It's really convenient that I was able to use my scroll wheel to adjust the text opacity! Sometimes I prefer a 50% fade just to add a little extra challenge to my read.
Mac mini
161–170 of 259 posts
Re: Mac mini
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the whole premise of the Mac Mini. It's the only non-Pro designated Mac that has four Thunderbolt 3 ports. I don't think you'd find this level of I/O in any other machine in this price range. That incredibly powerful I/O makes for tons of expansion possibilities. Storage, GPU, etc. (Edited to say "non-Pro designated")
Currently shipping Macs with four Thunderbolt 3 ports: * Mac Pro * Mac Mini * iMac Pro * MacBook Pro 16" * MacBook Pro 13"
You're totally right, I should have said non-Pro designated Mac.
I must have mixed it up in my head.
Re: Mac mini
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can get a new Mac Mini and a Thunderbolt 3 eGPU for $1500 or less.
In fact, you can get the new entry-level Mac mini plus the Sonnet Breakaway Puck RX 560 [0] for US$1100, now that the eGPU has dropped in price to $300. Whether any given person would be satisfied with that configuration is, of course, open to debate. [0] https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HMT22ZM/A/sonnet-egfx-bre...
Does anyone make a "case" that holds a Mac mini and eGPU in an attractive desktop-sized package?
Re: Mac mini
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
I started down that path. But when you install Windows 10 Pro and your login screen is covered in advertisements and news updates, it leaves a pretty shitty taste in your mouth.
Agreed, shitty, but those aren't hard to disable, and it's one of the first things I do on new installs. (I only run windows to do cross-platform testing)
For most users that get that nasty aftertaste, it's not as much that you can't remove or disable those ads/unexpected feeds, but that the manufacturer or core team that built it had the mentality to put it there in the first place.
Re: Mac mini
#165I don't understand Apple's aversion to accessible DIMM slots and off-the-shelf M.2 SSDs. It used to be that Apple charged a lot for RAM and Storage, but you could save a bundle by bringing your own. For example, my 2012 i7 Mac mini has maxed memory and a 2TB SSD. When Apple began soldering stuff in, they failed to reduce their punitive prices on expansion, which really hurts reusability and resale value. In other wor…
Like any manufacturer, they are trying to bring down the amount of breakage, and removing electrical connectors and mechanical connections is one way to do that. And when you want things to be smaller you don't really have much of a choice anyway.
At the same time, the only reason those slots were there in the first place was so that a manufacturer could build one main board and then offer different configurations by just swapping out some elements. That benefit no longer holds since you can do the same on a single PCB and still offer the same options. The side-effect of users being able to change it after the fact is lost, but when it wasn't a selling point for the manufacturer anyway it doesn't seem to matter to them.
While not ideal for every user, the mass market doesn't really care. They will probably never upgrade a machine in their lifetime and simply 'upgrade' to a different machine instead.
Re: Mac mini
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, but a more charitable take is that the high price goes to subsidize macOS development. Having just moved to a Windows 10 shop running on cheapest-possible Dell hotdesking workstations, I’m starting to miss macOS and all its command-spacebar glory!
In windows just press the windows key and then type the name off the app you want (same as command spacebar in macOS) One less button press than on a mac.
Only if it works. Which often it doesn't. And by doesn't I don't mean it doesn't do it 100% correctly but I mean it doesn't find a program or file even if you type the whole name completely. It just gives no result at all for some terms.
Re: Mac mini
#167Still got my fingers crossed for a desktop machine that isn’t a Mac Pro and isn’t a Mac Mini. Would love iMac Pro firepower without being tied to a set display. I’ve been alive 30 years. A good portion of that was growing up as a PC user, overclocker, teenage hacker, etc. My professional career however has been on Unix and MacOS, and as much as I try to get back to desktop Linux and open source OS’s I just find them…
Such product would cannibalise their line, so they'll never make it.
They wouldn't need the Mini, and the mid-tier would be too far from the Mac Pro.
Re: Mac mini
#168Still no real GPU. It's the reason I went back to a MacBook. What drew me in is the desktop class i7. At the time the Mini outperformed all other Macs in benchmarks, and it is noticeable and fast during compile times etc. Once you connect a 4k Screen (or even more screens), an eGPU becomes a must have. The integrated one just can't do smooth UI rendering. For example typing in IntelliJ always felt laggy, because it t…
Are you already running Catalina? I observed a huge UI performance increase with the current Mac Mini on Catalina. The lagginess and stuttering you described bothered me to no end, but it feels (almost) completely fine on Catalina.
Edit: I have a 5k screen connected
Re: Mac mini
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
... I think you've missed the point. It isn't running at 1080p. It's doing "@2x" pixel rendering (commonly called "Retina") - so it uses 4 physical pixels to render one "screen" pixel, giving you much crisper.. everything.
..crisper as in more visibly pixelated? What is the point in that?
Crisper as in everything has 4x antialiasing.
Re: Mac mini
#170I don't understand Apple's aversion to accessible DIMM slots and off-the-shelf M.2 SSDs. It used to be that Apple charged a lot for RAM and Storage, but you could save a bundle by bringing your own. For example, my 2012 i7 Mac mini has maxed memory and a 2TB SSD. When Apple began soldering stuff in, they failed to reduce their punitive prices on expansion, which really hurts reusability and resale value. In other wor…
Like any manufacturer, they are trying to bring down the amount of breakage, and removing electrical connectors and mechanical connections is one way to do that. And when you want things to be smaller you don't really have much of a choice anyway. At the same time, the only reason those slots were there in the first place was so that a manufacturer could build one main board and then offer different configurations by…
If we're being really honest, it is for profit margins and planned obsolescence.