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No Mini Refresh: What now?
- Thread starter timacn
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the mini will be around. frankly apple does not need to refresh the 2012,mac mini. no company has a quad core small form factor desktop that is clearly better then the 2012 quad core model. I think apple will not refresh the mini until feb-april of next year. at best.
to beat a 2012 quad core mini you need a better quad core cpu from the next generation of cpu's
here is the list
http://ark.intel.com/products/family/75023/4th-Generation-Intel-Core-i7-Processors
this would do the trick it has been around for months and they have not done it.
http://ark.intel.com/products/75119/Intel-Core-i7-4702MQ-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_20-GHz
when you can find a desktop pc with this cpu that is as small as a mac mini it would mean apple will need a better mini.
as of today this pc does not exist.
Apple has realized along with many pc companies that the desktops now are too good. they do not need to be replaced often . the next real need for better desktops macs and pc's will be when tv's are 4k models and not 1080p models. when the average home has 1 or 2 of the 4k tv's macs and pc's will need much better graphic cards. I could see apple keeping the mini as is and waiting for a 5th gen cpu to come out.. that would mean next oct at the earliest.
BTW I prefer to be wrong about this.
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Just remember, Haswell was more about power savings (i.e. long battery life). The GPU upgrade would be nice as well, but it turned out not to be as great as originally touted. Since I already own a 2012, I am waiting until the Mini's get TB2. If Apple refreshes the line with Haswell, but sticks to TB1, I'll just wait.
since they broke their update cycle for the first time since 4 years, it is probably safe to assume that some kind of redesign will take place... which means no silent update. therefore, we might have to wait until summer or fall. 
(are there any apple events in Q1?)
(are there any apple events in Q1?)
I have to agree that the refresh or redesign will probably be capable of 4k. That means late 2014 for broadwell desktop chipset. I was disappointed to find out that my nMBP was capable of 4k but without the dedicated GPU would probably be toast after a few hours. I am planing on returning this machine although I really like it but Im not a laptop person. I have decided to get a refurbished mini and wait for a refresh capable of 4k. It will probably take a year or two for 4k technology and prices will stabilize.
Don't have it handy but there's a thread showing the time differential between a new Mac showing up in benchmarks and it's eventual release date. It projected mini revise somewhere in February / March.
But if production is also relocated and also has delays, figure April / May.
But if production is also relocated and also has delays, figure April / May.
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normally I would agree,but for 4k tv I do not agree. If you see a 4k tv demo like sony shows in their style stores you would know what I mean.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/17/sony-vpl-vw1000es-projector-native-4k/
this does not really do justice to an in person demo.
These tvs have dropped in price a lot under 3k once they get to the 1500 dollar level people will want them and they will push pc's and macs to new heights in graphics. I would love a real redesign. take the 2012 mini and add ½ inch to the height . put in 2 or 3 bolt slots make it black not silver. put in 5th gen cpu skipping the 4th gen alltogehter . have it come out in Oct or Nov. that would be worth the wait
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I think it would be a waste to refresh with Haswell. It really does not gain anything except a little more GPU. The present graphics are fine for 1080p.
4k is the near future and the Mini would be a choice HTC with the Broadwell
chip. Black would be a good choice.
That was fixed way back in 10.8.3. I haven't seen anyone complain about that in 9 months.
2009 was a very long wait 575 days. which in our case was 4 years ago . I think we are going to wait that same said 575 days. which gets us to april. I believe they will go to oct a 700 plus day wait.
I purchased a mini from Amazon this week. The dual core mini will run all the basics with ease and as a previous poster said, there really isn't anything available in a quad core the size of the mini.
I decided to bite because with each refresh Apple has been making their designs to be a pain in the butt if not nearly impossible to upgrade. My fear was that Apple is going to go flash pci-e with the next refresh on the mini. So there goes upgrading your drive and memory.
I decided to bite because with each refresh Apple has been making their designs to be a pain in the butt if not nearly impossible to upgrade. My fear was that Apple is going to go flash pci-e with the next refresh on the mini. So there goes upgrading your drive and memory.
Broadwell should be available in 2015 (AFAIK), not 2014. You know that the Mac mini is more or less equal to the MacBook Pro, which has already Haswell processors, TB2, and so on. It's difficult to understand, why Apple does not update the Mac mini.
