SATECHI STAND & HUB WITH SSD: FIXING THE MAC MINI'S SHORTCOMINGS

While Apple's Mac mini (fave.co/3oyjzVz) is a tiny powerhouse of a computer blessed with a range of ports on its back, its front face is unhelpfully bare, devoid of even one handy port or slot.

- SIMON JARY

There's nothing but a little light to show that it's on. Apple certainly put the "mini" in "minimal" when it came to the head-on looks of its diminutive desktop computer.

The Mac Studio (fave.co/3FuBIPt) has the same width and depth as the Mac mini but is taller. The Mac Studio also boasts two 10Gbps USB-C ports (Thunderbolt 4 on the M1 Ultra model) and an SD card reader on its front. At the back, the Mac Studio and M2 Pro Mac mini ports are the same, while the entry-level M2 Mac mini has two fewer Thunderbolt 4 ports.

The Satechi Stand & Hub for Mac mini fixes the mini's bare front face by adding four USB ports, both SD and microSD card reader slots, and a 3.5mm audio jack port. The inclusion of the card readers is important since the mini lacks this access point for inexpensive portable storage. The card readers are rated at UHS-I (104MBps)-312MBps UHS-II would have offered speedier transfers, but most users won't notice the difference. A 512GB microSD card costs about $60/£50 online (fave.co/42Vq0Qx)-a super-cheap way of adding storage.

The USB ports are rated at 5Gbps for data transfer, compared to the Mac mini's 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 connections. The Satechi's rival Mac mini hub, the OWC miniStack STX (fave.co/44czmcJ), does offer 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 but comes in at 2.5 times the price for the privilege. 5Gbps should be ample for most non-pro basic data-transfer needs.

Satechi says the Stand & Hub's USB ports are data only and are not capable of charging, although in our tests we were able to charge an Apple Watch and iPhone reasonably quickly using the Stand & Hub's USB ports.