Yes, I wasn't clear, I meant Powermac.Technically the G4 mini *was* bigger
Still longing for a xMac, since there's nothing but space under (the desk) and above my mini...
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The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming
- Thread starter GabrieleR
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Still longing for a xMac, since there's nothing but space under (the desk) and above my mini...
How do you figure that? You could buy the exact same machine before, but it was more expensive. I suppose the way I view it is, they discontinued the 128gb model and then dropped the price on the 256.
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Not really new. Just the same 2018 models, but with lower prices for storage.
Very easily; the price did not drop. This update does, however, represent better value for money
But more new Mac Minis are almost certainly coming.
Macworld UK reckons the next one might be within a year or so.
https://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/new-mac-mini-rumours-3699859/
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The base model is more than powerful enough for most people's needs and the 256Gb SSD is now an acceptable size for programs, macOS etc. It sounds as if you need more file storage so why not just add a self-powered USB 3.0 hard drive?
The 1Tb upgrade would cost an additional $400; however, a compact external drive (which could also be attached to your MacBook Air for file access when on the move) would be less than $50. Even 4Tb would only be around the $100 mark.
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I simply don’t see a redesign but probably a spec bump to new processors. It’s good they move to 256TB in the base model as a computer like this is useless without that amount. Hope the bodes well for the next-gen iMacs to finally neuter the spinner and fusion drive con.
Realistically at this point, I don't think you should recommend a spinning hard drive to anyone except those who absolutely need gobs and gobs of storage (and should get a DAS or NAS RAID instead.)
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I see that Apple is giving the 2018 Mac Mini the “new” subtitle at their store. That’s a stretch but there is something new about it as far as price. With the walk-in stores closed
The next generation iMacs will no doubt have the T2 chip. That will eliminate the HDD and Fusion drive as an option.
The next generation iMacs will no doubt have the T2 chip. That will eliminate the HDD and Fusion drive as an option.
Yeah the 'new' badge is a bit like the 'new' badge they gave the 5,1 Mac Pros back in 2012. (Except there, enough people made a fuss they removed it
)And it's kind of silly to be so excited about reasonable flash storage prices on the Mac line, but reasonable flash storage prices! Two or three years after they should have ditched the spinning rust on the iMacs, it seems like they'll actually do it and not only will people not have a too-small disk by default, but upgrading it to something with more room won't cost twice what it should.
I agree to a point, but Micky Do has consistently said he values the bigger internal storage of his 2009 Mac Mini which only had a 5400rpm hard drive. If he was happy enough running macOS on that machine, he would see a huge boost from the new Mini with the OS and all apps running from the internal SSD.
Also, like it or not, external HDDs are still popular for one reason: cost. For straight-up file storage the speed is usually fine and they are significantly cheaper than SSDs or NAS boxes for basic needs. I wouldn't personally want to use spinning rust if I can avoid it either, but spending $400 on a 1Tb Mini SSD upgrade when he can get a 4Tb HDD for less than $100 would be crazy (as he has mentioned being on a budget in the past).
Well, forecasting aside, I think that storage bumping the Mini may been a sign that the iMac is staying with Coffee Lake and no T2 for a few more months. A storage bump of the iMac for 2020 using existing storage options would be a fair assumption of what's next for that.
But it's precisely the storage issue that leads me to think that Apple will abandon both 21.5" and 27" iMacs when they go all SSD - probably with a 24" model.
The next bit belongs in an iMac thread but I may as well debut my thinking here because the logic affects the Mini:
On the basis that the 4k 21.5" panel and the 5k 27" panel are both 218/219ppi and that's Retina resolution to Apple, there would be plenty who will then say that the 24" 4k LG panel on sale in Apple's own stores isn't retina any more due to a lower pixel pitch of around 180ppi.
Now, what if a 24" panel for an iMac wasn't 4k but was in fact 4.5k - 4608 x 2592 and this was going into a thinner product - let's call it the iMac Air - and this would come with all SSD etc.
The 4.5k iMac would have a 219ppi but would come with the MacBook Pro 16" class CPU (up to 10 cores) and a GPU capable of driving that many pixels - AMD 5600 Pro for example. Give it a VESA mount option for easy mounting to suit.
The 4k 21.5" iMac hangs around with a storage bump to bring Fusion drives across the range.
The Air becomes an all SSD product, a MacBook Pro 16" with bigger screen.
And the Pro gets the much expected Xeon upgrades but with a lower starting SKU (say, with 16Gb).
And the Mini sticks around on the refreshed spec because Apple are still buying the Coffee Lake parts to make them and the 21.5" iMac.
The next convergence would be October 2021 when Apple may decide to give the 21.5" iMac the Air treatment and get rid of the bulky HD storage. At that point the Mini could get the H class 10NM CPUs which will have better multithread benchmarks than the ageing 8th gen Coffee Lake CPUs purely on the basis of being 4-5 years more advanced. You'd think then that 512Gb-1Tb SSD might be cheap enough for base level products.
But it's precisely the storage issue that leads me to think that Apple will abandon both 21.5" and 27" iMacs when they go all SSD - probably with a 24" model.
The next bit belongs in an iMac thread but I may as well debut my thinking here because the logic affects the Mini:
On the basis that the 4k 21.5" panel and the 5k 27" panel are both 218/219ppi and that's Retina resolution to Apple, there would be plenty who will then say that the 24" 4k LG panel on sale in Apple's own stores isn't retina any more due to a lower pixel pitch of around 180ppi.
Now, what if a 24" panel for an iMac wasn't 4k but was in fact 4.5k - 4608 x 2592 and this was going into a thinner product - let's call it the iMac Air - and this would come with all SSD etc.
