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Apple to Debut Low-Cost MacBook Air With Retina Display, Revamped Pro-Focused Mac Mini in 2018
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And here we are on an Apple/Mac site, so it applies.
I doubt anything other than a Mac Pro will offer the ability to upgrade the GPU post sale.
I am hoping they use the Intel 8709 or 8809 with Vega graphics in the new Mini. Sure, it's only 4 cores but it is hyperthreaded. More likely, they will use Intel IGP and promote eGPU as the method of graphics upgrades.
I hope for replaceable RAM and SSD, but I doubt it will be an option. Apple is locking down more and more of the components.
AMD Raven Ridge? No...Apple has never shown a glimmer of interest in AMD's CPUs/APUs. If they make a switch, it will be to their own in-house designs, not a company that seems to have more up and downs than a ride at Six Flags.
I like AMD, but if Apple had ever been serious about moving macOS to Ryzen, Threadripper or EPYC, they would just buy AMD outright. Unfortunately, their current market cap is $19.73 billion and the time to buy them was 2-1/2 years ago when their cap was ~$2.5 billion. If Apple had been serious about acquiring AMD, they would have done it back in 2016.
If Apple does not flat out dump the $499 base model, I suspect there are plenty of leftover Core i5-7360U CPUs from the 21.5" iMac and 13" nTB MacBook Pro that need a loving home and allow Apple to sell an education market Mac mini until the supply runs out. For the rest of us, $699 is going to be the new starting price and escalate all the way up to ~$2599 for a fully kitted out version with a Core i7-8706G/32GB DRAM/1TB SSD. The current Mac mini with Core i7-4578U/16GB DRAM/1TB SSD currently sells for $1999, so +$200 for KL-G and +$400 for 32GB of DRAM over 16GB ceiling currently.
As of today, $999, gets you a 2.8GHz Core i5/8GB DRAM/1TB Fusion Drive or 256GB SSSD, +$200 gets you a Core i7 and I'm betting the Kaby Lake G nets at least +$200 above a U-series i7-8859, which means $1399 will be the bare minimum for a dGPU Mac mini. Making it a bit more Pro, it ends up at $1599 for a Kaby Lake-G/16GB DRAM/1TB Fusion or 256GB SSD. Now you're within $200 of the base 27" iMac with a Core i5-9500 @3.0GHz (6c/6t), 8GB DRAM, AMD Radeon Pro 570X GPU and a 1TB Fusion Drive...plus that giant 5K display. What to do, what to do? This is how Apple plays the game and they are really, really good at it.
Just for fun, go max out everything on a 12" MacBook and compare it to a 2018 13" MacBook Pro w/ TouchBar (i5/8GB DRAM/512GB SSD). Isn't that a kick in the teeth? Spending $250 more gets you quite a bit more CPU, GPU, screen size and resolution, faster SSD along with more and faster connectivity. The tradeoff? A larger chassis and 0.99 pounds. BAM! Unless you HAVE to have the thin, you are spending $2199.
Apple's base prices aren't too bad until you start adding BTO upgrades and then watch out. That seems to be the Apple way. Truth be told, Intel is not exactly giving away their Hades Canyon NUCs and you have to add your own DRAM, m.2 SSD and operating system...so po-tay-to, po-ta-to. However, in this case, Windows 10 is the rutabaga.
No - Apple, please DO NOT do this. It's a cool idea, but don't neuter the Mac Mini any more than you have done already, then turn it into some kind of hobby experiment.
The mac mini should enter computer history as the only computer to have been 4 years old and still sold at original price for 4 year old components, and a low end one as well. Could you imagine selling in the year 2000 a 1996 specs, at 66MHz
USB-C galore!
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If the portable Macbook Pro has USB-C only, you can bet that the Mac Mini will be USB-C only. Maybe 1 HDMI port if you are lucky. But adding a $10 dongle for a desktop machine is not a big issue.
