Macbook Air if no updated Mini soon

[psymac]

Really need to upgrade my home and office with a Mac that can run a 4K display (Dell P2715Q), which the 2015 MBA reportedly can at 60hz.

For about the same price as a mid range $699 Mac Mini, which may or may not be updated by June, I get nearly the same Geekbench 3 score and 4K video out with a lightly used 2015 MBA at about $700 (ebay).

Let's hope WWDC in June won't be a big dissapointment.

 

[Fishrrman]

I wouldn't expect to see a re-designed Mac Mini until October or November at the earliest.

Hopefully, I'll be proven wrong...

 

[ignatius345]

That doesn't sound like a terrible plan. If it was me, I'd house it in one the nice aluminum docks that are out (Twelve South, I think?) and then just use an external keyboard and mouse. Huge side benefit: you can just grab the computer and take it on the road if you want.

Maybe someone else here can speak to the issue of whether or not heat build-up is an issue if you run it in clamshell mode (closed all the time).

 

[supermegaarbuz]

That doesn't sound like a terrible plan. If it was me, I'd house it in one the nice aluminum docks that are out (Twelve South, I think?) and then just use an external keyboard and mouse. Huge side benefit: you can just grab the computer and take it on the road if you want.

Maybe someone else here can speak to the issue of whether or not heat build-up is an issue if you run it in clamshell mode (closed all the time).

I've been running a 2013 MBA in clamshell mode in a dock for the last two years (95% of the time in the dock). I even played Mass Effect 3 from start to finish (in BootCamp) on it and while the fan ran at max speed, I didn't notice any negative side effects. Maybe except the charger cable is now shaped like a hook right at the magsafe connector, because my dock is vertical so the cable has to go up and then do a 180 to connect (it's this one: https://www.hengedocks.com/pages/vertical-macbook-air).

There are sometimes issues with waking the computer from sleep with an external keyboard, but it's not too annoying.