The "I just ordered / bought / got my new/refurb Mac Mini" threads, merged

[foo2]

(in the USA)

Apple's Edu Store, which previously ran the $100 Gift Card sale, ended on 10/2.

Historically, anyone has been able to buy at the $499 M2 Mini 8/256 pricing, but for the past 1.5 months Apple ALSO had a $100 GC for the purchase, making the effective price (assuming you'd use it anyway for Apple things) $399 for a new M2 Mac Mini (and any customizations you wanted could be added at .Edu pricing).

As of 10/3, all that is gone, and Apple Edu is now back up to their normal ($499 for M2 Mini; 10% off most upgrades) pricing.

Alas, that extra $100 GC was amazing while it lasted. A brand new M2 Mini straight from Apple for $399 (after GC). Amazing deal.

 

[Acronyc]

I happened to be on Amazon Germany the other day and stumbled on a sale for a base M2 Mac mini for 475 Euros. It's the best price I've seen where I live, considering a refurb straight from Apple in my country of residence is 570 Euros.

So I grabbed it to replace my mini PC that is used as a headless home media server and a backup Mac if I ever need it. I don't need anything more than the base model for this. I briefly had a base model M1 for about 10 days while my MBP was being repaired, and was pleasantly surprised how well it handled my modest work flow. The base M2 mini should be even better (though I'm not planning to use it as my main machine).

 

[verm]

Just snatched a secondhand M1 Mac Mini 16GB / 1TB with only 1.1TB data written and 20 some hours power on time for about $580USD. Finally I can retire my spec'd out MBA 13" 2012.

So just an update, after two days of use, the system started crashing and a diagnostic scan reveals memory failure. Luckily it had Apple Care so I got a replacement logic board for free. The new SSD has 35TB written, 42TB read, 1% use, 420 power on hours, 429 power cycles, 42 unsafe shutdowns. Hope there's no more errors!

 

[Loi84]

Has anybody else received their Mini with a semi-transparent wrapping instead of the black adhesive that covers the bottom part?

Only the back had the adhesive cover (M2pro, 16GB, 1TB).

Refurb?

 

[Acronyc]

Has anybody else received their Mini with a semi-transparent wrapping instead of the black adhesive that covers the bottom part?

Only the back had the adhesive cover (M2pro, 16GB, 1TB).

Refurb?

This is kind of interesting. I’ve bought two minis recently. The first one was a base model M2 and it came with the black adhesive that covered the bottom panel. The second was a CTO model (M2 16/256) and came with the wrapping like MacBooks. I have no idea why there is this difference.

 

[radamo]

Back in late 2019 I moved to an iMac after being a Windows/Dos user since the 80's. Absolutely loving my iMac. Just ordered an M2 Pro mini since it does not look like the intel chips will be supported for long with new OS releases. Will be sorry to see my 5K display go... for the time being will be using my existing 27" monitors. Will see how that works out with the new mini.

 

[radamo]

I know. you all know this but OMG... this thing is FAST. Loving it so far. Just completing setup and migration.

 

[Surrix]

I ordered a Mac Mini with 24 GB of RAM and 1 TB HD. Incredibly disappointed so far. I bought a new monitor to use with it, and it was flickering like crazy, so I returned it thinking the monitor was bad. I bought a completely different monitor and... same problem. Tons of flicker. So I searched it and found this is a very common problem since the M1? What happened to Apple. Feels so janky. Has anyone returned their Mac for this reason yet? I'm thinking I will.

 

[radamo]

I don't have any flicker and am using it with two of my existing monitors. Actually replacing one of them this week since one my current two is pretty old and not even 2k. LG 4K coming this week and will keep an eye out for any issues.

 

[foo2]

I ordered a Mac Mini with 24 GB of RAM and 1 TB HD. Incredibly disappointed so far. I bought a new monitor to use with it, and it was flickering like crazy, so I returned it thinking the monitor was bad. I bought a completely different monitor and... same problem. Tons of flicker. So I searched it and found this is a very common problem since the M1? What happened to Apple. Feels so janky. Has anyone returned their Mac for this reason yet? I'm thinking I will.

I have the M2 Pro base mini, and it's fantastic overall. However, HDMI is crap; it (the monitor; I can hear the machine is on) routinely won't wake up from sleep, and (my monitor's flaw) only does 60hz over HDMI (again, my monitor's fault, not the Mac's). I bought a cheap Amazon USBC->DP cable, and now it (my monitor) wakes up perfectly, and does 144hz perfectly.

