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Apple Announces New Mac Mini With M2 and M2 Pro Chips at Lower $599 Starting Price

I've been waiting to see how the new Mac Mini and M2 Pro/Max compares to the old base Mac Studio and I'm going to buy the Mac Studio. It gives the best GPU performance for the money. Here is my comparison. Prices are converted from Swedish Crown:

Mac Mini M2 Pro 12c CPU/19c GPU/32 GB/512 GB $2,735
Mac Studio M1 Max 10c CPU/24c GPU/32 GB/512 GB $2,447

Even without 10Gb Ethernet the Mac Mini costs $2 606. Mac Studio has also been sometimes on sale here with 10% discount and when the new ones with M2 come in March? the old ones going to be on sale so the base model will cost as low as $2 202.

Mac Studio has also other advantages GPU-wise:

Mac Mini M2 Pro 19c - 6.8 TFLOPS, 200 GB/s
Mac Studio M1 Max 24c - 7.8 TFLOPS, 400GB/s

It's also better to buy Mac Studio 32c GPU than the new M2 Max with 30 GPU cores. Seeing the prices went up here by ca 21.5% the new Mac Studios with M2 Max 30c GPU will cost ca $3,264. The current M1 Max 32c costs $2,687.

M2 Max 30c - 10.7 TFLOPS, 400GB/s
M1 Max 32c - 10.4 TFLOPS, 400GB/s
 
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Thisismattwade said:
Really excited by the price of that base M2 mini. The base M1 MBA has served my family beautifully for over 18 months, so I’m one of those ppl who know it will work just fine IRL.

I’ve already got a nice external monitor. I might even treat myself (and my family) to a new Magic Keyboard with touch ID.

Is it possible to use a HomePod mini as an external speaker for a Mac mini? Does anyone do this?
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Yea I wish they could do these ranges for 16+ MBP. I could live with those lower specs if it brought a more affordable price
 
dazzer21-2 said:
That's more like it!! Question - what would I need to do in order for 16GB to not be enough? I always have around 5-6 apps open at once, mainly Adobe Creative Cloud. Currently used to 32GB on an i5 iMac which sometimes slows for unknown reasons. Can I expect silky smooth with 16GB or would 32GB be a safer bet?
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I don't care what anyone says....unless you are OCD with your computing hygiene (always close out apps, limit number of browsing tabs, windows etc.), more RAM is always better.

I have no problem getting the out of memory warning to trigger on a 32 GB M2 Pro.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
Exactly right
It's just to hit a low number on a model that basically nobody should buy

The real "base price" is hundreds more
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Nah I think it's fine for most.

I have the M1 8gb Mini. It's fine. I 12 tabs open in Safari. 3 Virtual Desktops. Mail, Notes, Messages, Calendar, Music are open too.

If I wanted to I could edit a video on FCPX and would work fine. I could open up a spreadsheet and edit it fine. Do a Word or Pages document. And more.

IT's very very useable. 8gb is a lot of ram.

Some of you maybe don't realize what was done with far less computing power back in the day. I mean Matlab simulations were run on pcs 25 years ago. What to know how much ram they had? About the same as today. Just replace GB with MB.
 
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i486dx2-66 said:
My bet: The Studio won't see a spec bump until after the Mac Pro is released.

The new Mac Pro will be the maximum in both performance and price. It's highly advantageous to Apple to have as large of a performance gap as possible between the new Mac Pro and the Studio.
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There are rumors that the Studio will be discontinued. That makes sense if the new Mac Pro starts out at a lower price with M2 Max as a base spec. That would explain why the Mac mini top configuration goes up to $4,499. It would also help increase sales of the M2 Pro mini because that will be the only choice for a desktop with a small footprint.

We know Apple doesn’t have an M2 Extreme chip ready for the Mac Pro, so there will be no performance difference between a refreshed Studio and the Mac Pro. If they keep the Studio then Mac Pro sales will continue to struggle. So they have to get rid of one of the product lines. The Mac Pro is Apple’s flagship product, so it’s more likely they will keep it. Getting rid of the Studio will save the Mac Pro.

Of course the essence of the Studio may live on in the form of a 27” iMac.
 
