The M4 Mac Mini Is One of Apple's Best Black Friday Deals

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Black Friday sales officially start Friday, November 28, and run through Cyber Monday, December 1, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it's over. 

• Follow our live blog to stay up-to-date on the best sales we find.

• Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more.

• Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox.

• Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change. 

It’s nice to have dreams that you can actually achieve. Mine is owning an M4 Mac Mini home server setup, which has now become even more realistic thanks to Amazon’s Black Friday sale. The already affordable base M4 Mac Mini is discounted by $120 for Black Friday, and can now be yours (and mine) for just $479.

The M4 chip in the Mac Mini is no joke. My daily driver is the 14-inch M4 Pro MacBook Pro, and I love the thing. I love the power, the screen, the whole package. But now that my wife and I have moved into a new place and we have a nice entertainment area set up, I really want a dedicated home computer there for both of us. A home computer would be a great place to attend to our weekly meditation sessions and daily browsing sessions, plus it could serve as a media server and a place for my wife to take a look at scans and plan out her cases (she is a dentist).

Apple Mac Mini M4 10-Core CPU 10-Core GPU Desktop (16GB/256GB)

$479.00 at Amazon

$599.00 Save $120.00

Get Deal

Get Deal

$479.00 at Amazon

$599.00 Save $120.00

Because the Mac Mini is small and cheap, it’s the perfect candidate. We considered getting an iMac, but at the $1,299 starting price, that’s a lot to ask. Plus, we already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to go along with the Mac Mini. The 5-inch by 5-inch footprint makes it small enough that I can hide it in my TV console.

The base configuration isn't quite as strong as an M4 Pro model would be, but it's more than powerful enough for our needs, and that's probably true for most home users. The M4 chip packs a 10-core CPU (with a mix of performance and efficiency cores), a 10-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine (NPU). There’s also 16GB RAM standard across all base Mac computers, which bodes well for longevity. And because it’s powered by an ARM chip, it’s a lot more power efficient than Intel or AMD CPUs, which means I won’t feel guilty for running it 24/7 as my media center, hosting movies on my Jellyfin server with it. The 256GB SSD is quite small, I’ll be honest, but it’s really easy to extend the storage using USB-C storage drives.

If you want more power (something that matches my MacBook Pro), you can also take a look at the M4 Pro Mac Mini with 24GB RAM and 512GB storage, which is down from its usual price of $1,399 to $1,199.

Does Apple do Black Friday?

Yes, Apple participates in Black Friday, though you may want to compare their sales with other retailers like Best Buy and Walmart. Apple is offering an exclusive $250 gift card for eligible purchases, but so far, the best Black Friday sale on an Apple product is the M4 MacBook on sale for cheaper than ever.

What stores have the best sales on Black Friday?

Nowadays, both large retailers and small businesses compete for Black Friday shoppers, so you can expect practically every store to run sales through Monday, December 1, 2025. The “best” sales depend on your needs, but in general, the biggest discounts tend to come from larger retailers who can afford lower prices: think places like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot. You can find all the best sales from major retailers on our live blog. 

Are Black Friday deals worth it?

In short, yes, Black Friday still offers discounts that can be rare throughout the rest of the year. If there’s something you want to buy, or you’re shopping for gifts, it’s a good time to look for discounts on what you need, especially tech sales, home improvement supplies, and fitness tech. Of course, if you need to save money, the best way to save is to not buy anything. 

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