Why put in an HDMI? That contradicts their line of BS on the new laptops. btw I am completely saying that out of sarcasm. The omission of HDMI on the laptops was cringeworthy. USB-C might become the standard for many things but video is not one of them. The consortium has released MANY standards updates and none them talk about HD over USB-C. SMH
Meh, not so convinced, sure it will come to be standard in time. I just bought two new Benq GW2270's for attaching to the wall beside my desk, perfectly good for under $250 for both. 5K is great if you want it, you don't need it.
I agree with you, however I'm sure they'll go to extraordinary lengths to find something in the Mac Mini, they can screw up.
I use mine to run my electric drum set using superior drummer running inside garageband. Its also the only desktop in the house so it gets used for just about everything. Its at its max operating capacity handling the drum set, so I would probably be interested in getting a new mac mini. I would then delegate my current mini to the theater room as the minix mini pc I have in there is terribly slow.
I'd love to see this too. Sadly, I'll believe it when I see it though. I used to have a lot more faith in Apple's commitment to the Mac line up.
Errr ... it is if you have an "investment" in MacOS software.
See my above comments.. I predict the removal of the HDMI port. It is "courageous".... SMH
"Courageous" being a euphemism for "so utterly ducking stupid that even a halfwit would have known better."
Apple is not going to put an HDMI connector on their new Thunderbolt 3 monitors. So if you want to buy a third party monitor that connects with HDMI, you'll have to buy the adapter. HDMI is a big, clunky connector, and would benefit greatly from being reduced in size. USB-C is capable of supplying HDMI, so as USB-C becomes the standard, I would expect the industry to eventually adopt it. It's not a priority for them at the moment.
I would say that macOS is crucial. Many consumers purchase a Mac because of macOS which despite all the hardware screw ups Apple are still capable of producing a decent operating platform.
It is time to review the
The horrible truth about Apple's repeated engineering failures.
Apple users (including me) are extremely tired of the crap computers Apple has been really coming out.
Computers that are soldered (RAM and HD) are not upgradable, they are more prone to brake, are more costly to repair and simply create more trash ultimately having customers to buy a new computer or pay for a super expensive repairs.
Apple irresponsible disposability and blatant money grab are shocking.
The horrible truth about Apple's repeated engineering failures.
Apple users (including me) are extremely tired of the crap computers Apple has been really coming out.
Computers that are soldered (RAM and HD) are not upgradable, they are more prone to brake, are more costly to repair and simply create more trash ultimately having customers to buy a new computer or pay for a super expensive repairs.
Apple irresponsible disposability and blatant money grab are shocking.
yeh sadly the pro will be something like this, and it will be freaking expensive.
the point is, an updated cheese grater would have been able to do everything for a fraction of the price. modules will just make everything proprietary, way more expensive and also slower. i'm sure apple will find a technically cool solution, but i bet all in that it certainly won't be cost efficient and the windows guys will laugh their a**es off.
Oh, but they did, all the way back in September of 2016, no less - https://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/HDMIAltModeUSBTypeC.aspx - and - https://www.hdmi.org/pdf/HDMI_Alt_Mode_for_USB_Type-C_General_Preso_20161122.pdf
Time to look for Hackintoshes...
[doublepost=1534884008][/doublepost]It is quite hilarious that Macrumors Buyer's guide shows DON'T BUY on almost every Apple product.
That shows how bad Apple has been about upgrades and innovation.
It's not obvious at all how this will play out with the laptop product line. Despite some folks' optimistic hopes, IMO there's no way Apple is just going to lop off $300 off the current price of a 12" MB just to make the $999 price point - that's asking too much. Making things smaller and lighter cost more than not making them smaller and lighter, so there's always going to be a premium.
I can't wait to see what they do with the MB Air. I just bought an Air for my son who needs a laptop for high school - believe it or not, the screen will be a significant upgrade for him, as he was using a school-provided Chromebook for the past two years that had a truly terrible screen. I would have liked to wait and see the new product(s) coming, but the Air will be a great laptop for his last two years of HS - durable, with a great keyboard and reasonable ports for his needs.
