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So much for that plan... was just talking to my daughter and they got rid of the desk they were using for the (now dead) 2012 Mini I gave them a couple years ago. So they don't want another Mini, or even an iMac. They want a laptop - which they really only plan to use at home - they don't want to take up space in their small apartment for a desktop computer. They might actually prefer an iPad with a keyboard and Apple Pencil in fact. So Santa Claus is revising his gift list. :D

They are both 36 years old, with an 8 year old daughter. I suspect there may be many others that just don't see the value in a big desktop computer for general usage in 2018.
My wife prefers her iPad mini above her Mac Mini (and we're both 50+ ...)
 
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The iPad Mini gets even less love than the Mac Mini. :D I wanted an iPad Mini last summer, but just could not justify the price for 2015 technology when the 2018 full size iPad only cost $30 more and also supports the Apple Pencil.
My wife was lucky - she got the 64GB ipad mini 3 for her 50th (from her brother :D)
 
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My new mac mini arrived early. I have not yet set it up, and probably won't until Friday, but I went to the setup link in the included materials, and unfortunately what I found was a tour of the 2014 mini, with its great Thunderbolt 2 ports, etc. That was disappointing. don't know if it is common for Apple to take its time getting around to updating product sites, but it a downer for someone who has just bought one of their new products.
 
So much for that plan... was just talking to my daughter and they got rid of the desk they were using for the (now dead) 2012 Mini I gave them a couple years ago. So they don't want another Mini, or even an iMac. They want a laptop - which they really only plan to use at home - they don't want to take up space in their small apartment for a desktop computer. They might actually prefer an iPad with a keyboard and Apple Pencil in fact. So Santa Claus is revising his gift list. :D

They are both 36 years old, with an 8 year old daughter. I suspect there may be many others that just don't see the value in a big desktop computer for general usage in 2018.

I think that's true for a lot of folks. Desk tops seems to for anachronisms like me or for high end gamers. What pretty much keeps me wanting a desktop are 1) I do quite a lot of photo editing and want a big monitor, 2) I have a dedicated laptop for work if I have to travel and have to work while traveling, and 3) when I travel for pleasure I'm kind of a minimalist and take an iPad only. I've looked at MBPs but by the time you get a relatively powerful one set up with dock, nice external monitor, external keyboard, and mouse you're getting into some serious penger. That might be worth it if I really thought I'd use the laptop as a laptop very often. But I know I wouldn't. But virtually any device these days is fully capable of doing a very good job of doing the vast majority of what most folks do.
 
I think that's true for a lot of folks. Desk tops seems to for anachronisms like me or for high end gamers. What pretty much keeps me wanting a desktop are 1) I do quite a lot of photo editing and want a big monitor, 2) I have a dedicated laptop for work if I have to travel and have to work while traveling, and 3) when I travel for pleasure I'm kind of a minimalist and take an iPad only. I've looked at MBPs but by the time you get a relatively powerful one set up with dock, nice external monitor, external keyboard, and mouse you're getting into some serious penger. That might be worth it if I really thought I'd use the laptop as a laptop very often. But I know I wouldn't. But virtually any device these days is fully capable of doing a very good job of doing the vast majority of what most folks do.
That’s exactly why I waited for a new mini for years. Just need to get a couple of decent monitors for my photo editing and I’m good to go. A pair of BenQ SW271’s should be spot on.
 
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Cost is what, maybe 10 cents?

Yeah, then add the Apple tax and make it an optional extra, you have a $50 dongle to make it flash on and off.

I'd buy it, it's a worthwhile upgrade.

Edit: Actually to be fair I had no idea if it did, but I just checked and it stays on all the time.
 
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Ars Technica review says the Mini is a poor choice for just about everyone... but the T2 chip is cool. :rolleyes: Author has a pretty obvious bias...

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/mac-mini-review-a-testament-to-apples-stubbornness/

"Overall, the mac Mini gives me the feeling that it has been designed not for any particular use-case or kind of user. It has been designed for its size. It's small not because that makes it do its job any better—quite the reverse, in fact. It's designed as such simply for the sake of being small. Why Apple's engineers should optimize for size as opposed to any other design parameter, I don't know."
 
Don't see any bias in the review,

Dunno, maybe "bias" was the wrong word. But he says he thought about switching to a Mac, and a Mini seemed like the best fit. But he wants it for gaming and the Mini isn't comparable to a PC for that. "In a very fundamental way, Apple does not build the hardware I wanted."
 
Yeah, I saw that. Honestly, if I see another review with "I want to game on it but I can't"...

Having said that I have an amazing gaming solution, start my PC which logs itself in then starts Steam, I log into Steam on the Mac and then stream any game I want to the Mini and can play with the full benefit of the PC hardware without ever having to see Windows.
 
Yeah, I saw that. Honestly, if I see another review with "I want to game on it but I can't"...

Having said that I have an amazing gaming solution, start my PC which logs itself in then starts Steam, I log into Steam on the Mac and then stream any game I want to the Mini and can play with the full benefit of the PC hardware without ever having to see Windows.
That sounds great! You are streaming from Steam to you Mac, but the pc is doing the work. Can you say a little more about how you set that up? (I know nothing about it, in case that wasn't obvious.)
 
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That sounds great! You are streaming from Steam to you Mac, but the pc is doing the work. Can you say a little more about how you set that up? (I know nothing about it, in case that wasn't obvious.)

Nothing to it, in fact, what I said is all there is. You simply log into Steam on both machines, then on the Mac click on any game in your library. On the Mac it will say "stream" rather than "play". So it is running on the PC, not the Mac.

It all works across your local network, all you are doing is streaming from your PC in the same location (obviously assumes you have a router) certainly, in my case, you would not know it was being streamed.

So I can buy/play Windows-only games. I play World of Warcraft which you cannot get on Steam, just click on the "add game" in steam, find the WoW executable and add it as a game you can start from the library. (Wow is available on Mac, but using the PC I get the benefit of the hardware in the PC) You can do it for any game.
 
B&H Photo ads for that Mini have been following me around the web ever since I looked at it, LOL.

This cracks me up. I looked once to see if there were any sales on the 2014 Mini at B&H several weeks ago and the ads are still following me around. Cyber Monday Super Deal - only $889! LOL :p

mini.png
 
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