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Debating between Mac mini and MacBook Air

LovingTeddy

LovingTeddy

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Original poster
Oct 12, 2015
1,848
2,154
Canada
Currently, I have 2011 Mac mini and 2012 MacBook Air. The Mac mini is currently out of date and not support the latest macOS. The MacBook Air does support macOS Catalina, but it is pretty out of date as well. I am not sure if next macOS will run on 2012 MacBook Air. Mac mini is way cheaper and more powerful than MacBook Air by specification wise. MacBook Air is of course more portable and easy to use.

I could go with Mac mini route and keep my current MacBook Air along with newly purchased AMD Ryzen based Windows laptop as my portable computing needs. But I still would love the MacBook Air.

What would you guys do? Mac mini or MacBook Air
 
Stephen.R said:
Without some clue about how you use either of them now, or how you expect to use a replacement, we might as well suggest you buy a ham sandwich.
Click to expand...

Pretty much browsing internet, run some office work and video editing. I feel Mac mini is more powerful option for video editing.

Only reason I want MacBook Air is because I can watch videos while I am feeding my baby or I am out about. But I can easily achieve this using old MacBook Air.
 
I think it depends on how much ram/cpu/ssd you want, and how much budge you want to pay.

if 16GB ram is enough for you, you could buy Macbook Pro 13inch

mbp 13inch has delegated graphic card which is powerful than Integrated graphic card
 
ewu said:
mbp 13inch has delegated graphic card which is powerful than Integrated graphic card
Click to expand...
All of Apple's 13" laptops use integrated graphics. The MacBook Pros do have better performing graphics than the Air or Mac Mini, however.
 
ewu said:
I think it depends on how much ram/cpu/ssd you want, and how much budge you want to pay.

if 16GB ram is enough for you, you could buy Macbook Pro 13inch

mbp 13inch has delegated graphic card which is powerful than Integrated graphic card
Click to expand...

I am leaning towards Mac mini. MacBook Pro is too expensive. 256GB MacBook Pro 13 inch with 16GB RAM is 2200CAD without tax. It is almost doubling the cost of Mac mini. This is just too much to sallow at this point of time.

Based configuration MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM is about 1300CAD and base configuration of Mac mini is about 999CAD. From cost perspective, Mac mini is the cheapest. I don't remotely care about iGPU. All Intel iGPU is kind suck and I have PC with Ryzen 5 and GTX 1070.

Only thing makes me want to buy MacBook Air is the portability, but I think I will continue carrying my aging MacBook Air until its last lag.
 
chrfr said:
All of Apple's 13" laptops use integrated graphics. The MacBook Pros do have better performing graphics than the Air or Mac Mini, however.
Click to expand...
my bad, I think Intel Iris is low-end delegated graphic card for long time without google it, after I research I find it is high-end integrated graphic card.
 
Last edited:
I have a 2011 macbook (white) and macmini. I was looking to upgrade either one of them and did ended up with the same query.

after doing research, I decided to wait until WWDC to get some indication from Apple in relation to using A series chips in mac products and then decide which one to buy.

my usage is mainly office stuff, photography, for entertainment I use my 2018 ipad pro.

hope it helps.
 
lazy_desi_ said:
I have a 2011 macbook (white) and macmini. I was looking to upgrade either one of them and did ended up with the same query.

after doing research, I decided to wait until WWDC to get some indication from Apple in relation to using A series chips in mac products and then decide which one to buy.

my usage is mainly office stuff, photography, for entertainment I use my 2018 ipad pro.

hope it helps.
Click to expand...

LOL. Thanks. I mainly decide against MacBook Air. Only reason is MacBook Air is too expensive for the specification. 1.1GHz dual core, 8GB RAM and 256GB for 1300CAD is too much to sallow.

I am going to see what happens on WWDC. If next macOS supports my 2012 MacBook Air, I will stick with it. Main while, I picked up a gaming laptop from Acer. I get 90 days to decide (gotta love Costco return policy)
 
LovingTeddy said:
Pretty much browsing internet, run some office work and video editing. I feel Mac mini is more powerful option for video editing.

Only reason I want MacBook Air is because I can watch videos while I am feeding my baby or I am out about. But I can easily achieve this using old MacBook Air.
Click to expand...