I can't wait to see what they do with the MB Air. I just bought an Air for my son who needs a laptop for high school - believe it or not, the screen will be a significant upgrade for him, as he was using a school-provided Chromebook for the past two years that had a truly terrible screen. I would have liked to wait and see the new product(s) coming, but the Air will be a great laptop for his last two years of HS - durable, with a great keyboard and reasonable ports for his needs.
HUH? If anything, component prices have gone up. The price of DRAM has more than doubled since 2016 and the first hint that prices may go down comes from an article I read three (3) days ago - https://www.tomshardware.com/news/dram-memory-shortage-prices-nand,37627.html - NVMe is still at a premium and QLC NAND is just starting to ramp up volume production this month. Intel has not lowered the cost of their CPUs as far as you can actually tell from the ARK (where many prices are listed as N/A), and retail pricing on CPUs has stayed pretty steady, if not gone up just a tad in the past few years (Core i-Series socketed CPUs). GPUs have finally started coming down in price from their artificial highs during the cryptocurrency boom, but that was a marked demand collapse, not an overall trend. I do not seen motherboard prices going down at all as an overall trend either. I am pretty darn sure that raw aluminum has not gone down with the increased demand in the automotive industry and other OEMs trying to match Apple's aesthetics in their devices (OWC, Blackmagic, Seagate, WD, Sony, et al.)
Sure, spinning HDDs are relatively cheap, but Apple is not going to get any more saving there as the market is a bottomed out as it can get, prices cannot go any lower. Of course, 2.5" SATA SSDs have come down in price appreciably due to 3D NAND and TLC production stabilizing, but Apple does not use those in ANY devices that they sell.
Apple has not used a Core i3 in a device since the mid-2010 iMac. Is the Core i3 a bad CPU? No, the i3-8350K is a mighty mite (as was the Core i3-6350 and Core i3-7350K), but that has not swayed Apple at all to return to it. I think Core i3 to them means bargain or cheap and they are building "premium". If they maintain the current mini pricing as it is now, yet manage to allow for 32 or 64GB of DDR4 DRAM, NVMe storage (and Fusion) drives, 28w U-Series 4-core CPUs and Thunderbolt 3, I would be quite happy along with many other users.
Apple is not going to put a 6-core or 8-core into a Mac mini...the best anyone should hope for at this point is a Kaby Lake-G 65w TDP package. Thermals alone preclude a 6-core 65w TDP, because then what GPU are you going to use? Answer? None, just the UHD 620, which no one wants.
I would not expect Apple to build a new chassis for this Mac mini "Pro" when they can do some work on the existing and accommodate a 65w TDP KL-G CPU/GPU package relatively easily. The same chassis accommodated 45w TDP CPUs, 65w is challenging, but not out of the question and it also allows them to simply use an existing chassis with a new port configuration and different internal machining for different anchor points.
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If they update the 12" MacBook to Amber Lake Y-Series, I think they will mention it during the event by saying, "Along with the stunning new 13" MacBook, the 12" MacBook is also getting an upgrade to Intel's latest 8th Generation CPUs. Check them out on our website after the keynote."
You missed my point. The parts in a $699 mini cost would more than $250. Sure, Apple could choose to sell at a reduced level of profitability, which is what they’ve done for years, particularly on the $499 mini.
If the mini lineup can’t carry its weight, other products have to make up for it. In effect, you’re paying more for your iPhone or MacBook Pro so others can get a deal on their mini.
What might the starting price be? The 15” MBP starts at $2,399.
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You just showed me specs on another "dongle".
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So rather than just use the things all around me in the "Real World" I have to carry around a stupid dongle or have one hanging out of my laptop at all times. All because some halfwit doesn't like "big clunky connectors" at Apple? Give me a break. Its not that big of a deal. Put the stupid HDMI connector back on the laptop and stop removing it from things.
HDMI is fine for you, what about DisplayPort? Mini DisplayPort? DVI? VGA? Should all these connectors still be on a laptop?
What if all these could be supported with just one port that didn’t require your laptop be twice as thick?
Buy the cable you need to support your particular use case.