Hands-On With Apple's New 2018 Mac Mini

[MultiMan]

The cube had massive cooling problems though...

That was back when Apple was adamant not to use any fans whatsoever in their products. I remember it well. It was nice with the silence but limited the products in other ways. It really goes all the way back to the Apple ][ which had one of the first switching power supplies (runs cooler) but without a fan, which could lead to overheating, especially since it didn't have any other fan either and could be expanded with 8 internal cards which could draw a lot of power.

The cube was to use convection cooling only, but that only goes so far.

Still, it was wonderful times with an innovative and playful Apple firing on all cylinders.

 

[rowspaxe]

Yes, and No. What do you mean by, "work with"[surface pro]? .

incoherent question already garnered 3 nonsensical responses. Thank you for seeing the problem!

 

[swingerofbirch]

Well, not having a fan certainly didn't help. I don't understand Apple's obsession with having everything run silent... it's simply not possible. Hell, even the computers on ST: TNG hummed... and they were in the 24th century!

Our model had a fan on the graphics card. I have no idea which one it was now, but it was a build to order upgrade. So it wasn't silent like the other Cubes.

I do remember if you put a piece of paper over the top vent, it would put itself to sleep because it would overheat. I used to show that to friends like it was a trick I could do.

 

[AxoNeuron]

I’m a bit disappointed hat there is no i7 option, or no option for a more powerful discrete GPU....come on Apple! You can do better than that measly i5.

 

[rmanbike]

That is really funny. Thanks. Can't teach old people new tricks! hahaha

Now as someone who is closer to 70, and technically astute, you might be better served to rip all those old optical drives onto a server. However, if their old stuff is working, why change it? You can always get them a cheap Windows craptop, but no one does optical disks anymore, or floppies, or VGA, god I miss the old days!
[doublepost=1542148202][/doublepost]

or it wouldn't be spec increases? And unless you don't have a job, computers are cheap. Of course, I remember paying $3000 for a 32 MHz beast.

Yeah, and I paid $2500.00 for a Macintosh Centris 660AV. But thats all relative.

 

[HappyMBAowner]

Very disappointed with the high prices. A base quad-core i3 + 8 RAM + 512 GB SSD = CAD$1479 (no monitor, no keyboard, no mouse). An iMac quad-core i5 + 8 RAM + 1TB SSD = CAD$1769 (4K monitor, keyboard and mouse included). Where's the deal? Apple is obviously more interested in making money than innovating and ensuring Apple products are accessible to all. But, I have to say that my old 2007 iMac is still running (slow, but fine for games and internet surfing); my 2013 MBA is still running great (though impossible to use with Final Cut - still great with Logic Pro and everything else). If durability is still there, I'd say that current mini or iMac are good choices that won't disappoint year after year.

 

[ermaher1984]

I have an older 5k monitor that should work, but it uses the hack of using TWO mini displayport cables. Unfortunately, the Mac Mini only supports a single 5k monitor... so I'm now using two 4ks.

[doublepost=1542171438][/doublepost]

I have an older 5k monitor that should work, but it uses the hack of using TWO mini displayport cables. Unfortunately, the Mac Mini only supports a single 5k monitor... so I'm now using two 4ks.

 

[citysnaps]

I’m a bit disappointed hat there is no i7 option, or no option for a more powerful discrete GPU....come on Apple! You can do better than that measly i5.

There is an i7 option, with six cores.

 

[ermaher1984]

Yes, a 4 or 5K Ruku, HD television will work as a monitor for the AppleTv, Apple computer or as a cable television. Using only the Ruku remote you can jump between all three, one at a time. Connect using a HDMI to HDMI or Thunderbolt to HDMI> I had no choice being I am low vision impaired. Also, you have greater control over the color, screen size, volume using the remote.
[doublepost=1542171916][/doublepost]I should note the iMac has a simple way to enlarge the text, video or graphics using the command button and the scroll button on the Mac mouse.

 

[partsofspeech]

$499 to $799 is a (800-500)/500 = 300/500 = 60% hike. This money-grabbing percentage is what to be expected from 2019 iMac and Mac Pro.

basic 27” iMac. $1800*1.6 = $2880
basic Mac Pro. $3000*1.6 = $4880
wage increase in the past two years: 1.2*1.24 = 1.488

Go figure!

 

[Morgenland]

Are there any good 5K monitors that will work with this besides the beleaguered LG one that Apple sells?

