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New Mac Mini with M4

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Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#471

Post by throwaway48476 »

wongarsu wrote: post #100
rtkwe wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's $800 to go up to 2TB from the 256GB model which is just criminally over priced. I can get double that for half the price with a Gen 4 NVMe drive. Weirdly the 8TB drive on the Pro is at least in line with the top of the line 8TB NVMe SSDs you can buy though there are cheaper options at about $600 vs the $1200 Apple is charging.

That's regular Apple pricing for you. Great deals on the baseline models, but insane margins on the upgrades that make them usable. And of course the ability to upgrade the devices yourself has been phased out in the name of performance and power efficiency

Phased out in the name of profit efficiency. Despite what marketing will tell you the SSD is industry standard NVMe and the RAM is standard LPDDR5.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#472

Post by astrange »

enaaem wrote: post #95
allenu wrote: post #25

Putting the audio jack on the front is a strange design choice to me if you plan on hooking it up to wired speakers all the time. Did they run out of space to keep it in the back?

Many (I think most) monitors have an audio output port. I think that's good enough for most people. Audiophiles use external DACs anyway.

The built-in DACs are better than most audiophile DACs; audiophile companies are largely scams and either way don't have the budget to actually do much R&D.

You may still need an amp for electrically incompatible (high impedance) headphones.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#473

Post by greenpresident »

xenospn wrote: post #409
ksec wrote: post #340

As far as I am aware, there isn't a single competitor from big brand manufacture at $599 price point regardless of size. M4, 16GB RAM, Thunderbolt 4. The SSD is the main failing point but with TB4 you can easily get an external SSD. You can also get 10Gbps for extra $100. With EDU or Staff pricing this thing stars at $499. Which is practically a steal. I am thinking it may be better for cooperate to buy this and run…

I’m always confused as to why people are so paranoid about storage size. I got the base MacBook Air and an external 2TB drive for cheap. Super fast and I never worry about anything - I didn’t even manage to get up to 50% of my 256GB drive.

There is a generation of tech users that downloaded TB of media for local storage. It’s just not something a lot of people do anymore but it created a psychological need, even if it’s not a technical necessity.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#474

Post by c0nsumer »

I'm finding this monitor:

https://press.asus.com/news/press-releases/asus-proart-5k-pa...

...to be looking really appealing to pair with one of these new Mac Minis.

$899 MSRP in the US, 5120 x 2880, same dimensions as an Apple Studio Display but a lot cheaper... And B&H just got them in stock.

Just ordered one myself, now I need to pick which variant of the Mac Mini M4 to pair it with. (My goal here is replacing a 27" Intel iMac for map making / CAD / DTP type stuff.)

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#475

Post by holografix »

huijzer wrote: post #372
e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #330

With educational pricing this thing starts as $500, and at 16GB of RAM (finally) I think this easily beats any sort of desktop PC you can buy at that price (let's exclude custom builds, they're not the same market). I think this just became the go-to recommendation I'll give to anybody wanting an entry-level desktop computer of any kind. In fact I might buy one for my parents right now to replace the old mac mini the…

Do note only 256 GB of storage. Should be enough for most people, but at the same time can become very annoying once it gets full.

This is a conscious tactic so X% of customers say yes to using iCloud storage

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#476

Post by hollerith »

sib wrote: post #313
collinmanderson wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we truly want to achieve zero emissions globally we need to take seriously all sources of CO2 emissions, the full carbon footprint of companies. Not just energy use. It's not entirely unreasonable to ask companies to be responsible for carbon capture or in the short term an offset for their employees breathing on the clock, as funny as that sounds. We need to take all sources of carbon emissions seriously. This sh…

>> "ask companies to be responsible for carbon capture or in the short term an offset for their employees breathing on the clock" Unless you think their employees breathe more when they are on the clock than off it, I'm not sure this makes sense. When they're off the clock, they might be exercising or playing with their kids, so perhaps they actually breathe less when sitting at their desks on the clock.

Yikes, I hope folks don't think I was referring to CO2 caused by human respiration! I was referring to the CO2 emitted for example in growing the employee's food and getting it to him, his shelter (cement production being particularly high in CO2 emissions), transportation, home heating, the CO2 emitted by the people who educated him and provided his medical care.

Like someone else said, spending is a very good proxy for CO2 emissions, and about 68% of all spending is "consumer spending", which basically means keeping people alive, somewhat happy and somewhat productive.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#477

Post by rtkwe »

wtallis wrote: post #449
rtkwe wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more relevant with Apple because they've removed all the competition for basically all upgrades to their devices by either soldering things to the board or bundling them into their SOC. When there's no alternative their prices become the only option.

I think repairable or not, the pricing to upgrade to the max config just isn't something a price-sensitive consumer should take seriously. Beyond one or two upgrades, you might as well pretend it says "call for quote" and just not consider 4+ TB as a realistic option to get from the OEM, because those prices are trying to cause sticker shock. And that goes for any PC OEM—the price-gouged upgrades are so far beyond re…

It matters that there are no after market options for Apple because it means the inflated OEM upgrade price is the ONLY price available for every given upgrade. It matters less with Dell/Asus/Lenovo etc. because that's not the only price available.

The top of the line is also not where Apple is gouging the worst. It's in the middle tiers that are actually relevant to many more people. Most don't have a need for 4+ TB main drives but 1-2 TB is a size that's pretty easy to justify for a lot of people and Apple's price is the only option for them and they're absolutely lining their pockets with cash at the expense of anyone not going for the bargain bin basic tier that can't hold 2 modern games.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#478

Post by throwaway48476 »

rtkwe wrote: post #365
jsheard wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mac Studio technically still has socketed SSDs, which presumably cuts costs by not having to manage a separate motherboard SKU for every SSD capacity, but they went out of their way to design a proprietary SSD module format rather than just using the standard...

Kind of, they were socketed NAND cards and the controller lived on the mainboard, so as far as getting out of the problem of Apple entirely setting the prices for everything it's not relevant. As far as I'm finding no one managed to find a way to create a compatible card to create an avenue for DIY upgrades. I've found a few upgrades but they consist of buying an entire second Mac Studio to harvest the drive from.

Giles from Polysoft is manufacturing 3rd party mac studio nand cards. There is still a problem sourcing nand because apple doesn't let the owm sell to anyone but them.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#479

Post by crakhamster01 »

I've always loved the form factor/pricing of the Mac Mini, but I've never been able to convince myself to buy it. If you're able to afford a Macbook/MBP, is there any reason why someone would purchase the Mini? Seems like the former gets you the same performance with the benefit of portability.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#480

Post by throwaway48476 »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #421
wongarsu wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's regular Apple pricing for you. Great deals on the baseline models, but insane margins on the upgrades that make them usable. And of course the ability to upgrade the devices yourself has been phased out in the name of performance and power efficiency

Apple's silicon is good but I don't see what's so special about all the other stuff. Looks like they just solder components to the motherboard instead of using industry standard interfaces.

*industry standard physical interfaces. The electrical interace is bog standard.
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