2018 MacBook Air and Mac mini Hands-On: Long-Awaited Updates Don't Disappoint

[Yr Blues]

I was incredibly disappointed by the Mini. I was looking for an updated, current-spec $500 or maybe $550 way to replace my 2012 Mini and let me stay in the Mac ecosystem. The old machines were supposed to be affordable ways to have a Mac. That's gone now. Most people's incomes have not risen 60% over the last 6 years to match these price increases. In fact, the middle class in the USA has probably seen real income go up only, what, 5% or something? Going up to $800 is an awful leap, at least to people who saw the Mini as I did -- and on top of that you'd have to get external storage to compensate for this ridiculous 120GB storage. So I don't think I will be replacing my old Mini with a new one, after all, which is a massive disappointment. Nor do I think I will be replacing my $600 iPad Pro with a $1000 one -- something else I'd been excited for. It's sad times. And of course the new MBA is so expensive, too. I've got a longstanding connection to the Mac platform dating back to the 80s and I'm pretty sad to have to leave it. My income level is just not what Apple is targeting anymore. It's pretty amazing to me that these tech journalists don't get what has happened here with these prices.

The only reason why I still own Mac is my employer bought it for me. I thought the mini would stay at $499, but I guess not. At least we can upgrade the memory on our own, right?

 

[Tastannin]

It might uplink/negotiate to a switch at 10 Gigabit but I want to see if it can sustain over 1 gigabyte per second transfer rates before I agree with that.

Wouldn't that depend on the type of storage being read from/written to though?
Internal SSD
External HD
External SSD
External RAID array

 

[Eduardo1971]

You know what does disappoints?

No new iMac announcements.

 

[Sabelonada]

Huh? Only being able to upgrade any desktop system to 64 GB of RAM is not a compromise? Really, this should be upgradable to at least 128 GB, if not more.

What are you talking about? 64GB of Ram is the limit on most consumer Intel chipsets.

 

[harriska2]

This is a very valid question. Also the T2 'security' chip is likely the SSD controller, and I didn't see a bypass port to access the SSD if the logic board goes toast.

Kinda makes the 128 SSD the only side you'll ever want, since you shouldn't store anything important on it. Which again seems make the whole security point of the T2 pointless. If Apple expects us hang all kinds of insecure backup and external drives off the device to actually make it useful. At least a desktop is better in this than a Laptop since hopefully the location you're using the desktop will remain secure.

Is there a way to tell macOS that your documents/files are on an external drive? It’s what I do with my PC and how I get away with a 256 ssd boot/app drive.

 

[Zeitkind]

Is there a way to tell macOS that your documents/files are on an external drive? It’s what I do with my PC and how I get away with a 256 ssd boot/app drive.

My home directory is on a second drive since.... 10.1?

 

[MacWorld78]

Not unless they merge the two OSes.

It'd be nice to choose one of the operating system either IOS or Mojave for the iPad Pro.

 

[StellarVixen]

Those MacBooks are WAY overpriced. In my opinion, a laptop that costs more than $1000 in 2018 should at least have four cores.
As for the Mac Minis, they look good enough, too bad they have laptop CPUs in them. At least having these lower power CPUs will help them maintain consistent turbo boost speeds.

The CPU is actually desktop CPU. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

 

[MauiPa]

Weak CPU on MacBook Air though..

It seems it is a custom version of the same chip on the Dell and HP competitor

 

[AppleHaterLover]

I believe they are incorrect about not being able to change the CPU.

The CPU was clearly socketed in the keynote, so guys like me can remove the logic board and upgrade ourselves.

Like Apple would make this easy.

 

[marshy]

…
As for the Mac Minis, they look good enough, too bad they have laptop CPUs in them. At least having these lower power CPUs will help them maintain consistent turbo boost speeds.

They are desktop CPUs, not laptop.

Based on clock frequencies and cache sizes that Apple details, the i5 is a 65W 8400, and the i7 a 65W 8700....

Intel’s 8 generation laptop parts are 28W and 15W... and significantly lower clock speeds.

 

[lostngone]

Wouldn't that depend on the type of storage being read from/written to though?
Internal SSD
External HD
External SSD
External RAID array

Not necessarily, if it was Inter-process/cluster communication between nodes you might not be directly disk IO bound. However eventually yes all that data that is being processed would need to be written somewhere, but that could very greatly depending on the type of data/application.

 

[2010mini]

RAM is user upgradable on the mini but not storage. The configuration warns you about storage being non user replaceable on the Apple website. I'm disappointed but not surprised. I wish apple used m2 ssds for the mini.

Does it stop you from using an external usb c drive? So why the belly aching over user upgradable internal storage?