Broadwell should be available in 2015 (AFAIK), not 2014. You know that the Mac mini is more or less equal to the MacBook Pro, which has already Haswell processors, TB2, and so on. It's difficult to understand, why Apple does not update the Mac mini.
they do not update it because there is no small form pc that is truly better. while a mbp has been close to a mac mini for years in cpu they are not the same for many users.
they needed to update the mbp because there are some very good laptops in the pc world.
this is the closest pc to the 2012 quad mac mini
http://www.zotacusa.com/zbox-id90-plus.html
it is costly.
http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/ZOTAC_ZBOX_ID90_PLUS/ZBOXID90PLUSU/12001760/
640 usd with 1 500gb hdd 4gb ram and no os
a low cost os from windows is about 100 so 740 minimum
it has a better cpu
same graphics
same ram
only 1 hdd
no t-bolt
can not run 10.8.5
the quad mini runs windows and 10.8.5
has 2 hdd option
has t-bolt
until the pc world makes a small form pc better then this one apple has 0 need to upgrade its mac mini.
BTW I rather Apple says f it and does the upgrade.
http://ark.intel.com/products/75119/Intel-Core-i7-4702MQ-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_20-GHz the new quad
http://ark.intel.com/products/75991/Intel-Core-i5-4288U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-3_10-GHz the new dual
same box and 2 t-bolt ports just pull the fw800 port and leave the hdmi in
Broadwell should be available in 2015 (AFAIK), not 2014. You know that the Mac mini is more or less equal to the MacBook Pro, which has already Haswell processors, TB2, and so on. It's difficult to understand, why Apple does not update the Mac mini.
My theory all has been that Apple put all engineering and design resources they could spare into getting the Mac Pro finalized. Now that that's done, maybe they will get around to the mini.
May I ask what you mean about not being able to upgrade memory if the Mini refresh has flash pci-e? I actually don't know what the flash pci-e is other than the fact that it's supposed to be better and faster, but why would that prevent memory upgrades?
We've been considering on getting another Mini (but wanted to wait for the refresh). Your comment made me wary, however.
Not to mention that if only new Retina Pro Lap and Mac Pro have within the new Thunderbolt 2 ..perhaps..this could be explain'd that no TB2 chipset is yet available for Mini.
In my opinion a new Broadwell Mini with faster I-Gpu and Thunderbolt 2 could make more sense than one with just Haswell in.
Nevertheless i hope to see Thunderbolt 3 (50Gbps )well before SkyLake (aka Skywell ).
Reading through this is interesting... I'm currently waiting on a Mini refresh but this thread has made me think it will happen latter rather than sooner...
I also wonder if they will end up flash storage only in a smaller form factor? At one point the Apple TV, Airport Extreme and Mini had very similar form factor (and maybe identical footprint?) and the former two have since evolved into smaller ones.
I would love one with Haswell and Iris either way.
I also wonder if they will end up flash storage only in a smaller form factor? At one point the Apple TV, Airport Extreme and Mini had very similar form factor (and maybe identical footprint?) and the former two have since evolved into smaller ones.
I would love one with Haswell and Iris either way.
I think this is it. There was a crush getting the Mac Pro out the door in December, as promised, and I wouldn't be surprised if that meant that much of the Mac hardware team was reassigned to that effort, postponing the Mac Mini refresh -- especially if, as it looks, there's a serious redesign there as well.
Redesign - PLEASE NOT!
the mac mini is the last survivor of the "user-friendly-upgradable-macs" ... (the other survivor is the 13'' macbook pro, but it's outdated specs are a joke ...)
the mini has a perfect design, just upgrade the specs and release it, APPLE!!!
(by the way: the "old thick macbook pro" with up to date cpu and gpu and retina display would be bought by many I guess ...)
the mac mini is the last survivor of the "user-friendly-upgradable-macs" ... (the other survivor is the 13'' macbook pro, but it's outdated specs are a joke ...)
the mini has a perfect design, just upgrade the specs and release it, APPLE!!!
(by the way: the "old thick macbook pro" with up to date cpu and gpu and retina display would be bought by many I guess ...)
I don't think APPLE thinks the same with you...the opposite, they have already rejected the idea: "to let customer upgrade a computer means to facilitate him/her to save money!
The teardown of the new Mac Pro reveals that it's highly serviceable and likely upgradeable.