Hi, no doubt been asked before but technology moves on.. eh guys 
What mini format PC should I get for:
- WIndows
- 4K video playback, mainly YT
- Simple editing with Filmora
I don’t need snappy computer graphics.
All thoughts appreciated
Steve 
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You not ready to cross over to the Mac side yet @Steviegeek
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Come on Steve, leave the dark side, come join the light side and enjoy the simply bonkers 4K rendering speed that Apple silicon provides for a fraction of the cost of a Windows equivalent machine.
Not to mention no malware or viruses, no bloatware, no slowing down… a ten year old Mac remains as fast as the day it was new 
Even Mrs Doyle uses macOS.
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Ditto my laptop. The only real problem is things have moved on and my demands are probably 100x what they were when it was new .. ten years ago.
Never crashed once.
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If we can’t tempt you over to the light side, Steve what’s your budget for a new Windows spec machine?
And do you need a new monitor too?
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*probably
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If you mean the really MINI pc’s then I have a couple..
and
The first one I use as a Plex server (replacing the Raspberry Pi) the second is connected to the TV for watching sports streaming websites ““cough””
Both play 4K YT fine as for any editing I’ve not really tried them as I use my main PC.
These are both over a year old now and better spec ones have come out since, I read that the Ryzen based ones are really good.
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Nooo.. too long in the tooth to transition now,
When Lucy was at uni she had the ‘compulsory’ MacBook but I never mastered it to be of help to her, except the hardware side (don’t ask about the time it froze up on her)
Anyway all the other kit in the house is Windows, I’m still on 10 
I was thinking about £350-400
I’ve just bought a 27" 4K monitor so I’m OK there
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Big enough to fit here, not bigger than a 3D filament box, but I’ve had enough AT towers to last a lifetime
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Then a mini PC will be what your after, the 1st one of mine is about 5 inches square, the second one is tiny at 3.5 inch square.
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and it’s in budget 
Thanks
Steve
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Mac is a much cleaner interface, have a a Mac mini M4 and is really great & clean looking, have also adopted daughters windows 11 laptop, it drives me crazy, leaves files / views all over the place. Click on a photo and can’t upload as it was on a Sd card you transferred files from months ago. Windows file explorer has really gone down the nick from NT/95.
I’ve used Mac & windows side by side for years, for many of which undecided, but now Mac OS is far superior to anything windows has to offer.
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Although the jury is out of Tahoe, but it’s miles ahead of Windows 11
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Your using a a mac from 2016?
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I replaced my 2012 Mac mini last year, up until I purchased a drone it did all I needed it to do (basically use Lightroom, the last standalone version, no subscription), still using my old cameras.
Needed something newer to run video & photo editing software for more modern camera & video codecs.
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I’ve been in the Windows PC camp since the 1990s, starting with a good 'old 386SX 16MHz and 1MB Ram. (That certainly wasn’t up to the task of editing a single frame of 4K!)
I wouldn’t (can’t) buy a Mac, simply because I work for a software company that develops Windows software. Yes, I know I could run Parallels, but our CEO does have a Mac, does run Parallels and does have some additional complications.
That being said, I can look at this dispassionately and say that if I didn’t have a requirement to run on Windows, and purely for the task of editing videos I would consider the Mac route. I’ve been an iPhone/iPad user for many years.
Fun side-note story: I was at a trade show last week and got permission to fly my Neo around, getting footage of the booth. Edited the footage without issues on my Asus ProArt 13" AMD/nVidia RTX laptop, but it threw a hissy fit when I tried to edit my iPhone (non ProRes) footage. I ended up editing that directly on the phone and uploading it to the office over 4G.
It really boils down to the price point you were comfortable with. Both my PC and laptop were each over £2000, but they will do me for at least 6-8 years, as the last ones did. I’ll buy the best I can afford, but I won’t replace it for a long time until it really starts to creak a little.
I think probably £1600 is the price point that will get you something really competent, whichever camp you decide to go into. For a Macbook Pro, the starting price is £1599, and that’s for 16GB RAM/500GB SSD, which you’ll burn through pretty quickly. An external hard drive will solve that problem, though. I had a quick look on Currys and this seems to be a good spec as well: https://www.currys.co.uk/products/lenovo-yoga-pro-9-16-laptop-copilot-pc-intel-core-ultra-7-1-tb-ssd-grey-10284241.html
The other consideration is software. Mac will come with iMovie, but that’s pretty basic when you compare to Final Cut Pro. But there’s always DaVinci Resolve, which is available for both Mac and Windows - it does have a bit of a learning curve, though!
Hope that helps!
Take a look at PCSpecialist. I’ve purchased my last few PC’s from them. They will build a PC or Laptop to your specification.
A base M4 MacBook Air at under a grand will run pretty much anything you throw at it and tupidly fast for video editing
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I know that the new M series Apple silicon is insanely powerful, so it would not surprise me, even on something so thin/light. Not sure how the graphics compares on Apple versus nVidia RTX graphics cards. I am not even sure if that argument is even relevant, as I think the M series has the graphics capabilities built in?. It’s very difficult to compare like for like in specifications on paper, but I’m sure someone somewhere will have made a YouTube video comparing Apple versus Windows for tasks like video editing.
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The problem with cheaper Macs is the derisory RAM and disk space. There’s no excuse for a 250 GB disk in 2026 and 16GB RAM is “fine” rather than comfortable.
But this is a terrible time to be buying a computer as component prices have gone through the roof with all of the AI stupidity going on just now. It is worthwhile keeping an eye on hotukdeals or similar to see if there are any good offers on refurbished machines (Windows or Mac).
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