Four years. That’s how long it took for Apple to finally update the Mac mini(opens in a new tab).

Why did it take so long? Call it serious neglect, overshadowed by the tremendous growth of the iPhone(opens in a new tab), iPad(opens in a new tab), and Apple Watch(opens in a new tab). It really doesn’t matter anymore because Apple finally updated its most affordable Mac.

I requested a review unit to evaluate just how much value somebody could squeeze from the $799 Mac mini, but Apple left me hanging. So I bought my own to find out.

With seemingly wimpy specs like an Intel Core i3 processor, 8GB of RAM, and Intel UHD 630 integrated graphics, I didn’t expect the Mac mini would be good for much more than browsing the web, streaming videos and music, and writing a story or two.

But the Mac Mini surprised me. Despite its less-than-perfect-on-paper specifications, the smooth space gray aluminum computer proved to be a fairly capable machine for creating content.

Ask any young, hip person and they'll probably tell you something like: "I want to be a YouTuber" or "I want to start a podcast" or "I want to be Instagram famous." They're new careers that didn't exist when I was growing up, but because of the internet and social media, there's a deeper desire to create than ever before.

Though free platforms with myriad content monetization methods make these new opportunities possible, there's no guarantee you're going to become the next great vlogger like Casey Neistat or dancing-meme-extraordinaire like Roy Purdy. But everyone wants to have the tools to at least try without having to take out a loan on a computer and production equipment.

And that's where the Mac mini really shines. It's the least expensive Mac you can get and it handles almost all kinds of content creation with aplomb.

I had virtually no issues writing up blog posts, editing 4K videos for YouTube, recording and editing a podcast, editing large RAW photos, and more. I even tried to choke up the Mac mini by connecting three 1080p-resolution monitors to it, but it just powered through.

The Mac mini has some flaws — it's terrible for gaming and can't play Fortnite at any respectable frame rate — but it's a great computer for budding content creators with big dreams.

The Mac mini (2018) is classic Apple: everything's changed, but also not really. The computer itself largely resembles its 2014 predecessor(opens in a new tab), but with a new space gray paint job.

That's sorta true. Like so many of Apple's products, the new Mac mini is made of aluminum. It's a tried-and-true material that not only looks great, but is also durable.

However, there's more to the metal than meets the eye. Just like the latest MacBook Air(opens in a new tab), the Mac mini is made of 100 percent recycled aluminum and also 60 percent recycled plastic.

The environmentalist in me applauds Apple for its efforts to make the Mac mini a green computer. No other major computer company has committed to doing so at a comparable level.

The inside of the Mac mini is an entirely different story. It features faster 8th-gen Intel quad-core (3.6GHz Intel Core i3) and six-core processors (3.0GHz Intel Core i5 or 3.2 GHz Intel Core i7), and faster SSD storage (starts at 128GB and configurable up to 2TB). It also includes 2,666MHz DDR4 SO-DIMM RAM (starts at 8GB and expandable to 64GB), Intel UHD Graphics 630, and faster I/O from the USB 3 and Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports.

But of course everything's faster. We're comparing a new Mac mini to one from 2014. A newer machine doesn't always mean faster performance, though. I've used many new computers that perform certain tasks slower than four- or five-year-old machines.

You could easily build a more powerful Windows PC for about the same price, but you won't get macOS. And for a Mac, even my barebones Intel Core i3 model was quite the little do-it-all.

One look at the Intel Core i3 spec and you might think: Holy crap, this thing is weak... and you'd be wrong. Intel's labels are designed to confuse and in most computers an Intel Core i3 means you shouldn't expect much power.

But for the Mac mini, it's the opposite. While it does have Core i3 branding, the chip itself has quad-cores, which gives you a lot more performance to throw around when you need to.

Running Geekbench 4(opens in a new tab) to get a sense of how the Mac mini compares to other computers, it scored 4,594 for single-core performance and 12,695 for multi-core.

To put that into perspective, that makes the Mac mini's chip faster than the quad-core Intel Core i5 silicon inside of Microsoft's Surface Laptop 2(opens in a new tab) at least when it comes to single-core tasks. The Laptop 2 edges out the Mac mini in multi-core performance, but not by a whole lot. But less on the synthetic benchmarks and more on what the Mac mini can actually do in a little bit.

Maybe one of the most underrated things about the Mac mini is all of the ports on its backside. There's a lot of I/O to work with for a such a small computer and they shouldn't be overlooked. You get four Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports, two full-sized USB-A ports, an HDMI 2.0 port, gigabit Ethernet, and a headphone jack. The only other computer in a comparable size I can think of with more is Intel's Hades Canyon NUC(opens in a new tab).

The Mac Mini doesn't come with a display, keyboard, or mouse. You can use existing accessories or buy new ones, and connecting all of this stuff is dead simple.

