 When I first laid eyes on the 2018 Mac mini, the first words out of my mouth were, does Apple make it bigger? And I actually wasn't the only one. So I got myself all pumped up to be like, yo, so it's not so mini anymore, is it? You know what? We should just call it the Mac. But as it turns out, they actually didn't make it bigger. It's just been so long since Apple has updated the Mac mini that either you think of this or this or this, which is the original Mac mini, not this. I guess we've just been spoiled by the Intel Nook and all the third-party derivatives. But so you know what? I'm actually gonna stick with it. This product shouldn't be called the Mac mini. It should be called the Mac. But that might not be a bad thing. Speaking of Mac, our sponsor, Mac Weldon. Mac Weldon makes great underwear, t-shirts, socks, wallets, and more. They believe in simple shopping. And if you use code Tech Tips, you will get 20% off at the link below. So we stumbled upon the first reason that this is a Mac, not a Mac mini during the ordering process. Unlike previous Mac mini models, the 2018 Mac is not cheap. It starts at 799 for the quad-core experience with a piddly eight gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of storage. Now, obviously I'm no pleb, so I poked around on the ordering page some more and ended up ponying up for the second reason that this is a Mac, the desktop class six-core processor option. Yes, my friends, starting at 1099 US, you can get the same performance as your DIY PC building chump roommate in a device this big. The unboxing experience certainly was pretty legendary, but things were looking up from there. And isn't it beautiful? The thing weighs only about three pounds and is completely clean, aside from the glossy Apple logo on the top. Oh well. Around back, we've got this air vent that Apple says doubles airflow over the last gen and above the IO, which impressively is nearly identical to the iMac Pro and includes four Thunderbolt 3 ports, which have all kinds of uses, display, USB, external docs, whatever. We've got HDMI, USB-A, and a headphone jack. Hey, is that where they've been keeping them? Anyway, what we've also got is the main event for me, right here, a 10 gigabit networking port. And this is not only available on the Mac, but even reasonably priced at about 100 bucks for the upgrade. So now we can finally edit 8K footage over the network without needing an iMac Pro or an expensive Thunderbolt to 10 gigabit networking adapter. So why don't we do it? Okay. Ah, Mac OS, my old friend. Mac OS, not my favorite in no small part though, due to my lack of familiarity with it, but to its credit, it's actually remarkably smooth on this machine with its mere eight gigs of RAM. With that said, the experience isn't all it could be with a more reasonable amount of system memory. And I've got some good news. With about half an hour and a handy-dandy guide off of iFixit, anyone with a screwdriver should be able to perform a memory upgrade on the 2018 Mac. Remember, that's what I'm calling it, by themselves. So I called in a friend to help me out. He knows all about disassembling Apple products. It's actually easier than you might think to get inside this thing. You just need the right tools. Here are the steps. The bottom lid just pops right off. The antenna plate is just a few screws. Make sure though that you mark where the larger ones go for reassembly later. You unscrew the wifi connector and carefully pry it up. Then unscrew the fan, pry its connector up and remove it. These two cables need to be carefully removed. Then you can take out the two large TR-10 screws that keep the motherboard fastened to the chassis. Give the rear I.O. plate a gentle push and it'll pop up and then out. There's a cage around the RAM to reduce EMI, but four T6 screws later and we have regular old sodium slots. Just repeat this process in reverse once the RAM is in and you're done. But I have some bad news too. Remember how I mentioned that you should buy as much storage as you will need when you order? Yeah, about that. So the, let's call them rumors about Apple blocking third party operating systems from the Mac mini and other T2 chip enabled devices. Turns out to be false, but only from a literal standpoint. Thanks to the T2 chip, Linux isn't blocked from booting, only from installing. So if you fired up into recovery mode and disable secure boot, you can still boot Linux if you're into that, even with the T2 chip, but without access to the internal storage. So we're booted back up here. Let's go into about this. Boom, there it is. 32 gigs of DDR4 memory. So at least the RAM upgrade worked. And this was just with random