For the past week I’ve been enjoying the new Mac mini M1 (with Apple Silicon), and boy, what a thing of beauty.

Externally it looks the same; the back, as has been reported, has less extensibility, but I don’t mind–I use either Thunderbolt 3 or Bluetooth accessories, so no problemo. I paired it with and older Apple Wireless Magic keyboard and trackpad, a Samsung 34″ C34J791 Thunderbolt 3 monitor that can double as a T3 hub, extended storage with a Samsung Portable X5 SSD with Thunderbolt 3 and this thing is fluid.

I also own a 2019 MacBook Pro (Intel Core i9, six-core), and informally they’re on par in terms of performance, but Geekbench reports, the Mac mini M1 beating the MacBook Pro hands down.

I’ve been running versions of IntelliJ IDEA for Apple Silicon and CLion for Apple Silicon. Startup time almost instantaneous from a cold boot. Kudos to Phil Nash, Anastasia Kazakova and team for these great tools.

It took around 3 weeks to receive it since I ordered it, but it was worth the wait–and I wasn’t in a hurry. If you can get your hands on one of these, or are undecided, highly recommended.