Hooking up a monitor is straightforward and you can do so in two ways: plug it in via HDMI or Thunderbolt 3 USB-C. If your monitor outputs over HDMI and you want to connect it over USB-C, you'll need to pick up an adapter. I hooked up two monitors using HDMI-to-USB-C adapters and then a third monitor directly over HDMI to create my epic triple-monitor setup(opens in a new tab).

Connecting a wired keyboard and mouse into any of the USB-A or USB-C ports is the fastest way to get started using the Mac mini, but connecting wireless ones is relatively pain-free as well. I tried connecting various wireless keyboards and mice made by Apple and third-party companies like Logitech and the Mac mini definitely favors Apple's, identifying and connecting to them quicker.

At the end of the day, speeds and feeds only tell you so much and what matters most is what you can do with the Mac mini.

In thinking of how to review the Mac mini, I wanted to throw meaningful projects at it and see if it could handle them. Ultimately, I wanted to do more of the following creative things:

• Video editing
• Podcasting (audio recording and editing)
• Photo editing
• Graphic design
• Writing

My 2013 13-inch MacBook Pro can handle all of these things okay, but not efficiently. Adobe's Creative Suite apps are known processor and memory hogs so whenever I run these tasks on my laptop I usually have to make sure other apps are closed.

I had a hunch the Mac mini could do all of these things separately and maybe two or three of these things at the same time, but not all of them simultaneously.

So it took me by surprise to see my Mac mini — which isn't even the upgraded one with the faster processor equipped with two extra cores — capable of Turbo Boosting, chewing through Final Cut Pro X, Audacity, Photoshop, Lightroom, and Illustrator without so much as a spinning beachball.

Not to mention, I also had other non "creation" apps such as FaceTime (for video chat during cross-country recording sessions), Messages, Mail, and Chrome with a dozen apps open.

I'm not going to nerd over export times and how much faster an iMac or MacBook Pro with discrete graphics compares because you will see slower exporting and rendering times while video editing on the Mac mini. But it's nothing unusual. It's by no means the fastest machine for video editing, but it's no stuttering slouch either.

The apps you use will also dictate how much you can squeeze out of the hardware. I use Final Cut Pro X to edit 4K videos because it's better optimized to work with macOS and exports twice as fast as Premiere Pro. However, if you use Adobe Premiere Rush, you'll find it to be zippier as well.

I wasn't sure at first if the Mac mini would be able to crunch through so many things, but after using it, there's no doubt in my mind amateur creators will be able to get a lot of value from the Mac mini. Creatives who need even more performance should consider the more powerful six-core version or look at the iMac or MacBook Pro or even connecting an external "eGPU" to it.

The bottom line is: The Mac mini performed better than my somewhat high expectations. In many ways, the Mac mini is the mighty little Mac I wish I had in high school or college. Plus, it's even portable! There were a few days where I carried the Mac mini to and from work in my backpack. Think about that for a second: I carried a desktop in my backpack because it was more capable than any of my personal Macs. Good luck finding many non-custom PCs that are this small.

Excellent as the Mac mini is for editing video, recording podcasts, and graphic design in Photoshop and Illustrator, one thing it completely fails at is gaming.

I tried playing Fortnite and at both Medium and High (I'm not even asking for Epic) graphics settings, and the game barely ran at 10-12 frames per second, which is far below an acceptable 30 frames per second you'd get from a PC and worlds away from the 60 fps you'd expect to get from a high-end gaming PC.

More stylized and less graphically intense games such as Super Hot(opens in a new tab) are playable, but they're not the smoothest. Emulators for playing legally owned ROMS will also work, but I'd hardly consider that desktop gaming.

Needless to say, if you're looking at the Mac mini thinking it could help you become the next PewDiePie you're going to be extremely disappointed. It'll for sure help you create videos, but you'll have to look elsewhere to play and capture game footage.

It's really too bad that the gaming situation hasn't improved on the Mac. It was terrible when the Mac mini was introduced in 2005 and it's still awful nearly 15 years later.

The Mac mini is never going to be the most popular Mac. iMacs and MacBooks have miles on the Mac mini, but Apple's updated it and brought it into the modern age of computing with performance and I/O that enable creators to really make things.

Whether you're a designer, musician, coder, or whatever — the Mac mini can handle pretty much everything you need to do. Demanding professionals will always need more power and Apple has machines for them. But for most people, the Mac mini is a compact Swiss Army Knife desktop computer that's reasonably affordable.

Would it have been great if Apple sold it at $499 like the old Mac mini? Of course, but the old machine was slower, less durable, and was low on storage and RAM. It didn't have as many fast ports. The WiFi was sluggish. It didn't support things like Blackmagic's eGPU to pump up graphics performance.

The new Mac mini may look just like the old one at first glance, but it's a mightier beast.