My previous MacMini is stored in a compartment behind my desktop. Ports freely accessible. So that I know that I have a Mac, I currently still use the Apple Cinema Display. It may be vain, but I also want an Apple monitor for an Apple computer and not some LG or something like that.
Apple had always better design IMO.
I'm sure that Apple is currently developing its own monitor with a contemporary resolution, probably with a great new login function. If this is on the market, I buy everything completely.

I'm looking forward to it.

 

[citysnaps]

$499 to $799 is a (800-500)/500 = 300/500 = 60% hike. This money-grabbing percentage is what to be expected from 2019 iMac and Mac Pro.

basic 27” iMac. $1800*1.6 = $2880
basic Mac Pro. $3000*1.6 = $4880
wage increase in the past two years: 1.2*1.24 = 1.488

Go figure!

Sounds reasonable to me, considering the performance increase, along with much faster/better I/O. The base $499 Mini was pretty weak.

With respect to the iMac and MacPro, well, you’re just making stuff up.

 

[Plutonius]

The Mini has the same T2 chip that has been giving issues in other Mac models (Bridge OS errors). I would recommend holding out on buying a new Mini until it's evident that there aren't any issues with the T2 in the Mini.

 

[deviant]

was going to give one a shot.... went in to buy at the apple store, and took a couple of mid size work files with me to test out. just as my theory went... this thing throttles like crazy. i was never able to see the cpu hit the max turbo speed (except for maybe a split second at the beginning of a crunching run)

gauging from the reaction im seeing online... apple (once again) has a massive heat dissipation issue. the longevity of this machine is going to be NIL due to excessive heat.

This is just pure lies and easily disproved. You can see countless videos online with people running all 6 cores on the i5 version for extended period of time at 100% and it’s NOT throtteling
Who sent you?
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Sounds a bit meh as an 'upgrade' to my current Mini.
- i3 vs old i7... guessing it's still significantly faster but the same price used to get you an i5 of the day.
- No HD upgrades is a bit of a killer as mine has dual SSDs. I'm sure this SSD's much faster than mine (along with the bus...etc) but HD speed hasn't really been an issue for me.
- GPU! Sounds like the graphics are greatly improved and you can use an external GPU now. Not bad. Expensive though!!! While gaming isn't my thing, I think if I wanted faster graphics, I'd buy a cheap PC with a mid-range GPU.

Overall, yet another disappointing Apple desktop that I won't be purchasing.

The new i3 is better than the last years i5. consider that
[doublepost=1542179200][/doublepost]

There's no reason except ineptness, poor design, and greed for the Mac Mini to not be user upgradeable. Period.

Prediction: After slow sales, Apple will eventually discontinue this if not get out of the modular desktop or pro market completely. They just don't care enough nor do they want to listen to real desktop or pro users. I hope I'm wrong, but it seems as if Apple is incurably infected with the iPhone thinness, lightness, shiny things disease. My near 10 year old Cheese Grater Pro is still a more capable machine than this on several levels.

This Mac mini will beat your 10yo Mac on EVERY level. Don’t come here talking about pro users and then work on your ancient Mac Pro with usb 2.0 ports and a slow a$$ sata ssd

 

[Proji]

was going to give one a shot.... went in to buy at the apple store, and took a couple of mid size work files with me to test out. just as my theory went... this thing throttles like crazy. i was never able to see the cpu hit the max turbo speed (except for maybe a split second at the beginning of a crunching run)

What sort of files were they? Are we talking about video projects? And if so were you crunching them in FCPX or PP?

Just really curious as on paper the Mac Mini (at least in it’s i5 variant) is interesting to me for video work. I’m not too fussed about lots of upgrades as the 27in iMac rapidly becomes a much better value proposition (dedicated gpu, larger storage capacities etc)

 

[lowkey]

The base 15" MacBook Pro is a 6 core 2.2Ghz i7 with hyper threading and dedicated GPU. Geekbench 21200.
The top model 3.2 Ghz i7 Mac mini without a dedicated GPU has Geekbench score of 23910.

23910 is nowhere near twice the performance of of 21200.

The top of the range Mac mini is about 13% faster than the base model MBP. For graphics intensive software it would be slower. For software that doesn't take advantage of hyper threading or multi cores its going to be faster.

The base MBP is faster than the mid tier Mini.
The base Mini isn't even in the race....its beaten by the 13" MBPs.

