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Is Now the Best Time to Buy an M4 Mac mini? A January Deal Deep-Dive

oonlineshops

2026-01-21

2 min read

Is Now the Best Time to Buy an M4 Mac mini? A January Deal Deep-Dive

Hook — You want a compact, powerful desktop for remote work, school, or creative projects, but you also want the best price. Apple rarely discounts its desktop hardware deeply; when it does, it's worth pausing and deciding: buy now, or wait for a better low? This January, M4 Mac mini deals have reappeared. Below I compare today's discounts with recent historical lows, explain which buyers gain the most, and give a clear buying plan so you don't overpay or buy the wrong configuration.

Top-line answer: Yes — for many buyers, now is a very good time

Apple's January prices on the Mac mini M4 are close to Black Friday lows and include meaningful savings on popular configurations. Retailers are discounting both base and higher-memory SSD tiers — and that matters because Apple’s unified memory and internal SSD are not user-upgradeable. If you need a Mac mini today, current discounts hit the sweet spot between performance, longevity and price. If you're chasing a speculative future refresh, you can wait — but you risk paying launch premium or losing the immediate productivity gains.

Quick snapshot of current January deals (representative)

16GB / 256GB M4: ~ $500 (was $599) — ~17% off; about $20 more than the Black Friday low.
512GB M4 (higher SSD tier): ~ $690 (was $799) — ~14% off.
24GB RAM / 512GB or 1TB tier: ~ $890 (was $999) — ~11% off.
M4 Pro: ~ $1,270 (was $1,399) — ~9% off; includes higher I/O and Thunderbolt 5 support on Pro models.

These January discounts are part of normal post-holiday clearance and early-year promotions — notable because Apple hardware seldom sees deeper long-term price cuts outside of certified refurbished or education deals.

How these prices compare to historical lows

Use past sale benchmarks to judge whether a deal is

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