Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

2018 Mac Mini Review

marco.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 653 posts

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#531

Post by Humphrey »

ender89 wrote: post #521

This is a really weird device. The mac mini has long been used as a home theater pc of the apple ecosystem, due to it's formfactor and being the one apple device that didn't come with its own 20 inch screen or 3 foot tall tower. Apple tv, for all it's shortcomings, has sort of supplanted that and you're much better off sticking that under your tv and running your plex server somewhere else. So now we have a mac mini…

Many people. This is targeted at professionals who need a max with good performance. Eg. Software developers. I can imagine this being a popular device.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#532

Post by dethac »

thomassnielsen wrote: post #70
kgermino wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little of both. The SSD is a very fast 1TB model running on Apple’s custom controller (so you can’t just compare to a random one on Amazon). It’s also an obscenely high priced upgrade. Probably more column B (expensive) than A (good)

It's the fastest SSD on the consumer market by a good margin. My main gripe with it is that Apple doesn't provide any affordable option for large, slow storage. Of course you can always go external, but then it won't be so much mini anymore.

Except... it's not. We know that larger SSDs are faster... but if we compare a 1TB Apple SSD in the iMac Pro to a 500GB 970 EVO (around $120)... the 970 EVO is at least equal, if not faster in performance.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#533

Post by cweiss »

sgt wrote: post #104
torben-friis wrote: post #11

A $2500 desktop computer with integrated graphics? Honestly, it feels like a bit of a joke.

A huge chunk of that is the SSD. It's actually very reasonably priced, especially considering that you get a Mac ecosystem along with the computer.

TBH - Do you even need 1TB of storage on your desktop? If your image/music library is that large, you'd have it on a NAS. Maybe if you've got a big batch of VMs for some reason...

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#534

Post by dethac »

veidr wrote: post #71
bo0tzz wrote: post #48

"...cost $2499 (much of which is the SSD)" The cheapest SSD I can find goes for €129.47, and it doesn't seem to get up to much more for consumer SSDs. Unless this SSD has some crazy specs that I'm missing, it seems seriously overpriced to me.

Apple charges +$600 (USD) for a 0.25 → 1TB SSD upgrade. I heard some complaints, but was all like "Yeah, but modern Apple SSDs are 3GB/sec, that is pretty good, bros..." My coworker clued me in, though: 1TB samsung 970Pro M.2 (3GB/s) was as low as AUD$304 here just yesterday. Thats ~USD$215. I don't usually mind paying the _AppleTax_ but that is ridiculously overpriced. I buy all sorts of overpriced Apple shit, but t…

You could get the 970 EVO as well. IIRC it's also MLC.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#535

Post by bobbyi_settv »

dark_star wrote: post #498
wild_preference wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to address this in my parentheses, but Karabiner specifically lets you bind CapsLock to both: Esc when tapped alone, and Ctrl when held down in combination with other keys. And your post also answers you sibling comment: Ctrl modifier is useful outside of just Emacs. Try it out. I believe the API changed in the macOS release before Mojave, so they relaunched Karabiner under the name Karabiner Elements. This o…

I use Karabiner Elements to bind backtick (grave accent) to Esc, Command-backtick to Command-backtick as normal (so you can switch between windows of the same app), and Option-backtick to backtick. It's not optimal, but I do it because backtick is about the same position as a hardware Escape key. It makes using vim feel ok again. This option is available from the KE Complex Modifications tab.

Note that this means you lose the ability to use option-backtick for diacritic marks. Normally option-backtick followed by a makes "à", Option-backtick followed by e makes "è", etc

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#536

Post by gurkendoktor »

ender89 wrote: post #521

This is a really weird device. The mac mini has long been used as a home theater pc of the apple ecosystem, due to it's formfactor and being the one apple device that didn't come with its own 20 inch screen or 3 foot tall tower. Apple tv, for all it's shortcomings, has sort of supplanted that and you're much better off sticking that under your tv and running your plex server somewhere else. So now we have a mac mini…

I've bought two Minis as dev machines in the past. Portability was part of it. I also saved a bunch of money because I already had a full set of peripherals. Edit: Upgradable RAM and the ability to install a second drive was also great in retrospect, I wonder if the latter is still possible with the 2018 model.

And I'm not sure whether glossy Retina screens are really the best bang for the buck for developers. I often wish I had dual 1440p or a ginormous 21:9 screen when I'm dealing with complex projects.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#537

Post by catchmeifyoucan »

This article makes me happy. To see that Apple is listening. I'm super excited for the next Macbook Pro,and I really hope we really get something that is better, more reliable and practical. I'll be thrilled if they can find their groove again for the Macbook Pro

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#538

Post by skykooler »

jdboyd wrote: post #469
asveikau wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably figured that people who want these are acceptably served by USB.

Yeah. For SD cards in particular, having the reader slot on the back has always made it useless for me.

The SD card reader was the first thing to break as well. And the cost of replacing it was way more than a SD > USB dongle.

Re: 2018 Mac Mini Review

#540

Post by KozmoNau7 »

xattt wrote: post #288
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Linux Mint on a Lenovo Thinkcentre micro-PC for a while, at 2x scaling on a 1080p TV. Now I've changed over to KDE Neon (because the KDE UI is more flexible) at around 2.5x scaling, and it's a bit more comfortable. The main input device is a Logitech wireless keyboard with a touchpad. I mostly play videos through SMPlayer/VLC, so it doesn't need anything fancy. A dedicated 10-foot UI would maybe work better, b…

Have you considered any of the ELEC releases? These are Kodi on minimal Linux with a diverse plugin ecosystem, with docker support. I am using LibreELEC. There is a live option in the installer to give a whirl.

I have looked at them, but not seriously. Maybe it's time to give it a whirl, thanks :-)
Post reply on HN