 

[SaxPlayer]

I like the look of the new mini. For interest, I spec'd up what I'd buy and it came out at over £2,000 with Apple keyboard and mouse. I have a Mac Pro (Late 2013) and want to upgrade. However, the problem is obvious. Even if you think the new better equipped Mac Mini could do the job, it doesn't make sense to purchase it now without knowing what config the forthcoming modular Mac Pro will have. Once we can see the entire range of desktop macs from Mac Mini, through iMac Pro and the Mac Pro, plus the spec and price of the new Apple monitor we're better positioned to work out which will meet our particular work needs.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking this at all. Apple do seem to be finally getting their house in order after many MANY years of getting it wrong for professional users. The range of computers (including laptops for some) should cater for just about any need and that can only be a good thing - provided they don't take another 4 years to update.

I have a feeling that the 2019 Mac Pro will be mega expensive in which case the Mac Mini may be my choice for what I need it for, however until the Mac Pro is unveiled I'm going to sit and wait.

 

[Justanotherfanboy]

And as for the Mac Mini... Have they forgotten already that we need to buy a mouse, keyboard and display on top of the £800?

Are you one of the 4 people on the planet that has NONE of those items???
Lol, is this your 1st computer ever???
Oh- neither of those & you’re just desperate to find something to complain about with regards to this VERY welcome & solid upgrade? Gotcha.

They had me at 500% speed improvement & FINALLY ditching spinning disk drives! =)

 

[harriska2]

My home directory is on a second drive since.... 10.1?

What storage box do you use?

 

[MacWorld78]

Because it looks cool?

LOL.

Like they showed in the presentation, for intensive video production workflows where each Mac Mini can handle a share of the processing.

Too, for server racks.

Wow, that's a good idea !!

 

[rpmurray]

NOTHING about the Mac Pro, not even a little hint of what to expect. Huge disappointment.

 

[Scrapula]

And as for the Mac Mini... Have they forgotten already that we need to buy a mouse, keyboard and display on top of the £800?

For most Mac users, we already own multiple keyboards, mice, trackpads, etc. I have a closet full of them along with 2 old Mac minis that still run but I don't use. As for displays, I also have a few of those but would probably get something else if I decide on a mini and not a 2017 iMac.

 

[NT1440]

NOTHING about the Mac Pro, not even a little hint of what to expect. Huge disappointment.

They made it clear it wasn’t a 2018 product months ago when they pulled in reporters to talk about it...

 

[iReality85]

I was incredibly disappointed by the Mini. I was looking for an updated, current-spec $500 or maybe $550 way to replace my 2012 Mini and let me stay in the Mac ecosystem. The old machines were supposed to be affordable ways to have a Mac. That's gone now. Most people's incomes have not risen 60% over the last 6 years to match these price increases. In fact, the middle class in the USA has probably seen real income go up only, what, 5% or something? Going up to $800 is an awful leap, at least to people who saw the Mini as I did -- and on top of that you'd have to get external storage to compensate for this ridiculous 120GB storage. So I don't think I will be replacing my old Mini with a new one, after all, which is a massive disappointment. Nor do I think I will be replacing my $600 iPad Pro with a $1000 one -- something else I'd been excited for. It's sad times. And of course the new MBA is so expensive, too. I've got a longstanding connection to the Mac platform dating back to the 80s and I'm pretty sad to have to leave it. My income level is just not what Apple is targeting anymore. It's pretty amazing to me that these tech journalists don't get what has happened here with these prices.

FWIW, someone did a retail roundup on another site forum, and basically, the new Mac Mini comes within $100 striking distance of a high end Windows ITX DIY build -- and that includes Windows 10 software and matching up parts like-for-like (processor, SSD capacity, RAM, etc) -- but without things like Thunderbolt.

I'm willing to bet the margin on the new Mac Mini is much lower than Apple's other products.

 

[coolfactor]

The Mac mini was introduced as the "most affordable Mac ever" at $499 USD.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2005/01/11Apple-Introduces-Mac-mini/

Now the base price is $799 USD. It may be nearly twice the price, but has over 10x the power as the original.

However, here in Canadian pricing, the base price is $999, and that's too much for a "budget" Mac. It's clear that Apple is trying to build up their prowess in the "Premium Computer" niche, and leaving the budget computers for the competition.

I was really hoping Apple would be more aggressive with the pricing, but I guess they'd need to compromise on the specs at the same time. So they went with better specs.

 

[MauiPa]

Put a decent processor in the Mac mini and some useable storage and it's more like £2,000.

You lost me, If you check out Geekbench scores on the CPUs they probably used, the Mac mini goes from about 16000-28000 depending on the CPU. Even at the low end, that is pretty "decent".

 

[devilsnj30]

Great updates esp to the iPad. Blows other tablets out of the water but...

64gb $800 bucks just WiFi is a joke in 2018. Should have been 128gb n up honestly

Completely agree. The only thing that is encouraging, is they didn't drop the price on the 10.5 which I have so my resale value on that should be halfway decent.

 

[citysnaps]

It sucks that the storage is not user upgradeable. This is not an ultra book. The Intel NUC is significantly smaller than the Mac Mini, and yet the storage is user upgradeable.

The Mini has a built-in power supply (instead of an ugly external power brick). And substantially better I/O (four 40 Gb/sec TB-3 ports, two USB-A 3), a 10G ethernet option, multiple 4K display output, and Bluetooth 5.0. And, of course, macOS.