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So, base model price being 729.00 here in Italy, what am I missing with 230.00 euros, just (...) the extra 256GB storage upgrade???

Schermata 2023-01-17 alle 20.02.22.png
 
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At this time, I would pick a Mac mini Pro over a base Mac Studio just for the HDMI 2.1 port. Once the Mac Studio gets updated, if the base price stays at $2,000, I expect that decision would go the other way.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
With the base specs (8/256) endlessly unchanged, even with a starting price drop ... it does start to become effectively a price hike (in terms of real world actual value) at some point here.

I remain really irritated that they don't bump the base to at least 16/256

And if they are going to keep starting at 8/256, then stop gouging for upgrades.

The upgrade gouging remains my #1 complaint here
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8/256 is a good basic computer. I just sold my 16GB/256GB M1 Mac mini and just bought a 8GB/256GB M2 Mac mini, for a no cost upgrade (downgrade in RAM that I won't miss).

Agreed, the upgrades are insanely over priced.
 
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That's a sale.
Would have been nice to have the 4 Tb ports on the M2 as well as the Pro but hey.
 
I think the base M2 Mac mini is a great option for people that want to get into the Apple ecosystem. Or, I wonder if we will see more college students using iPads for mobile (notes, markups, etc.) plus Mac mini (@$499) for work back at the dorm. Might be a good student combo.
 
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MisterAndrew said:
There are rumors that the Studio will be discontinued. That would make sense if the new Mac Pro starts out at a lower price with M2 Max as a base spec, such as $2999. That would explain why the Mac mini top configuration goes over $2000. It would also help increase sales of the M2 Pro mini because that will be the only choice for a desktop with a small footprint.

We know Apple doesn’t have an M2 Extreme chip ready for the Mac Pro, so there will be no performance difference between a refreshed Studio and the Mac Pro. If they keep the Studio then Mac Pro sales will continue to struggle. So they have to get rid of one of the product lines. The Mac Pro is Apple’s flagship product, so it’s more likely they will keep it. Getting rid of the Studio will save the Mac Pro.

Of course the essence of the Studio may live on in the form of a 27” iMac.
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That's an interesting take on it all. But I doubt Apple would spend all that time and money on developing the Studio to suddenly drop it. You are much more likely to find Apple try and price the Max Pro from 6 grand, and sell it on frivolous things, but possibly no upgradability.
Currently the Studio is certainly presenting itself as a good buy next to Apples other offerings. I'm expecting a price rise when it moves to M2.
 
Mainsail said:
I use a base M2 MBA with essentially the same specs as the base MM, and it works flawlessly for me. I am a typical consumer that has a mix of business and personal computer needs. My son just completed his bachelors degree with an older lower spec MBA that he used for 4 years. Not sure why people on this forum believe the base models are useless or no one should buy them.
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With respect, it sounds like you are the type of buyer who could get by on essentially any computer.
 
AppliedMicro said:
I can easily some writing and Office work, document scanning and light photo editing, browse the internet with a few dozen browser tabs open, listen to and convert music files on my baseline M1 Mac Mini. Watch YouTube video or my favourite Instagram influencers or even cable TV. It doesn’t even break a sweat on those adult video sites (I’ve been told).

And it feels fast, too.
That’s at least something, really,
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Why would it break a sweat doing any of those things?
 
turbineseaplane said:
With respect, it sounds like you are the type of buyer who could get by on essentially any computer.
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Yeah, I need a good computer for everyday tasks, and my M2 MBA (same specs as the base M2 MM) works flawlessly for me. I think this represents a fair portion of the computer buying market, which is the reason I don’t understand comments like the base MM is useless or whatever. For example,

  • My son just finished his bachelors degree in Business with a base 2017 MBA. Strong grades. Completed the degree in 3.5 years. No problems with the computer.
  • My daughter just finished her Masters in Public Health with a base M1 MBA. No problems.
  • I am retired but spend a fair amount of time working on the family real estate business and on school district committees with a base MBA. No problems.
What exactly is it that people on MR think the majority of people do with their computers that is so taxing or would find these base machines lacking? Now, my middle son is a Phd student in Econ, and he develops and runs some pretty large complex algorithms in C++, Stata, and other software. He uses a MBP. But, in no way do I think of him as a typical user.
 
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