Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
how fast is the current 1.4GHz Mini, compared to a Macbook Air?
- Thread starter SarahKirschbaum
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac-mini-core-i5-1.4-late-2014-specs.html
versus
http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...book-air-core-i5-1.6-11-early-2015-specs.html
Check out the Geekbench Scores. Pretty similar, with the Mini being a tad behind.
versus
http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...book-air-core-i5-1.6-11-early-2015-specs.html
Check out the Geekbench Scores. Pretty similar, with the Mini being a tad behind.
If you put a SSD in the Mini, it should be almost the same. The spinning HDD is the thing slowing it down the most.
Right out of the box the difference in user experience will be substantial. The base model MacBook Air has a very fast SSD (solid state drive) and 8GB of memory. The base Mini has a slow mechanical hard drive and only 4GB of memory. So the base MacBook Air has a disk that's about 6 times faster than the base Mini and it has twice as much memory. This makes a big difference.
I have a base Mini and it is a really sluggish feeling computer. For example, it takes about 15 seconds just to open the System Preferences. This happens almost instantaneously on the MacBook Air - I have owned two MacBook Airs and they literally run circles around the base model Mini. I would not recommend the base model Mini for an all around computer, most people will find it very frustrating. I use mine as an iTunes server and it works fine for that (it just runs iTunes with home sharing for my two Apple TV's and Macs).
I have a base Mini and it is a really sluggish feeling computer. For example, it takes about 15 seconds just to open the System Preferences. This happens almost instantaneously on the MacBook Air - I have owned two MacBook Airs and they literally run circles around the base model Mini. I would not recommend the base model Mini for an all around computer, most people will find it very frustrating. I use mine as an iTunes server and it works fine for that (it just runs iTunes with home sharing for my two Apple TV's and Macs).
Last edited:
Oops. How could I have forgotten about the spinny drive. lol
forget the base mini, unless you are using an external SSD drive, or replace the stock drive.
forget the base mini, unless you are using an external SSD drive, or replace the stock drive.
The 2.6 mini with the spinner is utterly painful to use. We have one in the office and it's slower than any of our 2009 minis that were upgraded to SSD.