Yeah, that 5K monitor is severely overpriced. Few would buy that as a companion to the Mini. I for instance am seriously considering getting a beefed up version of the Mini, add a 4K monitor for 400 bucks and I am still 700 bucks away from the 15" entry MacBook Pro that's basically less than half the performance of my planned Mini configuration. It all comes down to needs and circumstances. My old MacBook Pro will do just fine for occasional travel, and when that craps itself (after 7+ years), I'll just get a new Air and it'll do just fine.

 

[partsofspeech]

Sounds reasonable to me, considering the performance increase, along with much faster/better I/O. The base $499 Mini was pretty weak.

With respect to the iMac and MacPro, well, you’re just making stuff up.

‘Forcasting’ would be a more precise term to describe my the numbers.

 

[ThatGuyInLa]

No one else finds it hilarious that on a Mac based website, using your macOS web-browser, you can't watch this Mac based 4k video at...4k?

Apple. Grow up. You child. (And no, Google should not be expected to transcode the millions of videos using the codec they are. That's absurd)

 

[Winni]

Apple should build a clustering interface for mac mini where you could link them together as many as you want and that way get more powerful machine = Mac Pro.

If only it were that simple... Clusters don't improve the performance of desktop systems. Unless you have software that was written to run on clusters, 'linking' multiple Minis together won't do ANYTHING for you. And except for scientific software, well, nothing out there can take advantage of compute clusters. At best, you have a load balancer that distributes tasks over the available CPUs - but you still won't be using all available resources for --one-- task, which would be what you'd usually want on a desktop system.

 

[Robejazz]

I have a question - I don't know a lot about processors or cores. I currently have a 2018 15 MBP. It's the 2.6 Intel Core i7 (don't know how many cores) with 16 GB of RAM.

How will this compare to the i5 Mini -

• 3.0GHz 6-core 8th-generation Intel Core i5 processor
• Turbo Boost up to 4.1GHz
• 8GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory
• Intel UHD Graphics 630

Thanks !

 

[robinp]

Apple should build a clustering interface for mac mini where you could link them together as many as you want and that way get more powerful machine = Mac Pro.

I suspect that might not be far off what the Mac Pro might be

 

[Sam_S]

Played with one at the Apple Store. Remarkably fast, a very noticeable performance bump in ordinary, daily jobs. I think the SSD prices are pretty outragous - with USB C bandwidth, it would make sense to get the base i7 with 256GB internal; then drop $~300 to bump it to 32 GB SoDIMM and then add an external SSD/HDD.

USB C has a bandwidth of about 5-10 Gbps (depending upon Generation); which is more than adequate for external drive speeds.

Is it worth getting one of these or getting an iMac?

 

[dantroline]

MacOS is not worth the hardware premium to me any more.

You don't have to pay the hardware premium. I certainly won't be.

If the Mac mini costs this much then the new Mac Pro is going to be ridiculously expensive at this rate. I just built an insanely powerful PC for After Effects (9900k, 64gb RAM, M.2 SSDs) for less than £2000. From a business perspective, how can you justify paying 1/3 more for a less powerful machine?

Same here, and it runs Mojave! The hardware is really well priced nowadays and of high quality. Apple relies on people closing their eyes and not doing any research. I get all the 'reasons' for soldering stuff down and jacking the price up but personally I don't want or need that. Sure the SSD is fast but what good is that when for far less money I can get a faster overall setup by other means.

 

[Porco]

The non-replaceable storage and weedy GPU are the only things that really spoil what would otherwise be a pretty lovely machine IMHO. But they are quite big drawbacks for a machine that costs so much for what it is. I'm glad it exists, but it does feel like Apple have made it as niche as possible, designed precisely and narrowly in order to take as few sales as possible away from their other macs. Which I think if true is a weird and bad strategy - better to sell a mac of any kind than push people towards alternatives.

I think a couple of slots for additional storage (they could keep the soldered ssd for the boot drive if they like) and an option for a better GPU would have been entirely doable - hopefully that’s what the next Mac Pro will offer.

I’m still glad/relieved this mini was released at all though.

Prices are ridiculous really, but that was no surprise. Some mark-up is worth it for MacOS for many of us, but boy don’t they just know it...

 

[craigrusse11]

i have no idea why they went with intel on-board as only option. There's plenty space in the box now it's 100% SSD for even an entry level radeon which would be 4x faster than on-board.

... and before anyone points this out, the option to use usb-c discreet graphics is counter intuitive to having a mini desktop in the first place !?! Another hopelessly short sighted and greedy apple design.