memory that we had lying around in our warehouse. So all that's left now then is to see how the 2018 Mac stacks up with the competition in terms of its performance. We're gonna test it alongside the MacBook Pro 2018, the MacBook Air 2018, a Hades Canyon Nook and a similarly priced desktop PC. Also, while we aren't focusing on games today, we're gonna throw a few in there just to round out our testing. As one might expect, well, relying on integrated graphics does the Mac no favors. Even at 720p medium details, it absolutely chugs in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, meaning that you're basically SOL for all but e-sports titles. And even then, it's not a great experience. Until you plug in an external GPU via Thunderbolt 3. Just bear in mind though, that only AMD graphics cards are officially supported in Mac OS. Anyway, that's not why you're buying a Mac. And when it comes to productivity, thankfully the Mac here occupies a niche much closer to the 2018 MacBook Pro than the 2018 MacBook Air thanks to its hefty CPU horsepower. But while it does beat out our Hades Canyon Nook in CPU performance, it sadly doesn't come close in GPU and loses out entirely to our similarly priced stock desktop. Except actually for one case where Mac OS's aggressive boost factors in. Though this lack of performance compared to a full-size desktop would be a much bigger problem in our eyes if it wasn't for the Mac's diminutive form factor. Speaking of which, by the way, it does have a reasonable looking ventilation hole, but it got really hot, like really hot while it was working hard, like over 90 degrees hot, which comes a little too close to literally smoking the competition for our liking. I mean, stock chips start to throttle around 85 degrees or so. And yeah, the Mac manages to keep it going above base clock with surprisingly minimal noise. So that's good. But remember, it's got that T2 chip that we're all familiar with by now. So if some component of your system dies a heat death or the board flexes or something, especially as dust accumulates inside over the years, remember, Apple might not upgrade this thing for four years. So even if you buy on every release cycle, at least the good news is that it sips power compared to our desktop. I'm just saying I would recommend setting up Time Machine just to be safe, which honestly is a pretty good way to sum up the whole experience. One giant asterisk. Yeah, it's a small Mac, but you're gonna have to deal with no dedicated GPU when similarly priced kits have them. Yes, it's fast, but its thermal solution, while improved, is not designed for sustained loads. Yes, it's upgradable and cleanable, but only if you have the right tools. And that upgradable thing, it only applies to RAM, not the internal storage that is held ransom by the T2 chip, like it really seems like Apple designed this new generation of Mac with something like Final Cut or Adobe Premiere in mind, where the IGP can accelerate some of the transcoding work and then the CPU cores themselves can handle the much burstier timeline editing work. That's even more apparent with the inclusion of 10 gig ethernet for connecting to a high-speed NAS. Though we're not saying that's the only thing it could be used for, because on that subject, you could actually use this thing as a high-speed NAS, thanks to that 10 gig ethernet. Though for the price and considering that you'd need a separate Thunderbolt enclosure for true mass storage, well, it's not a great value. In spite of the compromises though, per Apple tradition, there's nothing in this form factor that quite matches the capability and the connectivity of the 2018 Mac. And the price, while higher, isn't entirely outlandish either. So if you need its unique blend of form and function, or if you just plain need a Mac and don't feel like paying more to have a screen pre-attached to it, seriously, actually this occurred to us only while we were finalizing the script for this video. This is the only thing that runs Mac OS and doesn't include a screen that has been refreshed by Apple in the last five years. Anyway, it's a pretty neat little machine. Just make sure you keep regular backups of all of your files. Though, I mean, that's pretty good advice across the board. Speaking of good advice, our sponsor, Squarespace. If you need to create a gorgeous website without the hassle, some advice would be to try them out. They're all in one platform, makes it easy to get up and running quickly. They've got award-winning templates that you can use as a starting point for a wide range of projects, and they've got tons of great features. 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