I have no idea what Mac to buy, please help

[Ben J.]

This thread title and opening post is very clear - OP wants advice on buying a new mac and listed some of his requirements. This has gone very off-topic.

 

[Jack Neill]

This thread title and opening post is very clear - OP wants advice on buying a new mac and listed some of his requirements. This has gone very off-topic.

True.. OP get a M2 Mac Mini.

 

[FrenchPB]

The Mac Mini offers many advantages for watching movies and photos, but sitting 5 meters away from the TV will make it hard to navigate through the menus.

Would using Sidecar on my iPad make sense when I need to edit photos and navigate through the menus ?

 

[Ben J.]

The Mac Mini offers many advantages for watching movies and photos, but sitting 5 meters away from the TV will make it hard to navigate through the menus.

Would using Sidecar on my iPad make sense when I need to edit photos and navigate through the menus ?

4 meters and 1080 works for me.
I never found any real practical use for sidecar. I use Lightroom Classic. Of course there is Lightroom CC for iOS.
I use a dedicated app on ipad to control Pro Tools and my mixing controllers.

 

[FrenchPB]

4 meters and 1080 works for me.
I never found any real practical use for sidecar. I use Lightroom Classic. Of course there is Lightroom CC for iOS.
I use a dedicated app on ipad to control Pro Tools and my mixing controllers.

Using a 1080p resolution would certainly work better, but I'd lose the purpose of 4K (which would have been great for high resolution photos and videos). Would you switch back and forth between 1080p and 4K depending on your activity ?

I never really considered 1080p because my main point was to enjoy 4K on my media contents.

 

[Ben J.]

I never cared about hi-res on my displays. My bottom 32" Benq is color calibrated for photo work and the 50" TV is manually set to imitate the Benq. Both are 1080, which makes moving windows and applications between them very smooth. And in no way do I feel that I have too little detail. 32" @ 1080 is perfect for sitting close - and 50" @ 1080 is perfect for a few meters away.

 

[FrenchPB]

If I go for the Mac Mini M2 mostly for Photos and watching movies/ sports, plugged on a 65-inch 4K TV, which configuration should I take ?
Since I feel like my current 2011 27-inch iMac (in which I put an SSD a few years ago) is still doing the job, I'm wondering whether the base Mac Mini configuration would be more than enough for my limited needs. However, 8 GB of RAM sounds very small to manage large video files and photos libraries.

Your thoughts ?

 

[richmlow]

If I go for the Mac Mini M2 mostly for Photos and watching movies/ sports, plugged on a 65-inch 4K TV, which configuration should I take ?
Since I feel like my current 2011 27-inch iMac (in which I put an SSD a few years ago) is still doing the job, I'm wondering whether the base Mac Mini configuration would be more than enough for my limited needs. However, 8 GB of RAM sounds very small to manage large video files and photos libraries.

Your thoughts ?

Hello FrenchPB,


For your current uses, a Mac mini M2 (8GB RAM) is more than adequate! I'm assuming that you will use external storage for all you photos, music, movies, etc. Is that right?


richmlow

 

[FrenchPB]

Yes I will use external hard drives.
I currently own a couple of USB 3.5" external HDD which I guess must be really slow compared to Thunderbolt/ SDD. I will be able to upgrade in the future.

I was concerned about the base Mac Mini for two reasons : video output (limited to 60 Hz in 4K), and low RAM for Photos editing.

 

[Ben J.]

My Mac Pro 'cheesegrater' internal HDs had a read/write speed of about 70MB/s.
Externals on my minis:
A cheap LaCie 2TB SSD - 100MB/s
OWC 6G Extreme Pro in USB enclosure - 300MB/s
2TB NVMe blade in true Thunderbolt 3 enclosure - 1300MB/s

My 2020 M1 Mini internal 512GB - 3000MB/s

And I hear of speeds of 4-7000MB/s on bigger internals, like 2-4TB.

Just to give you an idea.