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2018 Mac Mini Review

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Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#501

Post by amelius »

blinkingled wrote: post #12

The pricing is not really justifiable especially given the most use cases of the Mac mini (Home Theater, NAS, Backup etc.) are better handled by other OSes. The NUC8 with comparable specs (sans 6 core CPU) comes at under half the price! If you needed the 6 cores sure but given most workloads other than encoding don't - it's questionable. Even then the 6C processor doesn't cost enough to make up for the difference.

And hopefully it is not just me, but it feels so much better to have a solution based on "open" hardware (i.e. PC based) and software (e.g. Linux), rather than support Apple's lock-in model.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#502

Post by Joeri »

throwawayber18 wrote: post #313
thresh wrote: post #9

The review doesnt tell you that you cannot upgrade or replace your SSD.

I will never again buy a laptop or computer where I can’t replace the SSD myself. Last time I had a problem with my MacBook Pro and took it in to get fixed. They wanted me to write down my login password before they would accept it! I had to reschedule and wiped my disk before bringing it back again.

Another way of looking at that is that macs are so secure even apple can’t get into them without your password.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#503

Post by d35007 »

seunosewa wrote: post #457
d35007 wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I bought a 2018 MacBook Pro with the Touch Bar this July. Before that, I owned a 2014 MacBook Pro, the last one with the mechanical trackpad. My new machine is absolutely better than my old one.

In what ways is your new machine better, apart from being thinner and just a bit lighter?

The dimensions aren't really a selling point for me at all. Both laptops are thin enough and light enough for me to carry them to and from work comfortably.

Performance is better across the board (6-core i9 vs 4-core i7, 32GB vs 16GB, faster SSD). It has a larger, pressure-sensitive track pad. The display is better.

I have a slight preference for the old keyboard, but I don't dislike the new one. I could take or leave the TouchBar. I was never a big user of the F keys and IntelliJ, where I spend a lot of my time, has good TouchBar support. I like having Touch ID. I'd prefer to have a real escape key, but the button is still in the same place so I haven't had to retrain my fingers to hit it.

USB-C with a Thunderbolt 3 hub is marginally more convenient than a Thunderbolt 2 hub plus a MagSafe power cord. I do miss MagSafe though.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#504

Post by ihuman »

aczerepinski wrote: post #468
jillesvangurp wrote: post #83

People are missing the point about the integrated graphics. For me this is a feature not a bug because it has USB-C instead. That means that instead of hopelessly compromising thermals and power supply with some power hungry, yet limited GPU (because of the small form factor) you simply buy the CPU and memory that you need. It simplifies the job of keeping it cool. CPUs are evolving a lot slower these days. This one…

That sounds like a horrible mess of wires and power strips to me. If only they could make a single case to fit all these various computer components in, and one chord to supply power to all of them.

That doesn't sound like something with "mini" in the name. Maybe an alternative product with "pro" in the name?

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#505

Post by Applejinx »

blinkingled wrote: post #120
bnolsen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and its pointing out the truly obvious as well...

Well the reviewer seemed to go out of the way to claim the price was justified - I was pointing out that wasn't the case, not that price is high which it undeniably is.

Meh… the things I'm looking to do require some fancy outboard and don't ask all that much of the host computer. I've been looking at getting a fairly spiffy newer iMac or medium-old Mac Pro to hook the fancy outboard to (things like video production gear that'll take SDI inputs, external hardware x264 encoding, my MOTU 16A multichannel interface).

It's looking very much like all that can be done just as well off the back of this tiny computer that's less than $1000. I was expecting the computer side to have to be more than $2000 to properly handle the fancy outboard. What with the Mini doing certain single-core processing tasks faster than ANY other Mac, and even having some RAM upgradeability (?!?) there is no question that it'd be able to work with the gear I mean.

