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Apple Announces New Mac Mini Starting at $499
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$799
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Other retailers are starting to drop prices as well. Abt now has the quad core i7 for $699 as well.
The Mac mini is "factually" an entry-level computer. Apple, the company that makes it, advertises it (at their keynotes) as their entry-level machine. Although I "personally" believe that the Mac mini is a far more capable computer than Apple tout it as, my post was pointing out the facts.
As for your point about office work, this is somewhat of an opinionated subject. Every person will tell you something different. But I'm going to be the one to tell you that 8GB of RAM is basically overkill for running simple office applications. In and of itself, OS X only requires 2GB of RAM to run. Even the miniscule option with 4GB of RAM is enough to run simple office applications.
In terms of your upgradeability comment, it's been cited a few times by people in this thread. The mini hasn't changed physically (besides the fact that there are now two Thunderbolt 2 ports) and the rotating base that allows for upgrading is still where it was. You can easily upgrade the mini from its miniscule base of 4GB to 16GB of RAM.
Going back to your 128GB SSD comment, there is no option for a 128GB SSD in the mini. 256GB is your only option for that. And a 256GB SSD has more than enough room to install all of your applications (and then some). With an SSD being such a great option to have OS X installed on, most users will opt to go for an external drive for all of their personal use. You can get simple 500GB external drives for the same price you can get an Apple Keyboard now.
I can tell you came at this from a pretty biased point of view, but before you respond, remember that I'm just correcting what I know to be true. I'm literally citing this information from Apple.
because for a media server a dvd drive is still worthwhile and add to that the fact that removing the drive did nothing beneficial to the machine, there was no reason to take it out
Hey man. I respect that you don't have the money for a Mac Pro. I'm in school for digital video production. It's a really damn expensive field to get into. But I think you took what I said out of context. I'm not saying that the Mac mini's a "******" or "terrible" computer. As a matter of fact, I'm buying the mini for light audio/video editing. I personally love how this offers me the option to purchase an anti-glare display. However, you claimed that the iMac has a "glare monitor". Even though I have no intentions of purchasing an iMac, I'm going to defend it right here. The iMac has an LED-backlit display with a glossy coating. Although this is more of a personal preference thing, you're the first person I've ever heard that doesn't like the iMac screen (up your field).
For photographers and graphic designers alike, I happen to know that "technically" the iMac screen is a phenomenal screen. The contrast ratio is beyond what a photographer "needs" to edit their photos. Yet it's there nonetheless. It's certainly not a bad screen. But once again, I suppose that's more of a personal preference thing.
I think you entirely misinterpreted what I was saying. I love the Mac mini. If I'm doing anything here, I'm defending it. If you need a computer for doing your photo editing, the Mac mini's a great choice. I wasn't saying the mini is a humorous computer. "If you want a powerful desktop Mac for intensive video editing and other similar tasks, the fact that you're even considering a Mac mini's pretty humorous". "There's an iMac (and even an iMac with Retina 5K display now) or Mac Pro that'll suit your needs perfectly". "And in the case that you can't afford either, the mini'll still get the job done". Those were my exact words. I'm not calling you out on it or anything, I just don't want my words taken out of context. Enjoy your mini!
Only if you're shelling out $300 to Apple for them to do it. There is no user replacement of RAM on the new Minis: https://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/17/mac-mini-soldered-ram/
Bitterly disappointing to would-be HTPC owners
I have a 2010 Mac Pro at home in my computer room.
All I needed - and have been waiting for - was a box for my living room/home theater. One to handle my vinyl/tape rips (via an Apogee Duet), ripping of HD video via my Hauppauge 1212 HD-PVR and, hopefully, to be an HTPC media player with Plex, VLC et al. playing content from my 12TB Promise Thunderbolt RAID.
I already have a 2012 2.6 GHz quad i7 16 GB 2 x 1TB Mac mini (OS X Server model) at work, so I know exactly what the 2012 model can do.
