That's hilarious, I just bought a Logitech G915 TKL because I hate the "long key stroke" of mechanical keyboards. To each his, or her, own.
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The Mac mini Dilemma
- Thread starter Bodhitree
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Exactly.
USB-A has never actually been universal.
Due to a lot of factors, technological abilities, government intervention, USB-C is, or at least will be eventually.
It will be on every phone, tablet, and laptop going forward, not because the companies wanted to be but because it literally has to be.
Also, unlike USB-A, other protocols like thunderbolt are integrated into the same port shape.
I use the same USB-C cable to charge my phone, iPad, MacBook and Apple Remote, while also being used to connect my external SSD, while also having the ability to be used with a thunderbolt display in the future.
You absolutely cannot do all of these things with a USB-A port.
Add on to all of this, the fact that any USB-A peripherals are pretty limited to traditional laptop and desktop computers.
Meanwhile, you can plug any USB-C peripheral into anything going forward.
You can directly plug an SSD into the iPhone if you want, same goes with iPads, Macs.
It’s very likely that 20 years from now, literally everything goes through a USB-C port.
The 2016 MacBook Pro did a lot of things wrong, but the one thing I think will be looked back on decades from now as ahead of its time is it basically ditching every port for a USB-C/Thunderbolt port.
It did it absolutely way too early, but especially with the recent European Union rulings, everything will be going USB-C eventually.
My old 2017 MBP had 2 USB-C ports as the only wired interface for power and whatever peripherals were being used. Using an HDMI monitor required a dongle, mounting an SD card required a dongle, using Ethernet required a dongle. My M3 MBP has a MagSafe connector for charging, an HDMI port for monitors, and SD card slot for SD cards - seems like Apple got an earful from their customers and have backed away from having only USB-C connectors on the MBP series.
I don't see USB-A going away for quite a while as the implementation is simpler than USB-C, and USB-A/B connectors will take a lot more abuse than USB-C.
Having multiple protocols in the same port shape is not always a good thing. USB-C is replacing the "cable doesn't work because it has the wrong connector(s)" with the "cable doesn't work because it has the wrong innards". The wrong connector on USB-A/Bis very easy to tell by inspection, USB-C needs a guidebook to explain the markings of what the cable can or cannot be used for.
I certainly hope that we don't have an "everything wireless" future, my preference is to use wired connections whenever practical. FWIW, I do a lot of RF engineering.That`s right, things will continue to develop (all anticipated benefits of everything wireless have not arrived. It took some time, but Apple figured that out eventually)
It's a 5K display, which means it has a full 77% more pixels* than a 4K display. That means it's quite a bit sharper, which is why it costs more. I guess you could get that newish 5K Samsung for under $1K but by all accounts the build quality is fairly janky and the rest of it gets mixed reviews. Fact is, there just isn't that much competition out there in this space, and it's absolutely worth it for designers or anyone who wants a true retina display on a Mac desktop.
* 5K = 5120 x 2880 = 14,745,600 px
4K = 3840 x 2160 = 8,294,400 px
14,745,600/8,294,400 = 1.77 (177%)
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2x is objectively better than 1.5x on any OS, even Windows. It sounds like you want software to make up for hardware deficiencies which Apple has chosen not to do in this case.
And if I were designing a user interface, I'd completely ignore fractional scaling too. It's easier to design for just 1x and 2x than an infinite number of possibilities between the two...so you get the scaled-down 2x interface and assets on your 1.5x where pixels don't line up properly, and you deal with it.
Looking at that keyboard, it still probably has at least double the stroke of the Apple Wireless keyboards.
Yeah too bad it's attached to a subpar keyboard.
I'm no keyboard snob, but i can pretty much find my way to touch type quickly on most keyboards within just 10-20 seconds of figuring out the layout, except the darn apple keyboards. It takes me way longer cuz its just so darn flat i can't get my fingers to tell where i am.
Yeah but it makes finding monitors other than a handful of 5K monitors out there a problem. Even hooking up to TV's, I just got a new 4K 65", and My only usable option is 1920x1080p, because native 4K is tiny and unusable. Therefore I am unable to actually display anything at 4K resolution, since everything is upscaled from 1080p.
Hooking up to my 8 year old PC laptop however, everything is proper and I can scale the UI at any percentage and everything looks crisp and I can get the "zoom" level I want and 4K sharpness.
Apple seriously need to get with the times and fix this.
