M1 Mini end of life

[JEB]

Hi all,
I have an unopened new in box M1 mini. If I open it how kind can I expect Apple support or should I trade it in for an M4 mini?

[special]

how much does the power button on the bottom bother you?

I would personally go for an M4

[Acer]

IMHO, good for about 8-9 years from introduction before it won't take the latest OS. Even then it's usable for years afterward as long as the app you need will run. There are people on here still clutching onto Snow Leopard, fer gosh sakes.

[clay]

yeah, the M1 is still a very usable device. But if you are more concerned about performance and/or aren't budget sensitive, sell the M1 for a couple hundred bucks and pick up an M4 mini.

[gabester]

I'm in the same boat but with a M2 Mac mini 8GB RAM / 256 SSD

I really want the M4 mini for the potentially replaceable storage modules.

[ADent]

The replaceable storage module is great. 2TB M4 mini here.

[OWC Larry]

On the SSDs... with Apple's embedded SSD controller, the only NAND that works is very limited and pretty much has to be sourced from iPhone or other Mac teardowns with the same NAND type. It's not standard unfortunately..... That being said...

One really nice thing with MacOS 15 and later is that now you can even install applications on an external drive. So you can get a super nice, fastest 40GB/s SSD solution like our Express 1M2 - up to 8TB... and only use the internal drive primarily for MacOS with documents, apps, etc - mapped to the external. This saves a lot vs. internal factory capacity + goes with you to next systems too.

The M4 is wicked fast... although an M1 Max is still a little over the M4. And and M2 or M3 vs. M4 - smaller and smaller real world to even notice unless you're doing intensive A/V work or, maybe, gaming.

Not sure what you're coming from going into an M1 Mac mini - but it's likely it's going to be super snappy and meet all you need/want + support should be on it for at least the next 4-6 years OS wise I'd expect. Apple does all this Apple Intelligence 'made for' marking on systems released after AI was added.... anything with M1 or later does all the Apple AI stuff..

So - new M4 is nice - but you may not even notice the difference and you've got that M1