To be clear, that's one Mac flaw, and one monitor flaw, listed above.

You might flip to DP if you haven't already and see how that works for you. What refresh rate are you using? Did you try another HDMI cable?

 

[Surrix]

I have the M2 Pro base mini, and it's fantastic overall. However, HDMI is crap; it (the monitor; I can hear the machine is on) routinely won't wake up from sleep, and (my monitor's flaw) only does 60hz over HDMI (again, my monitor's fault, not the Mac's). I bought a cheap Amazon USBC->DP cable, and now it (my monitor) wakes up perfectly, and does 144hz perfectly.

To be clear, that's one Mac flaw, and one monitor flaw, listed above.

You might flip to DP if you haven't already and see how that works for you. What refresh rate are you using? Did you try another HDMI cable?

I also bought an Amazon USBC->DP cable for this reason, but unfortunately it's far worse with that. Flickers much more often and the entire screen even goes black. By comparison the HDMI works far better.

I've used 2 different HDMI cables in the sense that I used the cable that came with each monitor, but haven't tried 2 different cables with the same monitor.

The max refresh rate of this monitor is 60 Hz, which is what I'm using. Though I also tried lowering it to 50 Hz which didn't seem to help.

😭

 

[radamo]

Just installed my LG 4K to replace my old Dell. So now using an old BenQ 2K and the LG 4K. They both look great. No flicker, no issues with wake from sleep. All good.

 

[foo2]

Just installed my LG 4K to replace my old Dell. So now using an old BenQ 2K and the LG 4K. They both look great. No flicker, no issues with wake from sleep. All good.

How are both connected?

 

[radamo]

How are both connected?

The BenQ is with a TB to HDMI cable and the LG with just TB. After hearing issues with HDMI wake I decided to avoid it.

 

[foo2]

The BenQ is with a TB to HDMI cable and the LG with just TB. After hearing issues with HDMI wake I decided to avoid it.

Thunderbolt, or USBC?

 

[radamo]

Actually USBC but obviously in the TB ports.

 

[r.d]

Looks like Mac mini refurbs were restocked today. Managed to grab an M2 Pro Mac mini base CPU/GPU with 16GB RAM and 8TB SSD + 10GbE. Looks like this configuration was the only one in stock because it went "Sold Out" after purchasing. I can finally consolidate some external drives and just keep everything on one machine! My M1 Mac mini has served me well for nearly 3 years but time to sell it!

 

[Jman13]

Well, I picked up a Mac Mini M2 Pro 16/512 last week. It's my first Mac. I also have a home built PC which I use for gaming, and previously used for everything - it's a pretty strong machine (12700K, 64GB, 3080Ti, a bunch of NVME drives), but surprisingly, my M2 Pro is very nearly on par for my photography work, which very much surprised me given the RAM disparity and GPU deficit. Of course my PC is much better for gaming, but I've been playing a few of my Steam games that have Mac versions available, and the Mini does a pretty good job on less taxing titles.

One thing was very apparent, though, and that's that my two monitors were color-matched and calibrated nearly perfectly out of the box, and a quick run through my colorimeter on my main monitor brought them closer than hours of tweaking on my PC has ever done (two different hardware colorimeters). This, along with the essentially identical performance, had me switch my full photography workflow to my Mac.

Overall I'm really liking it. I got several external SSDs for extra storage, and moved my external 10TB HDD for my archived photos over to the mac too (got a thunderbolt hub which is also maxed out), so total storage on the mini is now 17.5TB. I got a USB switch to allow for very quick switches of my keyboard and mouse between computers. It's nice.

 

[Jman13]

Looks like Mac mini refurbs were restocked today. Managed to grab an M2 Pro Mac mini base CPU/GPU with 16GB RAM and 8TB SSD + 10GbE. Looks like this configuration was the only one in stock because it went "Sold Out" after purchasing. I can finally consolidate some external drives and just keep everything on one machine! My M1 Mac mini has served me well for nearly 3 years but time to sell it!

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Are these Canadian prices? (That config is listed at $3,800 in the US new).

