I’ve been in the market for an upgrade for the past couple years, I’m currently using a late 2013 iMac with 32GB of ram. It works fine for most of my needs, but I do video work on the side and it gets bogged down with my Fuji h.265 footage. When I first watched all the reviews it seemed to check all the boxes, it would easily handle my video work with FCPX working off an external Samsung T5, as well as other basic needs. However, it seems like more reports are coming with both display and Bluetooth issues. So I was wondering if these are maybe just outliers and most peoples new Mac Mini M1s are working fine? Feedback would be greatly appreciated for those who’s systems seem to be running flawlessly.

FWIW I was planning on going with the Mac Mini M1 16GB/1TB storage, MX master 3/keyboard, and Viewsonic VP3481 monitor.

Thanks for the feedback.

Base model working fine here, with ultrawide display. Apple Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad connect fine. Logitech Bluetooth keyboard connects fine, except not recognized at login screen.

eba said:

Base model working fine here, with ultrawide display. Apple Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad connect fine. Logitech Bluetooth keyboard connects fine, except not recognized at login sceen

Thanks for feedback, when you say not recognized at login screen are you talking about the initial setup?

M1 MacMini 16GGB/512GB SSD working well for 3 days. Using Logitech MX Master 3 Keyboard/Mouse w/Logitech dongle/reciever. Using two Dell Monitors. One USC-C, and the other via HDMI. The USB-C blanked out with a black screen today for 4-5 seconds. No problems since.

Tidal (sampling level as Master), Safari, Mail, Messages open. Free RAM is only 244MB left. No beachballs or slow downs.

Wifi working well.....as far as I can tell with my friend Medicom

jazz1 said:

M1 MacMini 16GGB/512GB SSD working well for 3 days. Using Logitech MX Master 3 Keyboard/Mouse w/Logitech dongle/reciever. Using two Dell Monitors. One USC-C, and the other via HDMI. The USB-C blanked out with a black screen today for 4-5 seconds. No problems since.

Tidal (sampling level as Master), Safari, Mail, Messages open. Free RAM is only 244MB left. No beachballs or slow downs.

Wifi working well.....as far as I can tell with my friend Medicom

Click to expand...

That’s good to hear! Thanks for the info

Tbenne3 said:

Thanks for feedback, when you say not recognized at login screen are you talking about the initial setup?

No. It isn't recognized whenever I start up and am at the login screen. Apple keyboards work fine, but the Logitech keyboard isn't recognized via Bluetooth until I after I log in.

Took delivery today of a M1 mac mini with a 16 GByte RAM upgrade. Fully works as expected. Using Bluetooth Apple keyboard and mouse I still had. Hooked up to a Denon receiver and via that to an LG OLED TV.

For now still using the mac mini's HDMI port, might go for a usb-c->HDMI2.0b cable/adapter in order to get 4K HDR in 4:4:4 - still looking at which would be better/proven to work before I move on it as well as more media players beyond Quicktime to support HDR to start with.

Had mine M1 Mini 16/512 since 24 november, no issues so far.

Connected to an asus pro art 27” 1440p display through tb3.

Use magic mouse gen 1 and airpods pro, no BT issues (but I still suspect that’s because I run wired network, i still suspect wifi being the culprit for peoples BT problems). AW unlock works etc

Had my 16GB/2TB model for a week with no issues. Connected to two LG 32UN500 monitors, Keykron v4 Bluetooth keyboard, Apple trackpad, two Apple HiFi speakers and a Caldigit TS3.

Second Mac mini. Still having connectivity issues. My keyboard and mouse just randomly disconnect. infuriating.

I just placed my order this morning for an M1 Mac mini. So, as far as I know it works great as it is still in the box, at Apple’s shipping depot. 😂😉

I’m looking forward to it. My last Mac mini was the Intel one on the last refresh, and I sent it back as it ran badly with 8 GB of RAM. This one seems like a much better bet for what I need it to do.

Lowhangers said:

I just placed my order this morning for an M1 Mac mini. So, as far as I know it works great as it is still in the box, at Apple’s shipping depot. 😂😉

I’m looking forward to it. My last Mac mini was the Intel one on the last refresh, and I sent it back as it ran badly with 8 GB of RAM. This one seems like a much better bet for what I need it to do.

So how much RAM did you order on your M1 mini?

My maxed-out mini arrived yesterday. I set it up as new from scratch. I have a big video project coming up this weekend, so I'll be able to tell then how Final Cut behaves. I also have a couple of Logic projects to do next week. But so far it's been working fine. There are a few quirks: Apple is no longer providing the drivers for my Canon scanner. Fortunately I got them from Canon's site and it's working well. My HP Laserjet printer would only install using AirPrint, but it too is working fine. I have my LG UltraHD monitor hooked up via TB3 to DP and it's fine, though the image looks a little soft to me. It's running at full resolution and 60 hz. My CalDigit dock and external storage is working fine.