I don't need my host computer to be a quarter the cost of all the outboard gear that plugs into it. It'll be roughly the same cost as each of the pieces of outboard gear. That doesn't seem too expensive at all.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#506

Post by Joeri »

nik736 wrote: post #117
matthewmacleod wrote: post #115

I'm in the market for a new machine, but unfortunately that GPU is too anaemic to make sense. It's a shame, because otherwise it looks like a pretty great proposition. An eGPU is an option, but at £500+ and twice the size of the machine, not a vary attractive one. I guess the options are throwing down the cash for a 15" MacBook Pro, or waiting to see what they come up with for the Mac Pro next year…

I have the same issue, I don't understand why they are able to fit a Vega in the 15" MBP but not in the larger Mac Mini. 15" MBP is not an option for me because of the touchbar and keyboard, so I am basically out of options.

The mini has a 65w tdp cpu, vs the mbp’s 45w cpu. That means more heat to dump from a smaller surface area. I’m not surprised they couldn’t fit a warmer gpu in the thermal profile.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#507

Post by fipple »

ako wrote: post #448
phaus wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a company where most of us use Macs. Everyone that has upgraded from a 2013-2015 MBP to the touchbar model absolutely hates it, including me. There's gotta be someone around here that actually likes it, but I haven't met them yet. Its OK if you like it. I'm sure lots of people do, but you know damn well significantly more people have had issues with this laptop than normal, so I'm not sure why you're implyi…

I don't understand all the hate for the touchbar. I can never remember the functions performed by the function keys, so having icons indicating which functions are available seems really useful.

The problem is that most serious computer users use a laptop docked, so it’s useless 70-90% of the time, which means the software can’t rely on it, which means it’s an afterthought in all apps.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#508

Post by reaperducer »

TomVDB wrote: post #358
ap3 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse how? There are a couple of directions you can go in, just curious (price/storage)?

Probably price. $800 is pretty steep for the entry version, when you can buy a better equipped Lenonvo ThinkCentre for $200 less.

A Lenovo ThinkCentre is like 10x bigger than a Mac Mini. I wouldn't want one of those sitting in my living room. And my wife would absolutely forbid it.

The only real competition I see for the Mac Mini is the little computers from System76. But they're about the same price.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#509

Post by Applejinx »

na85 wrote: post #325
copperx wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone looking for crystal clear vocals should do exactly what NPR does: Stick a Neumann U87 six inches from the mouth with the bass rolled off and use a P-pop and Bob's your uncle. Money will be an issue with the U87, so you can look for good clones; there are a few in the market.

What does it mean to have the bass "rolled off", and what is a p-pop?

The mic has a switch on it that imposes a hardware high-pass filter to counterbalance the proximity effect you get from being close to it. Since the mic is a cardioid mic (directional sound pickup) it would normally pick up a great deal of extra bass due to the geometry of the cardioid capsule (radio announcer sound, big and deep and bassy). The switch lets you take away that bassiness and the pop filter prevents the mic from going 'THUMP' when you say 'P' into it, and the combination of these things gives you that super-present, 'NPR interview' sound.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#510

Post by Joeri »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #390
leviathant wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if we're giving anecdotes, I bought a Dell laptop in 2006, refurbished for something like $600. I was able to upgrade it over the years all the way to Windows 10 (I think I paid $40 for the Windows 7 upgrade at one point). The only thing that failed for me on that machine was the built-in wifi. I only ended up getting rid of it two years ago because I really had no use for it, and had long since replaced both…

Around 2010, Flash on anything other than Windows was notoriously craptastic -- to the point that Apple refused to support Flash in their mobile browser. Nowadays, that same 2010 Mini could probably stream Netflix reliably, since it'll be decoding HTML5+DRM instead of Flash.

Yup, I have a 2009 core 2 duo mac mini and it does netflix just fine thanks to html5 video. It still does everything I need reliably (web browsing, non-vm web dev, ms office), but I will upgrade to the new mini and hand this one off to the kids.
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