The 4.5k iMac would have a 219ppi but would come with the MacBook Pro 16" class CPU (up to 10 cores) and a GPU capable of driving that many pixels - AMD 5600 Pro for example. Give it a VESA mount option for easy mounting to suit.
The 4k 21.5" iMac hangs around with a storage bump to bring Fusion drives across the range.
The Air becomes an all SSD product, a MacBook Pro 16" with bigger screen.
And the Pro gets the much expected Xeon upgrades but with a lower starting SKU (say, with 16Gb).
And the Mini sticks around on the refreshed spec because Apple are still buying the Coffee Lake parts to make them and the 21.5" iMac.
The next convergence would be October 2021 when Apple may decide to give the 21.5" iMac the Air treatment and get rid of the bulky HD storage. At that point the Mini could get the H class 10NM CPUs which will have better multithread benchmarks than the ageing 8th gen Coffee Lake CPUs purely on the basis of being 4-5 years more advanced. You'd think then that 512Gb-1Tb SSD might be cheap enough for base level products.
Simply, it is more convenient to have things on-board..... and that gets backed up to an external HDD using Time Machine.
I also already archive what I don't think I will want to access to a HDD before deleting the files from the on board drive. From time to time I am asked for a photo, or discover I need a document that I don't have on-board, and am pleased that I have well organised archives.
For most of the past 11 years I have lived with a 2009 Mac Mini with a 120 GB HDD, which was more than adequate for the first few years, until I got a digital camera and started archiving events for the local cricketing community, and other projects. Add to that, increasing use for work as a teacher, 120 GB became inadequate, and messing around with external drives (which are not backed up automatically with Time Machine) was frustrating.
With an increasing need to take a computer to use in class, I bought a MacBook Air and shifted all my work related files to it. With a move to a more transient phase in the offing, I had it upgraded to a 500 GB SSD, which gives me more than enough flexibility to store photos and other files, without having to rely on external drives, except for Time Machine. I still do archive photos and files I am unlikely to need on an external drive when I am at base, and delete them from the Air's SSD.
The camera I am using at present has a 12 megapixel sensor..... the camera I may upgrade to is likely to have at least a 24 megapixel sensor, thus doubling the file size of each shot. Various apps these days hog more storage space than those in days of yore, and that seems a trend that is likely to continue.
Simply put, fronting for 1 TB of storage on-board would be more convenient for a desk-top machine that I am after setting up to use for the best part of a decade, rather than saving a few pennies and adding hassle with external drives.
But each to their own.
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Comet Lake-S is coming, with the latest leaks saying around May-June, which would support a WWDCOL announcement for a 2020 iMac.
And this should fit into an iMac but why do the storage bump on the Mini if it's only going to get a full refresh in October - for example? Surely the iMac would have got a bump at the same time?
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Apple has done this before - when the Retina 13" MacBook Air and 13" MacBook Pro refresh released in July 2019, they dropped the SSD pricing for the iMac, iMac Pro and Mac Mini as no CPU/GPU upgrades were available for them.
I imagine the 65W B-Series CPUs are pretty low volume for Intel so they may be the last Comet Lake desktop models to be released (possibly even into 2021).
But what if Intel went to Apple and said they wouldn't be doing B-Series 65w CPUs due to potentially dwindling Apple orders and instead offered them 45w H CPUs (the same as will be in the 2020 MacBook Pro 16") at good price due to consolidation?
And what about the Xeon W-10885M which recently emerged?
I wonder if this "new" Mac Mini will say 2020 in the "About This Mac" tab.
I don't imagine Apple wants to "regress" back to the H CPUs given they've pivoted the line to performance.
The joke there, of course, is that the mini has dramatically better CPU performance but at the cost of decent GPU performance. Intel giveth and Intel taketh.
In the future they may be able to select an 8 core 16 thread Comet Lake H part for example and then the marketing can heavily point to benchmarks based around that.
I think the point there is that the multicore benchmarks will be something they can point at with the return of hyper-threading and extra cores in the H CPUs.
Bear in mind that international supply chain disruption due to corona-virus may have delayed the release of Comet Lake CPUs so in that light what Apple have done with the Mini is logical.
It's entirely within their power to make a 2020 Mini out of existing SKU parts and by the same token they could do the same with the iMac but why they would not have done the same refresh to the iMac on the same day?
They could have offered 2Tb Fusion Drives on the bottom two 27" SKUs and maybe made 16Gb RAM standard on the top SKU but it adds pressure to whatever comes after it. Perhaps they don't want to increase base RAM or HDD storage, or to go SSD with a 256Gb/512Gb SSD drive, in case it reflects badly on the successive product.
Therefore they might have decided to leave the iMac alone for now. It's obviously easy enough for Apple to make an amendment later (or launch their replacement product instead!)
All of this has no effect on what I have speculated would be the future of the iMac, it's quite possible they'd be happy to see the 2019 iMac see out an 18 month product cycle before a refresh just like the 2018 Mac mini appears to have done.
So I waited until 2020 and now get a 256gb unit. So 719 from the veteran store and I will need to put in some ram. Does anyone know if it has 1 8gb stick of ram in it? I could get a decent piece of gear for a decent price if I need only drop in 1 8gb stick of ram.
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Apple would probably pair 2x4 as usual to get dual channel working - if upgrading just keep the original RAM in a box in case it needs to go back to Apple.
Wouldn't it be nice if the RAM was much more accessible again and an October 2021 mini could be more easily maintained? The back of the unit makes it look like a slide-out affair.
With the price of NAND having fallen, eliminating the 128GB model makes sense. Apple can afford the price cut on the 256GB and higher capacity models for the same reason. Everybody wins 🙂
The Comet Lake CPUs are rumored to be released soon, but unfortunately it has a new socket, so the logic board will have to be redesigned. I expect we’ll see an update sometime before the end of the year.