A Mac mini can be made portable for about three times the cost of a MacBook Air

You've got to be inspired by the incredibly cool concept to do this, but you can now spend a lot of money to wedge a Mac mini into a case with a keyboard and monitor.

Back in 2022, talented YouTuber Scott Yu-Jan took a then-current M1 Mac mini and nearly made it portable. He made a clever combination of a Mac mini with an iPad for the screen, but you still had to find a keyboard, and you still had to plug the whole thing in.

Nonethless, Yu-Jan reportedly used that Frankenstein's monster of a Mac mini, because he's also complained about it. "I hated carrying around the keyboard for my other portable builds," he said, "so this time I wanna incorporate the Apple Magic Keyboard into the design."

So fast forward to today and the far smaller M4 Mac mini, and he's back with a totally new design that fixes that pesky external keyboard problem. His new design fastens on a second-hand Apple Magic Keyboard — typically costing around $60 on eBay.

Then he also attaches this $100 rectangular and touchscreen monitor. Lastly, he pops the two into a case he designed to also hold the Mac mini to side.

"This design ensures that everything is properly secured. without losing any key features," he says in the actually rather absorbing video. "The Mac Mini's exhaust and fan intake are completely unobstructed," he continues, "and so are the ports at the front and back."

He's added a clever little extra button to make it easier to turn the Mac mini on and off. And he insists that the "monitor's cable runs securely through the body underneath the keyboard."

It doesn't look like it does. It looks like the cabling is at severe risk of coming free of the casing, but he's the one who's carried it around, not us.

Which also means he's the one who perhaps ought to have pointed out that there isn't a trackpad on his setup. Instead, he has to plug in a separate mouse, and place it awkwardly on the other side of the keyboard.

Then of course there is the remaining issue that this Mac mini setup won't do a single thing if you don't plug it in somewhere.

"I know this isn't technically fully portable," he admits. "It still requires a wall outlet but most of the places I work on the go like coffee shops or whatever usually have outlets so I don't really mind."

What he's made doesn't look very good, but it is a clever route to solving a problem he decided to invent. It's not the smartest solution, but it's extremely clever and cool. It only costs around $3,158.

That includes all of the main parts — the Mac mini, the keyboard, and the monitor. It doesn't include cabling, printer filament, or any other materials.

It's not exactly elegant, but it works. If you plug it in. Image credit: Scott Yu-Jan

But it does include the enormous dual-nozzle BambuLab 2HD 3-D printer that Yu-Jan used to make the setup. That starts at $2,399, though to be fair he can now use it for anything else he wants.

So if the objective is to make a Mac mini portable and untethered from power, then this will stay as a noble failure — until he reveals his promised "heavier and bulkier" version with a battery.

And in the meantime, if the objective is to have a genuinely portable Mac, the $999 M4 MacBook Air continues to be the best Mac for most people.