The Mac Studio certainly won’t leave you wanting when it comes to ports: On the rear, it features four USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB 3.2 Type A connections, 10Gbps Ethernet, full-sized HDMI and a headphone jack. There are also two USB-C ports on the front (USB 3 by default, Thunderbolt 4 on the M2 Ultra), alongside a full-sized SD card slot. Just like last year, video editors I’ve spoken with said they’d prefer a headphone jack on the front, but at least it’s easy to get behind the Studio to plug things in. Given the user this machine is aimed at, it also would have been nice to get Thunderbolt 4 ports on the front for every configuration.

Physically, the Studio is no different than what we saw last year. It’s a beautifully polished box that looks like two Mac minis stacked together. It’s far more prominent than that slim desktop, but for Apple devotees, that may be more of a feature than a bug. Now that it no longer seems like a stopgap solution for people eagerly waiting for an upgraded Mac Pro, the Mac Studio looks like the purest expression of what Apple wants a desktop to be in 2023. Why fiddle around with internal hardware when the package Apple delivers is so fully featured?

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

As I said in my review last year, the Mac Studio isn’t meant for everyone: It’s a system targeted at people who know their demands are lightyears beyond mainstream users. They won’t balk at a $1,999 starting price, or even the $3,999 for the M2 Ultra model, if it means they’ll be able to deliver projects faster. On the PC side, you’ve got alternatives like Intel’s NUC Extreme small-form factor desktop, but that system has ballooned in size so much that you can’t really compare it to the Mac Studio.

I’ve gone from being intrigued by the Mac Studio to truly impressed. It continues to blow PCs away when it comes to heavy-duty work, and it has so much connectivity I don’t miss the lack of internal expansion. It’s more than just the big Mac mini – it’s a compact Mac Pro that many creatives can actually afford.