That's not true at all. I work entirely remotely and I don't use the cam, mics, and speakers on either of the two monitors sitting in front of me (an entirely unnecessary redundancy which further makes my point). I have a webcam and mic that are much better than anything sold in any monitor, and my speakers pipe through a high-end home theater system. I have literally never once used any of those devices in these monitors, and why would I?
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The Mac mini Dilemma
- Thread starter Bodhitree
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That's not true at all. I work entirely remotely and I don't use the cam, mics, and speakers on either of the two monitors sitting in front of me (an entirely unnecessary redundancy which further makes my point). I have a webcam and mic that are much better than anything sold in any monitor, and my speakers pipe through a high-end home theater system. I have literally never once used any of those devices in these monitors, and why would I?
Eh. Order it. When it arrives you will immediately open the gigantic box and a ray of hope blinds you to tears (like some biblical painting). Weeping into the glory of the screen, you place it on your desk with reverence. You give yourself a few last breaths of courage, plug it into your Mac Mini and the world dissolves around you as you realise you can never stare at another crappy Dell UltraSharp again. When arriving at the desktop you are met by the exquisite 5k detail, sharpness and colour reproduction. Opening Apple Music blows you away as well for nothing sounds the same again from a monitor at least.
Then there is a ding, the email arrives, you open it and see it's the credit card company. Your heart slides into oblivion, all colour drains from your mortal form and you collapse onto the desk shouting WHY WHY WHY did I listen to cjsuk?!?!?!
Since I have my Mac Mini M2 Pro, I do miss my M1 iMac quite a lot. The speakers, the incredible (and glossy!) monitor, the great webcam.
But, I needed this performance so, so badly. I had to move on.
For me, the iMac has always been the best computer one can ever own. But since the iMac became an entry-level computer with Apple Silicon, and no way to really pump up the performance, I'm not sure what to think.
But, I needed this performance so, so badly. I had to move on.
For me, the iMac has always been the best computer one can ever own. But since the iMac became an entry-level computer with Apple Silicon, and no way to really pump up the performance, I'm not sure what to think.
I throw graphic design work at my M1 iMac all day long and it rarely even hiccups. And that's an M1 with 16 GB of RAM. I would anticipate an M4 iMac with 24 GB of RAM would tackle anything I could realistically need to do. Sounds like your needs are heavier, but damn, the Apple Silicon machines are SO fast and cool compared to the bad old Intel days.
Ah, so you DO use a webcam and mic and speakers. You just prefer to have external ones. Not everyone does.
True. But none of us would trust any system that always says everything is awesome.
But the overall feedback I’ve seen of Mac Mini M4 is unprecedented. I’ve never seen a low cost Apple computer take the world storm like this one has. Apparently, you can’t built a budget Windows PC for $600 that comes anywhere close to the performance of the base M4 Mini. Apple is crushing Intel, AMD and Microsoft in low cost computing. You can buy a cheaper Windows PC, but its performance won’t come close.
Yeah, I'm starting to have some medium to large sized projects in Xcode.
Otherwise I'd just buy an M4 iMac and be done with it.
Oh, for sure. I'm hoping to upgrade my M2 Pro Mini to an M4 Max Studio next summer.
It didn't occur to you that people might use speakers that are not embedded in a computer monitor?
Agree, but if you add memory and internal storage, then you can spec a windows pc with similar specs, performance and price, or cheaper, I think, even if not as small, nice and well crafted.
You gain lot more than windows, you will get space heater and sound effects(loud fans) to go along with throttling. It’s a plus in winter when you need more heat.
No no, I am not saying it is a good thing! Just mentioning price/performance ratio, which it is not so great anymore if you spec up you mini, nothing else.
I have enough of windows and noisy computers at work, to bring them home.
mostly watching video or gaming
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It didn't occur to you that people might not want a bunch of extra **** on their desk?
You want to use external stuff, knock yourself out, but not everyone wants all that!
Yeah, at one point Mini owners have to pony up for everything which makes the system fulfilling their needs and/or desires. No way around that. In ownership already, or after the fact, it has to be done.
There are a couple of advantages though.
People tend to have a keyboard/mouse or whatever lying around anyway, or offspring/guy next door/a friend would have something doing ok as a starter kit. Then, the monitor can be had 2nd hand or rather cheap, or one can invest in a proper one straight away.
That being done, the advantaged starts to show. 24" too small? Get a different one. Need more juice? Keep everything else, sell the Mini and get better spec.
The owner don`t have upgrade spec when all he/she wants is a smaller, bigger, better, specialized monitor, and he/she don`t have to pony up for a new gen iMac if all there is to it is a gpu/cpu bump.
The costs can be spread comfortably, and when the owner gets the monitor he/she wants/needs, no worries for many many years. Just a few hundred to get the latest gen, and whatever more for upping specs. My estimate in this market is 100 USD a year for a base mini and perhaps 150-200 for a base studio if being conscious about the strategy.
It is an economical road to a fine setup, tailored to the one user.
I am one of these, love the minimalist and clean look of an iMac, that’s why I am looking for a monitor with integrated speakers and camera for a future Mac mini. But everyone has different needs, no need to raise the tone.
Bottom line is the comment is yet another whine about price, with lots of likes. Whine if Apple fails to make strong enough hardware available, but please stop whining about the lowest base model configurations.
As to folks wanting slow low bandwidth USB-A ports, get over it. Demanding Apple satisfy antique port demands is just wrong; just buy a powered USB hub, or a dongle if really all you need is "...a single USB-A port."
I guess if you don't really listen to music then having only built in speakers makes sense
I personally couldn't imagine it
even most "computer" or "multi-media" speakers are trash
Which assumes that "the owner`s needs/wishes" do not change over the 5-10 year life cycle. Meaning the owner does not relocate the workstation in a 10 year time period; the owner does not want a bigger or smaller display in a 10 year time period; the owner does not want a stronger computing portion in a 10 year time period; etc.
AIOs are IMO poor choices except for planned short life cycles. They are pretty.
..been holding off to get rid of USB A. Usable now, but it is way overdue, and in the future it will be a drag. Not as bad as getting cables to Thunderbolt II though.....
I find the base iterations (Mini in my case) very very economical. Cheap ownership.
Me neither, I don’t use the internal speakers to listen to music.
I use Roon to organize and listen to my music, I have a Mac mini M1 that I purely use as Roon server. I have a headphone dac/amp connected to my iMac with two set of wired high-end headphones, one closed back and one open back, the whole set is worth about 8k. When I want to listen music without headphones, I stream it to a dac connected to my tube amp and a pair of nice loudspeakers, in my living room.
I do care about music a lot, that’s why the speakers in the monitor are more than enough for me, for my office needs.
But as I wrote before, everyone’s needs are different.
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Couldn`t have said it better myself.
To me an iMac is throwing cash out of the window, 24" is something I wouldn`t have found sufficient more than 10 years ago. And I REALLY don`t like the extension below the screen. Fixed height? No way.
....but it isn`t made for me, and will be fine for someone having that looong perspective and are happy with a all in one solution.