Best for hobbyists
Awesome power for enthusiasts and pros
THE YOUNGEST MEMBER of Apple’s Mac lineup, the Mac Studio has the same footprint as a Mac mini, though it’s taller, more powerful and considerably more expensive. Something else it has in common with a Mac mini is it comes without a keyboard, mouse or trackpad; you’ll have to supply these yourself. Obviously, you need a monitor too. All you get in the box is a power cord and the Mac… but what a Mac it is.
There are two off-the–shelf models to choose from. The cheaper one is based on an Apple silicon M2 Max chip, with a 12–core CPU, 30–core GPU, a 16–core Neural Engine, 32GB of unified memory and 512GB of SSD
With stats like that, it’s clear the Mac Studio is for professionals and hobbyists with high–end needs. It’s perfect for those who want a huge amount of computing power but can’t afford — or don’t need — aMac Pro. If you’re a professional designer, do lots of photo editing, or need to compile code quickly, then the Mac Studio is for you.
As it’s light and compact, it’s great if you want to carry it between work and home, just like the Mac mini. The power cord is cheap and easily obtainable, so if you set up a screen, keyboard, mouse or trackpad and a power lead at both locations, all you need to do is carry the computer between the two. The Mac Studio is 7.7 x 7.7 inches, 3.7 inches tall and weighs 5.9lbs for the cheaper model and 7.9lbs for the higher–specced version, so it will fit in most work bags.
It’s great for connectivity too. At the back it has four Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, two USB–A ports and HDMI for a display. There’s also a 10Gb Ethernet port for wired networking and a 3.5mm headphone jack. At the front there’s an SDXC card slot with an UHS–II (Ultra High Speed) rating, which is capable of transfer speeds of up to 312MB/s. On the cheaper Mac Studio there are also a couple of USB–C ports with speeds of up to 10Gb/s. On the top–of–the–range model,these are replaced by twin Thunderbol
