Some thoughts a month in

[jayducharme]

I've been heavily using my M1 mini for over a month now. Overall, I'm really happy with it. Most everything just works, and runs a lot faster than my 2018 mini setup. I haven't noticed Rosetta at all, even though I have a lot of unoptimized apps that are running through it. Blender actually runs faster than on my 2018 mini, which I find impressive with half the memory and no eGPU. The machine is virtually silent. My external hard drive dominates the background noise now. There are only a few complaints:

- The infamous Bluetooth issues, which hopefully were fixed with the latest update.
- One of my game apps, Trainz: A New Era (from the App Store), is pretty choppy. I've tried tweaking the graphics settings from one extreme to another, and it always stutters. I assume that's something the developer could address, and I hope they do.
- I do miss x86 emulation. I had quite a few games I'd regularly play through Fusion. I installed CrossOver, hoping to be able to run some of them. But they all crash upon launch. Perhaps Fusion or Parallels will figure out a way to make x86 emulation work on Apple silicon. Until then, I might just get a cheap PC to get my gaming fix.

Other than that, so far I think this is one of the best computers Apple has produced.

 

[ivnj]

For those with BT isues there is always wired keyboard and mouse.

 

[turbineseaplane]

For those with BT isues there is always wired keyboard and mouse.

Kind of like a plane having a pressurization issue and just telling passengers to "bring an oxygen tank"

 

[Hessel89]

What were the specs of the your previous mini?
I’m on an i7 with 32gbs of ram and I’m doubting hard.. somehow can’t believe the m1 can be that much better..

 

[HeavyMantra]

What were the specs of the your previous mini?
I’m on an i7 with 32gbs of ram and I’m doubting hard.. somehow can’t believe the m1 can be that much better..

The depressing truth seems to be it's not only miles better, but also less than half the price
I regret buying my 2018 deeply

 

[benshive]

For those with BT isues there is always wired keyboard and mouse.

Yeah but it's still a pretty urgent issue that needs fixed. Many people rely on BT a lot now. If widespread wifi issues were a reason you wouldn't just tell everyone to use ethernet.

 

[jayducharme]

What were the specs of the your previous mini?
I’m on an i7 with 32gbs of ram and I’m doubting hard.. somehow can’t believe the m1 can be that much better..

I had the 6-core i7 with 32 gb RAM, a 1 tb SSD and a Radeon RX 5700 XT eGPU. As I said, except for a couple of games, the M1 definitely is much better.

 

[jayducharme]

The depressing truth seems to be it's not only miles better, but also less than half the price
I regret buying my 2018 deeply

I sold mine on eBay for just a few hundred less than what I paid for it. That sale pretty much paid for my new mini.

 

[ivnj]

The depressing truth seems to be it's not only miles better, but also less than half the price
I regret buying my 2018 deeply

But you had no idea new better models were coming. Anyhow apple tradeins is still giving over 500 dollars on some 2018 minis.

 

[Hessel89]

The depressing truth seems to be it's not only miles better, but also less than half the price
I regret buying my 2018 deeply

umm not really.. I have it for sale right now & got multiple bids over €1300 and people waiting for me to give the OK. The M1 is only €1039 so ''upgrading'' literally wouldn't cost me anything.

@ the OP. The thing is that I'm still not fully convinced.. How good is it really? I've seen the raging reviews from the YouTube influencers and the geekbench scores seem great, but I've also been reading about lots of hardware issues, like shutdowns during sleep, the pixel misalignment on the LG Ultrafines..

 

[jayducharme]

I've also been reading about lots of hardware issues, like shutdowns during sleep, the pixel misalignment on the LG Ultrafines..

The only problem I've had during sleep has been intermittent: sometimes, the mini loses the connection with my monitor. But cycling the monitor to another input and then back fixes the problem. So far with 11.2, I haven't had that issue so maybe it's been fixed.

 

[MRrainer]

I also have a 32GB, i7 2018 with 1 TB SSD - and two 4K displays.
Also, I like to run x86 Linux VMs.

So, it's a no-brainer to stay.

Though, for a laptop it's really, really hard to justify buying an Intel MacBook Air, even at half the previous sticker-price (IMO).

If you don't do VMs (and only need a single display), there's IMO no need for 32GB and 16GB should be enough.