Get a Mac mini and an iPad (base model).

Will be similar price (for both) to base model MacBook Air, and you will get much better battery life and the ability to draw on it if you want with a pencil down the track.

You'll also be able to sell both old devices.
 
throAU said:
Get a Mac mini and an iPad (base model).

Will be similar price (for both) to base model MacBook Air, and you will get much better battery life and the ability to draw on it if you want with a pencil down the track.

You'll also be able to sell both old devices.
Click to expand...

I have 12.9 2018 iPad already with pencil and keyboard case. So I am going to settle with Mac mini, but I am going to wait abit
 
Sounds like a plan. From what you said above an MBA is totally superfluous to requirements, for watching video whilst out and about doing other things an iPad will be so much better, which you already own.

And a mini will be more powerful when you're at a desk...
 
BootLoxes said:
To be honest I expect the mini to get an update soon to support the XDR display since the Air was given support for it
Click to expand...

That's a very good point - and to do 6k I suspect it will require a new CPU due to the integrated GPU requiring an update.

Knowing apple they'll probably stick the MacBook Air CPU in it :D (and make it the size of an AppleTV 4k with no upgradable components).
 
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throAU said:
That's a very good point - and to do 6k I suspect it will require a new CPU due to the integrated GPU requiring an update.

Knowing apple they'll probably stick the MacBook Air CPU in it :D (and make it the size of an AppleTV 4k with no upgradable components).
Click to expand...

I doubt it. The mini will continue to get another desktop CPU and with the integrated graphics update will be a really good mac. If apple does the MBA trend they might even cut $100 off it.
 
BootLoxes said:
I doubt it. The mini will continue to get another desktop CPU and with the integrated graphics update will be a really good mac. If apple does the MBA trend they might even cut $100 off it.
Click to expand...

It is not like that Apple never used mobile CPU in Mac Mini. I highly suspect Apple would use mobile 10th Gen Intel professor giving desktop version is no where to be found yet.

Apple should use AMD instead of Intel now. Ryzen is awesome
 
LovingTeddy said:
It is not like that Apple never used mobile CPU in Mac Mini.
Click to expand...

You are right. But back then it was marketed for a different audience. When they released the much beefier update that was pretty much a sign they are changing the target audience. I just cannot imagine them going back to mobile cpu nor ryzen because of the upcoming ARM transition.

I am expecting the mini to get refreshed once more to support the XDR and then the refresh after will be ARM
 
BootLoxes said:
You are right. But back then it was marketed for a different audience. When they released the much beefier update that was pretty much a sign they are changing the target audience. I just cannot imagine them going back to mobile cpu nor ryzen because of the upcoming ARM transition.

I am expecting the mini to get refreshed once more to support the XDR and then the refresh after will be ARM
Click to expand...

Like I said in other thread before, I am not convinced with ARM based Mac at all. If anything is indication, ARM based Surface Pro X poor performance is an example. I don't care if ARM based A15 or whatever post better score than Intel processor, only application can take advantage of this raw power is ARM based application. Any x86 emulation will hurt the performance drastically.

That basically means all the professional applications which professionals relies on will have to be rewritten to ARM code base. These professional applications are always heavy resources hogs and it is almost impossible to rewritten within reasonable time frame. I hardly think any company wants to have support both x86 code base and ARM code base.

Switch to ARM processor, at current stage, does benefit to Apple. But it does nothing good to customers.
 
LovingTeddy said:
Like I said in other thread before, I am not convinced with ARM based Mac at all. If anything is indication, ARM based Surface Pro X poor performance is an example. I don't care if ARM based A15 or whatever post better score than Intel processor, only application can take advantage of this raw power is ARM based application. Any x86 emulation will hurt the performance drastically.

That basically means all the professional applications which professionals relies on will have to be rewritten to ARM code base. These professional applications are always heavy resources hogs and it is almost impossible to rewritten within reasonable time frame. I hardly think any company wants to have support both x86 code base and ARM code base.

Switch to ARM processor, at current stage, does benefit to Apple. But it does nothing good to customers.
Click to expand...

we pretty much just have to wait and see
 
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