What I'm most impressed with so far is Steam. It's running under Rosetta, but the games I've tried on it so far work perfectly. I set Pinball Arcade to 8x antialiasing, which on my previous systems made it unusable. The M1 mini doesn't even break a sweat. I have CrossOver for some Windows games, and I haven't gotten them to work yet (but I'm really close). So all in all, I'm pretty happy.

ECJ said:

Had my 16GB/2TB model for a week with no issues. Connected to two LG 32UN500 monitors, Keykron v4 Bluetooth keyboard, Apple trackpad, two Apple HiFi speakers and a Caldigit TS3.

I have two LG 32UL500 monitors and a new 8/256B model. One monitor is using a usb-c to DisplayPort cable and the other is HDMI. The DisplayPort connection contrast and brightness looks terrible no matter which thunderbolt port I've tried and switching the cable between monitors doesn't make a difference either. HDMI looks great. I use these same monitors with an older 2014 MacBook Pro and don't have this issue. The only difference is that machine uses a mini DisplayPort connection to DisplayPort. Do you mind sharing what cable you're using? So far not overly impressed with mine as its definitely faster to open things but not quite the performance increase I expected.

mpennin33 said:

The DisplayPort connection contrast and brightness looks terrible no matter which thunderbolt port I've tried and switching the cable between monitors doesn't make a difference either. HDMI looks great.

That's the issue I'm seeing as well. Unfortunately, HDMI on the mini will output at no more than 30 hz. So I've simply adjusted the brightness and contrast on the monitor itself to compensate. That surprised me, because in my experience DP was always superior in image quality to HDMI.

jayducharme said:

That's the issue I'm seeing as well. Unfortunately, HDMI on the mini will output at no more than 30 hz. So I've simply adjusted the brightness and contrast on the monitor itself to compensate. That surprised me, because in my experience DP was always superior in image quality to HDMI.

Thank you for the feedback. I'll try adjusting the monitor settings to see if I can get it close.

mpennin33 said:

I have two LG 32UL500 monitors and a new 8/256B model. One monitor is using a usb-c to DisplayPort cable and the other is HDMI. The DisplayPort connection contrast and brightness looks terrible no matter which thunderbolt port I've tried and switching the cable between monitors doesn't make a difference either. HDMI looks great. I use these same monitors with an older 2014 MacBook Pro and don't have this issue. The only difference is that machine uses a mini DisplayPort connection to DisplayPort. Do you mind sharing what cable you're using? So far not overly impressed with mine as its definitely faster to open things but not quite the performance increase I expected.

Click to expand...

I'm using a USB-C to DisplayPort, connected to the TS3, and one connected via HDMI directly to the Mini.

Just an update on FCPX: I brought a handful of HD clips into my current project. I had to balance the color and add other video and audio effects. The mini performed a little faster than my previous setup with an 8 gb eGPU, but there wasn't as huge a difference as I was hoping. Balancing color on a 25 second clip took about 6 seconds to render. And I'm fine with that. In a few weeks I'll be dealing with some 4k footage, so it will be interesting to see how that goes.

ECJ said:

Had my 16GB/2TB model for a week with no issues. Connected to two LG 32UN500 monitors, Keykron v4 Bluetooth keyboard, Apple trackpad, two Apple HiFi speakers and a Caldigit TS3

EDIT: sorry I realised you already answered,

Ran into my first MM issues this week.

First was showing I was connected to wifi, but not being able to connect to anything, even though every other device in my household could. I restarted my router and haven't had problems since.

Second issue occurred yesterday where my MX Keyboard would not connect when trying to wake the machine from sleep. My MX3 mouse connected no problem. Tried restarting the keyboard and cycling through connected devices to no avail. Restarted the MM and it connected just fine afterward. Haven't had issue again (yet), but it made me realize that Apple doesn't have an on-screen keyboard option like Windows machines do. This is an absolutely ridiculous omission

That's why I use a wired keyboard. It's been a long-reported issue with minis. With my 2018 mini, the Bluetooth connection to my Magic Trackpad would randomly and frequently drop. It was really frustrating. So far with the M1, I'm not having problems.

I feel like I know a good bit about technology but bluetooth is one thing I don't know much about. Is this an issue that could be solved with a software update? Seems like apple had to have been aware of this prior to release.

Really don't want to invest in a new computer/monitor/mouse and keyboard with the chance of it being unreliable.

I assume it’s a hardware issue. Since my M1 so far doesn’t seem to suffer the same problem, Apple might have fixed it.

jayducharme said:

I assume it’s a hardware issue. Since my M1 so far doesn’t seem to suffer the same problem, Apple might have fixed it.

Are you still using a wired keyboard, or are you using wireless now?

I never used a wireless keyboard; always wired. My trackpad is wireless.