I thought surely the next bump of the Mac mini would be THE ONE - it would have a high-end quad 2.7 or 2.8 option with Iris Pro 5200 graphics and I'd be in like Flynn. Fast enough for the ripping duties. Fast enough graphics for the most demanding content. Maybe even a little 4K future-proofing. In short, the perfect little HTPC box.
When I read the "Mid 2104 Mac mini" leak on here a couple of months ago, I was rubbing my hands with glee.
And now I'm just ...
Way to screw everything up, Apple.
I have a 2010 Mac Pro at home in my computer room.
All I needed - and have been waiting for - was a box for my living room/home theater. One to handle my vinyl/tape rips (via an Apogee Duet), ripping of HD video via my Hauppauge 1212 HD-PVR and, hopefully, to be an HTPC media player with Plex, VLC et al. playing content from my 12TB Promise Thunderbolt RAID.
I already have a 2012 2.6 GHz quad i7 16 GB 2 x 1TB Mac mini (OS X Server model) at work, so I know exactly what the 2012 model can do.
I thought surely the next bump of the Mac mini would be THE ONE - it would have a high-end quad 2.7 or 2.8 option with Iris Pro 5200 graphics and I'd be in like Flynn. Fast enough for the ripping duties. Fast enough graphics for the most demanding content. Maybe even a little 4K future-proofing. In short, the perfect little HTPC box.
When I read the "Mid 2104 Mac mini" leak on here a couple of months ago, I was rubbing my hands with glee.
And now I'm just ...
Way to screw everything up, Apple.
Hey, no problem, i understood what you mean
i was just saying that choosing a Mac Mini for professional task is not that humorous, expecially if someone rely 90% on a software Lightroom, which use only cpu power and doen't benefit from gpu accelleration.For the iMac display, i played with that for half an hour in the Apple Store, whrn the 27" went out on the market, and i couldn't absolutely use it, my eyes were crossing each other (i don't know how to say, i'm not native english speaker, i hope you understand what i mean), it hurts to look at thet glare monitor, so wasn't option for me.
About the quality, i know that the iMac panel is not that bad, but please see that my monitor is that one: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/hp_lp2475w.htm
If you do a quick search by the panel number, you find that: http://cl.ly/image/2W2x0l0v232c/Schermata 10-2456949 alle 12.13.31.png
So as you can see my monitor use the very same H-IPS panel of Eizo CG243W, which is actually discontinued, but won numerous prizes for being the best photoretouch monitor for your bucks, and you actually can see which is the prize of the actual model who sobstitues it: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...243W_BK_ColorEdge_CG243W_24_1_Widescreen.html
So iMac panel can be as good as heaven, but the chromatic fidelity i can achieve with mine is not reacheable, apart from that, as i said, my eyes are litterally blodying when i look to a glare display.
That why i can't take iMac into consideration, i've two monitors (the HP i show you, and a Samsung 21" as second display, which is not as good as the HP, but it also features S-PVA panel with high colour fidelity).
I was just saying that i simply need a powerful mac, without display, and no matter what the gpu. Mac Pro is too expensive, so only the Mac Mini is left for me
But, just to close everything
i just bought tonight used online a 2.3ghz Quad Mac Mini with 16gb ram, and double storage with 256mb SSD and 1tb hard drive. All for just 500 eur, which is actualli 638 dollars! ^_^ There were a couple of 2.6ghz but prices where 50% higher and they had only one hard drive and not so much ram. Difference between 2.3 and 2.6 is there but wasn't worth the extra money, so i think i got a really lucky shot!!!
an entry level computer when they had a server version just prior to this release?
right.
That's not true. The RAM is soldered in. Indications are, as well, that the rotating base is no longer.
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/17/mac-mini-soldered-ram/
Certainly, it should be possible to open the case depute warnings of "no user serviceable parts", but, then.... do you have the equipment to solder surface-mount chips?
Here you are wrong again, but this time the new Mini is actually better than you think.
