Interesting but I have a couple of doubts: max available RAM is 16 GB and it is not upgradable after the purchasing. And there are only 5 ports total available (2 Thunderbolt/USB4 +2 USBA) and 1 hdmi. Plus the Ethernet.
Maybe because I'm used to the 32GB RAM and the 6+4 ports of my old Mac Pro but I feel this as a limitation in future use.
Any thoughts? Anyone using it with LR or Photoshop?
"It depends." The advantage of the thunderbolt/usb4 is that breakout boxes can work pretty well. Obviously depends on how many ports you need/want in real life use. I think the ports on the mini are more than enough for most uses; those who regularly use more know what the solution is - buy a more (possibly much more) expensive computer, or a breakout box.
As for the ram: yes, a limitation, but you'd have to look at your own use in a bit more detail and account for the much better/faster memory and swap to decide how much of an issue.
I've been following comments from others and I think it's reasonable to say a 'normal' LR/PS user would probably be fine with 16gb. Caveat that 'normal' user doesn't have a half dozen large PS images open at once, three browsers with 40 tabs, with some other large memory hog programs running simultaneously, etc. And, isn't hypersensitive to minor slowdowns or doing a wee bit of memory management work (like quitting a program now and again).
The bottom line is that the memory swap is much faster (to the point that some never notice any impact) and the unified memory helps (for some users, with some programs). System peepers who want to know their machine never uses swap will object.
But: I have some reservations from reading boards and user issues about making final decisions until Adobe puts out an apple silicon version of Lightroom Classic (or at least a bugfixed one).
Long story short, there appear to be some occasional/inconsistent issues reported with memory and Lightroom on the M1. Some guesswork is that there's some coding in Lightroom Classic that doesn't 'play well' with the on-board graphics and unified memory (the hint is that playing with the gfx acceleration preferences helps, sometimes a lot).
Background: I use Lightroom on two Macs, a 24gb and a 32gb Intel, and 32gb is way more than enough, 24gb fine, and the rare cases where more memory might be noticed (on the 24gb) are when I'm hammering it with way more stuff going on than is needed (and even then completely usable). I'm pretty confident 16gb would be fine vast majority of the time even on my slower/less memory Intel machine. (I don't use Photoshop often, using both at the same time obviously would use more memory).
A full-time working pro might very well have a different opinion - lower tolerance for minor slowdowns for one.
YMMV. My personal decision is I'm going to wait before getting a new M1 laptop to see what new models they have (I want Magsafe!) and maybe still splurge for more memory, and also see what user reports say once Adobe updates Lightroom classic.
