Apple's Mac Mini M4 is now discounted to $649, a reduction of $150 from its list price, as the arrival of the newer Mac Mini M6 has eased the shortage of the older machine. The deal covers the base configuration, which has a 256-GB drive and 16 GB of unified memory, and it undercuts the M6 by $250.
The M4 had been out of stock for months after becoming a favorite small desktop for running local agentic AI around the clock. Apple did not release an M5 Mac Mini, so the M6 follows directly after the M4, and its debut has made the earlier model easier to find.
There is a catch, however. When the M4 launched in 2024, its base price was $599. Apple has since raised hardware prices across the board this year, a move tied to shortages of chips and memory, and the M4 ended up at $799. The new M6 starts at $899.
Whether the $649 price counts as a bargain or an unwelcome reminder of how much cheaper the machine once was depends on the buyer. Shoppers who want a Mac Mini and do not need the extra performance of the M6 are unlikely to see a lower price on the M4 than this one.
The M4 is no longer Apple's most capable compact computer. That position now belongs to the M6 and M5 Pro models. Even so, the M4 chip remains strong and efficient. Interest in the machine surged once people found it could run agentic AI locally, making it an affordable choice for that work.
Demanding jobs such as AI workloads or video editing call for more than 16 GB of memory, and buyers who purchased the Mac Mini for AI generally configured it with 32 GB of RAM. For most users, though, the base specifications are more than adequate.
The M6 chip does offer more CPU and GPU cores, Neural Accelerators and higher memory bandwidth. The M4 Mac Mini, however, is not far behind, and for everyday tasks like web browsing and general productivity the difference in performance is slight.
Wired recommends the M6 for those who need its additional performance. For everyone else, it describes the M4 Mac Mini as more than sufficient for daily computing and says a better deal is unlikely to turn up.