If you're not seeing 2x scaling options on a 4K TV ("looks like" 1920x1080 but still displays content at 3840x2160) then that's something I'd consider a bug which should be fixed. My argument only applies to non-integer scaling options.
You might try BetterDisplay, it's helped me before.
I was ironic and have a preference for cables as well. But not more variants than I have to.
When using a 4K display with Windows 11, it automatically adjusts to 4K resolution, with the fonts scaled to a more readable size. In contrast, macOS struggles with this. The whole multiplying by two and then dividing by two nonsense only exacerbates the issue. I find myself having to set it to 6K/2 just to achieve a more pleasant experience on the same 4K display. It all seems rather contrived, especially when you consider that this is done to promote the so-called “Studio” display. Oddly enough, LG, the supplier of displays for Apple, offers larger 5K displays at much more reasonable prices.
All you need is a four-digit PIN for your password, and then you can use a standard keyboard ‘designed’ for Mac, which costs a fraction of the price of the “Magic” keyboard. As an added bonus, such a keyboard even includes a delete key! I’m getting a new Rapoo keyboard for less than 10€ in a few days.
I enabled the feature to login using my Apple Watch so I have two ways to quickly log into the Mac Mini (most of the time) but use the Touch ID for ”Password” user name and password for individual web site authentication along the ease of getting text message second form of authentication. Also, I believe my Magic Keyboard (10 key version) has a “delete” key as well. Being a relatively new Mac user I’m not always sure I’m on the same page as veteran users so I may misunderstand what others are saying at times.
Typically people who don't like 60 Hz displays are those who are gamers who like 144+ Hz monitors. That's a tiny subset of Mac users and a subset of all computer users but they tend to be quite vocal online.
As said before, no trouble whatsoever getting my preferred settings with clear fonts with a mature BenQ 32 4K. I get what I prefer in Linux, Windows and MacOS. There are several tests/reviews vouching for that, for the monitors they market towards Mac users.
My old hag wasn`t marketed towards Mac users - it is more or less generic, and it works just fine as it is supposed to do. If you persist in making the issue a 4K32 one, these proves that`s not the case. A decent generic budget office monitor with half decent color accuracy at 300USD works well with Mac. I knew this before I bought it. Because I did my b***y homework.
The 5K2K 40" monitors (HP, Dell, LG, Lenovo) have all (as far as I can remember) LG panels, and I believe these are in their 2nd generation presently, "Black IPS". Their best feature are not at all the panels, it`s the size and an ok ppi for office work, you will find way better panels/backlit/"filter layers" than that. These are office monitors. The build quality and features vary, and I`d pick LG`s own as #3 or #4.
There is a reason for LG charging less than the others for these, a.o build quality. By the looks of it they have gone budget production and charged premium. The LG`s are the cheapest monitors at the lowest price in this segment. As far as I`m able to pick up, the LG iteration got nothing more than a lukewarm reception, which is a bit unfortunate, as it hurt the rep of the format..
I believe there is a tribe in the northwestern corner of Amazonas not knowing Apple is expensive, but the rest of the world know it and are fully capable of not purchasing expensive Apple monitors. They also know Apple provide pretty darn good build quality and a few other perks.
Totally agree it’s not ideal for gaming. I’m guessing the 60 Hz is only part of the issue. I wonder what the response time for the Apple monitor is. I suspect it’s not nearly as high as a gaming monitor would be.
The problem is the gaming monitor is not going to look as good IMO as the apple monitor for doing everything else. The colors are not going to be as good and everything is not going to be as crisp looking.
To me it’s best to get the monitor best suited the primary purpose or what the computer is used most for. If there’s a secondary purpose it will be almost as good. If someone is buying a Mac primarily for gaming that’s their choice but it’s not ideal. In that case, I would say go for a gaming monitor.
Oh it does. It's slightly longer than my MS Sculpts I use now (RIP, **** you, Microsoft!!!) at 2.7mm vs 2.3, so I should still be good. I'll send it back if it isn't going to work, but it was like half off for Black Friday.
Not a clever question. What does that got to do with anything?
That tribe is the only one likely to be unaware of how diverse the production structure of products provided by Apple to Apple customers is.
In my invoice from Apple, it states Country of origin: CN
It is a requirement to indicate the country of origin on invoices.
Interesting. I just looked at my recent Apple Store receipts from online and in-store purchases in the US, and none of them indicate a country of origin, for now.
Even the invoice from MSI has it.
Note: MSI is a Taiwanese company, but the country of origin for the product is China, as that is where the product is actually made.
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