Cashrewards won't honour it:
      https://www.cashrewards.com.au/store/apple

      Cashback is ineligible on the following:
      Updated 28/10/24:
      New mac mini and iMac, iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, AirPods 4, Apple Watch Series 10, Apple Vision Pro, all Apple Vision Pro accessories, Apple Pro Display XDR, gift cards, Apple Developer Programs and Shipping.

  • +2

    Holy Hell. Geekbench leaks are out for M4. M4 base is FASTER than even the M3 Pro from last year!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYZMnLosHHE

  • Q: What is the best way to connect 2 displays to this? Can i use a USB-C hub with HDMI port and plug in 2 displays (1 through onboard HDMI and the other through the Hub?)

    • It can be connected to 3 displays. 2 USB C and 1 HDMI.

    • +1

      excluded unfortunately

      Cashback terms and exclusions:
      https://www.topcashback.com.au/apple/
      The following products & services are ineligible for cashback (updated Oct 30, 2024): New MacBook Pro 14" & 16", New iMac & Mac mini, iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, Apple Watch Series 10, AirPods 4, Vision Pro & Vision Pro accessories, Pro Display XDR, trade-ins, AppleCare+, purchase of gift cards, developer programs, shipping.

    • +1

      It's probably better to use this deal anyway

  • +1

    bought one to replace my raspberry pi's. FYI the 10 GbE eth upgrade adds +10 days to delivery date.

  • -2

    My order is still processing after 3 days. Has anyone had the same issue?

    • +1

      Well it's a pre-order… it's going to be processing until the product actually releases.

  • I know AOC store isn’t eligible, but wouldn’t it be better to wait a month or so until the Back to School deal for free AirPods / gift card?
    Or would the new Macs be ineligible?

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