And, um, I'm sure it'll be a great machine, but why on earth would you pay $3,000 for an 8TB SSD? You could have purchased an external thunderbolt enclosure for $150 and an NVME 8TB SSD for $900-$1000 (US) and saved yourself half the cost of the SSD upgrade. (and it's the same speed) (or get two 4TB for $450-$500 total). I got the M2 Pro mini 16/512 for $1170 US new, and added 3 external SSDs - now these aren't thunderbolt so they aren't quite as fast, but still plenty fast enough, for a total of 7.5TB - the 7TB of external SSDs cost me $428.

Unless you have no space for externals, I'd consider returning it and getting one with 512 or 1TB and an external SSD or 2 for expansion and save yourself $1,000-$1,500.

 

[r.d]

Are these Canadian prices? (That config is listed at $3,800 in the US new).

And, um, I'm sure it'll be a great machine, but why on earth would you pay $3,000 for an 8TB SSD? You could have purchased an external thunderbolt enclosure for $150 and an NVME 8TB SSD for $900-$1000 (US) and saved yourself half the cost of the SSD upgrade. (and it's the same speed) (or get two 4TB for $450-$500 total). I got the M2 Pro mini 16/512 for $1170 US new, and added 3 external SSDs - now these aren't thunderbolt so they aren't quite as fast, but still plenty fast enough, for a total of 7.5TB - the 7TB of external SSDs cost me $428.

Unless you have no space for externals, I'd consider returning it and getting one with 512 or 1TB and an external SSD or 2 for expansion and save yourself $1,000-$1,500.

Yes, prices are Canadian.

I'm primarily a desktop user and prefer a clutter-free desk area. Currently have several externals and it gets annoying with all the cables, power adapters, etc.. I considered your option but I didn't want to buy even more external drives. The 8TB model will serve me for hopefully many years (like my 2012 Mac Pro which I used daily until 2020).

 

[Loi84]

How long should I expect a 1 hour video (4k, 265, higher bit rate, about 30gb target size) to take to export in CapCut on an M2Pro?
Taking about 30 minutes...

 

[radamo]

Well, I picked up a Mac Mini M2 Pro 16/512 last week. It's my first Mac. I also have a home built PC which I use for gaming, and previously used for everything - it's a pretty strong machine (12700K, 64GB, 3080Ti, a bunch of NVME drives), but surprisingly, my M2 Pro is very nearly on par for my photography work, which very much surprised me given the RAM disparity and GPU deficit. Of course my PC is much better for gaming, but I've been playing a few of my Steam games that have Mac versions available, and the Mini does a pretty good job on less taxing titles.

One thing was very apparent, though, and that's that my two monitors were color-matched and calibrated nearly perfectly out of the box, and a quick run through my colorimeter on my main monitor brought them closer than hours of tweaking on my PC has ever done (two different hardware colorimeters). This, along with the essentially identical performance, had me switch my full photography workflow to my Mac.

Overall I'm really liking it. I got several external SSDs for extra storage, and moved my external 10TB HDD for my archived photos over to the mac too (got a thunderbolt hub which is also maxed out), so total storage on the mini is now 17.5TB. I got a USB switch to allow for very quick switches of my keyboard and mouse between computers. It's nice.

Back in late 2019 I picked up an iMac and that was my first Mac. At the time my other machine was a home built beast for raw photo editing. I ran a dual system with the Windows machine on one 27" monitor and the iMac next to it. After about a year I realized I was only using the iMac. Ditched the windows machine and never looked back. I didn't game on my PC so had no reason to keep it. Enjoy the Mac.

 

[GalileoSeven]

Just traded in my iPad mini 5 and threw down on a Certified Refurbished M2 Mini (8/256) to finally replace my mid 2011 mini (that's stuck on High Sierra 10.13.6).

It's going to get hooked up to my 65" Sony and will serve as my HTPC down in the basement here. In the long run, am going to eventually have this replace my old 5K iMac as my home media server as well (have a 1 or 2TB external SSD that I need to dig out, wipe and then move all my music/movies over to).

Also looking forward to finally having all the machines in my house on the same page compatibility-wise (or in the iMac's case, as close as possible)

 

[foo2]

Why do people attach a full computer to a TV for media center PC these days? Why not just an AppleTV plus Plex on the home media server?

OCLP opens up (almost) any OS on old Macs, up to 14.3.1 on yours, with 14.4 being workable likely any day now.

 

[GalileoSeven]

I misspoke just slightly. I use that Mini for more than just media (is a lot nicer taking care of daily tasks, web browsing and the like on a bigger screen) and while OCLP would seem like a workable solution, the machine's age (13yrs) makes the benefits of that slightly dubious IMO