With the above caveats, the Mac mini M1 and its siblings, the Mac mini M2, the MacBook Air M2, the MacBook Air M1 and the 24″ iMac M1 make amazing low cost options for musicians and creators. You will regret buying an Apple M Series system with 8GB memory and a 256GB SSD.

Any less than this does not make performance or economic sense. My minimum Apple computer recommendation for musicians and creators is 16GB memory and 512GB SSD or more. A 16GB memory upgrade for $200 and a 512GB SSD upgrade for $200 are seriously the minimum of what you need. It’s tight now and has a negative future-proofing factor. 8GB of memory and a 256GB SSD are not enough for musicians and creators. I’m not going to play with you here, or hem and haw like many YouTubers do. If properly configured Apple silicon is too expensive for you, buy used or refurbished. Do not buy a computer with 8GB memory and a 256GB SSD! Why any musician or creator would buy a new system constrained like this in 2023 is beyond me.

Mac mini vs imac for recording