I regret buying M1 MacBook Air and wish I would've gone with Mac mini… My Mac is on docking station 24/7. Haven't really carried it anywhere except watched some movies on the couch.Like, I always had a negative opinion on Mac mini as if it was an entry level computer 'just to try' that could not actually do much, just like those mini window pc's, oh boy was I wrong...
Mac mini with apple silicon is definitely not a joke or a 'computer that can not do much' - this thing is actually very powerful.
I use it every day and I am still shocked that this tiny device can handle most of my Adobe, Office tasks for $599
So I wonder, why are we even purchasing those expensive laptops for 3k when we can simply buy upgraded Mac minis
Unpopular opinion for some, but my goto Combo is Studio (for the 32GB of RAM) for home and iPad for travel. Granted I also have a work Windows laptop thats for work with hoteling and being a mix of WFH and Office the norm at my job after the pandemic, but work paid for that. Perfect 1-2 combo and with sidecar the ipad acts as a nice 2nd (or 3rd) screen when not in use... on its own the iPad is good enough for a travel computer. I can sync photos from my DSLR to it, do some editing in Afinity, and browser the wen and check emails... does everything I would need a travel computer for. Again I am not doing Coding or Spreadsheet work on the iPad but I have a work laptop for that.
I think often the reason why lots of people get laptops even if they're only going to be using them on a desk at home is that they think that that's what a personal computer looks like, and that stationary 'towers' are for geeks. Some might also look at a mac mini and think "nah. I'll just get a normal pc", and they get a laptop.
There was a period of time 2014-2018 when the Mac mini was severely neglected, but for much of its life it has rivaled lower-end MacBook Pros in performance. The 2012 Mac minis were fantastic and remain one of my favorite generations – you got upgradable RAM (fully user-serviceable up to 16 GB), upgradable hard drive (could even install two), and CPU performance that easily kept up with the 15" MacBook Pros of the time, but for $1,000 less.Like, I always had a negative opinion on Mac mini as if it was an entry level computer 'just to try' that could not actually do much, just like those mini window pc's, oh boy was I wrong...
Mac mini with apple silicon is definitely not a joke or a 'computer that can not do much' - this thing is actually very powerful.
I use it every day and I am still shocked that this tiny device can handle most of my Adobe, Office tasks for $599
So I wonder, why are we even purchasing those expensive laptops for 3k when we can simply buy upgraded Mac minis
I see the fact that memory and storage are "soldered" to the CPU as one of the main reasons for their fantastic performance.
Sadly doesn't matter how fast your RAM is if you bought the 8 GB base model and are now swapping to disk due to your usage exceeding that amount, or you can't run whatever the latest on-device machine learning stuff is because it isn't supported on 8 GB. With 16 GB or higher these things are likely to be fine for some time to come, but that requires a huge premium which means many are still being bought with 8 GB.
There's some performance benefit to soldering the memory (Only if you have enough to avoid lots of swap though). There's no performance benefit to soldering the storage. Apple doesn't use particularly fast SSDs, especially on the base model M2s. Soldering the storage is done so Apple can save some pennies buying flash controllers since they're integrated into the SoC and to overcharge for upgrades.
Been thinking of replacing My Late 2015 27" iMac with a Mini Pro. I have an older Mini 2014 that is My Media server. It tends to get really warm-hot with the fans blasting at high. Even after throughly cleaning (inside/outside) of any dust.
What most people don’t realize is that LPDDR# RAM that is used in Apple Silicon has to be soldered, and it has to be seated as physically close to the CPU as possible. (To be clear this does not excuse soldered RAM in the Intel era). This changed slightly in the last year or so with the introduction of a RAM card that can be seated via a special connector on the CPU; Lenovo recently debuted this in their laptops. I suppose it’s possible Apple might adopt this technology for something like the Mac Pro to allow for higher capacity memory upgrades, but I doubt they’ll ever deploy it for their consumer devices.
Same as well. It's absolutely laughable that Apple fully expects people to do such a thing with the AVP.
So I wonder, why are we even purchasing those expensive laptops for 3k when we can simply buy upgraded Mac minis
You could buy the base model with only 4 GB back when the RAM was upgradable and you’d be just fine. The awful slow HDD could also be replaced with an SSD (or connect one externally if you weren’t comfortable taking the thing apart which admittedly was a bit of a hassle). Base model 2012 with upgrades was pretty decent for a lot of tasks and remained so even years later.