Internally, it has a PCIe slot for flash and a mounting position/connector for a hard drive. Configurations that are offered depend on base model, but for the i7:
- 1 TB Fusion
- 256 Flash
- 512 Flash
- 1TB Flash
"Fusion Drive" is a misnomer, and is not a single drive. Fusion Drive is just a software feature of OSX. The 1TB Fusion is implemented with a 128GB Flash and 1TB hard drive.
Not sure exactly what OP wanted a 128 flash for, but it certainly is available. You just have to take a 1TB hard drive with it. If you want, you can reformat and use each drive separately. I wouldn't recommend it, though unless you have some specific need.
Some people like putting their OS and applications and temp storage on an SDD and "data" on a hard drive. I think that's silly. I actually do that on my Linux box (60GB flash, 1TB hard drive) but that's only because Ubuntu doesn't have Fusion.
I highly recommend the Fusion Drive. (I have the 2012 i7 with Fusion). There is NO good reason for the 512 or 1GB flash drives. They would make sense in notebook for power saving. You will NOT experience any improvement in performance going all-flash unless you are doing some very exotic things. IF you have to massage some data set (video processing, whatever) of > 128GB.
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Fortunately Fry's.com still shows local stock in store, so I went to BestBuy and price-matched a couple of the Quad i7's. Fry's is about 100 miles round trip, and Best Buy is about 15 minutes each way, so I chose BB. They price-matched no problem, so I got a good deal with minimum fuss. I might pick up a couple more and wait until supply is gone a make a few bucks reselling them. (I have 12 mos no interest financing with BB so I can sit on them for a while for free).
Lots of us still use them. One reason I built a hackintosh was the lack of an optical drive. I have a Blu-ray drive in mine and still use it for ripping my CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs. Much better quality than what you can get through the Apple Store (the real reason Apple dropped optical drives).
No wrong. Lot more than you don't use it. You are a small percentage unfortunately.
You've linked to an Iris Pro graphics benchmark. But the Mac Minis only have Iris graphics -half the performance of Iris Pro.
Plus, while current iGPUs are generally more powerful than dedicated GPUs of a few years ago, current dedicated GPUs are even more powerful. Nobody was asking Apple to put a 2009 GPU in the Mac mini.
Basically if you want to do any gaming ( and you don't want a mirror as a monitor) you have to go down the hackintosh route
No one is using it.
I've found I can use general statements around here all the time.
i.e. No one will ever buy an iWatch. Everyone is mad Apple won't make RAM replaceable etc.
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I do love your reasoning - you have it so you can make digital copies.
You need to pay attention to what he said:
"No one" is a qualitative term, and clearly is incorrect.
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I do love your reasoning - you have it so you can make digital copies.
I guess you don't have a DTS audio system, and you are happy with 256 kbps audio. Some of us prefer have the superior characteristics of .mt2s files and lossless audio than crappy encodes from the Apple Store.
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I use mine maybe once a year. But that one time per year that I use it I am sure glad that I have it because why the heck not, they didn't add anything when they took it away and plenty of companies still send out discs that I need to read with something
This is how apple makes so much profit....GREED!!! using mobile chip instead of desktop one which is low cost and max profit for them. other than itouch devices, i would never buy mac hardware again. PC built is best to get my $$ worth.
a extremely valid point that i so frequently forget before i go off the deep end, lol. still, i just long for the time when apple was content to make the consumer grade devices *and* give us power users something to have fun with.
Just curious, could the soldered RAM be more reliable than our store bought RAM?
Also, note that Apple is using LPDDR3 for their devices now. Tim Cook being such a genius in supply chain management, could the decision be made because these RAM chips are the very same ones used in iPads and he's just trying to maximize the volume of such chips, thus getting them at lower prices?
Also, note that Apple is using LPDDR3 for their devices now. Tim Cook being such a genius in supply chain management, could the decision be made because these RAM chips are the very same ones used in iPads and he's just trying to maximize the volume of such chips, thus getting them at lower prices?