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

New Mac Mini with M4

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

621–630 of 789 posts

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#621

Post by heraldgeezer »

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…

I thought the same, sadly regional pricing…

For half that price I can get a used Dell/HP/Lenovo mico/tiny PC with a full i7 CPU, 16GB RAM, 256SSD.

Still good to see. Great for an office PC or HTPC.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#622

Post by heraldgeezer »

goosedragons wrote: post #416
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…

There's still good deals in mini PC land. Yes, the M4 is faster but there's loads of mini PCs with decent CPUs, 32GB RAM and a 1TB of SSD storage for under $600. I think for a lot of people for basic usage they'll get more value out of the larger and upgradable SSDs than the faster CPU. https://www.amazon.com/BOSGAME-5700U-Displays-Computers-Emul... https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-SER5-Desktop-Computer-Graphic...

I would agree, but try and buy Dell, HP and Lenovo instead imo.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#623

Post by isametry »

setgree wrote: post #393
huijzer wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We can reasonably expect 1) external storage to become faster and cheaper every year (subject to constraints around interface) 2) more and more digital assets to be cloud-native, e.g. photos stored exclusively on icloud and not on your computer So I'm less worried about storage than some. If Asahi Linux achieves Proton-like compatibility with games [0], then we're getting closer to the perfect general purpose game co…

Indeed. Realistically if anything, one should consider the “physical world” hassles with permanent external storage arguably more than performance ones:

• Risk of accidental unplugging.

• Contacts may become wonky over time → see above.

• The need to sacrifice a port (or the portion of one in the case of a dongle).

• Enclosures tend to have annoying IO lights.

• Takes a bit of space.

All of these can be solved, especially when dealing with a desktop that stays in place. Paradoxically, there was never a better time to be modest with internal storage.

Although I will say:

> photos stored exclusively on icloud and not on your computer

Over my dead body :) If there’s one thing I’ll always happily carve out SSD space for, it’s local copies of my photo library!

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#624

Post by heraldgeezer »

greenpresident wrote: post #473
xenospn wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean have you noticed how bad streaming services have gotten...

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#625

Post by mmcnl »

gymbeaux wrote: post #530
anemoknee wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this with newer Apple Silicon Macs? My 2020 M1 Mac Mini looks unremarkably normal on my 1440p display. I'm also going between that and my 14" M1 Pro Macbook Pro, which of course looks beautiful but doesn't really make the 1440p on the Mini 'bad'. Edit: Adding that both of these machines are now running macOS 15.1 at this time.

In my experience, you can’t do any sort of scaling with sub-4K displays. This is “since M1”. Intel Macs, even on the latest macOS, can do scaling eg 1.5x at say 1440p, which last time I bothered with an Intel Mac required a workaround via Terminal to re-enable. But that workaround is “patched” on Apple Silicon and won’t work. So yes if you have an Apple Silicon Mac plugged into a 1440p display, it will look bad with…

BetterDisplay does this. It adds HiDPI resolutions which render at 2x and then downscales.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#626

Post by Wytwwww »

nextos wrote: post #559
srid wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which mini PC is recommended for those looking to run Linux (as a server, not desktop) on them?

Minix if your budget is $200-400. Cirrus7 if your budget is $500-1000. There are many other manufacturers. I am biased towards fanless builds, like those two. NUCs are also a great option, especially if you replace the case with a fanless Akasa one.

> Cirrus7

It starts €599,00 for 2(!) core Celeron. Seems absurd when you can get a Mini for an extra €100 (you can run Linux/Windows in a VM and still get a magnitude or few better perf). Or even an used old NUC or something, you'd need to go back very far to get a crappier CPU...

So the actual starting price seems to be €900-1000 (i.e. if you want an i5..)

The Celeron G6900 has a 46W TDP and seems to be around ~20% (multicore) slower than the <10W N100. Seems absurd that they are pushing garbage like that at such prices (even if its the base config)

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#627

Post by angoragoats »

bitwize wrote: post #424
lawlessone wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unified memory too. It's your GPU and your ram.

The on-chip RAM means that you can run models on the CPU that would require the GPU on a peecee.

The RAM is not on the chip. I need to get a tee shirt and a bumper sticker that says this.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#628

Post by Wytwwww »

semanticist wrote: post #511
holografix wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Apple offering expensive upgrades for storage and memory pre-dates the existence of iCloud storage by decades. It was entirely standard before MobileMe, or Apple offering any kind of "cloud" services. Apple just charge a lot of money for upgrades, even did when it was trivial to do them yourself, and they're not going to change once they made it impossible to do any kind of internal upgrade.

You could upgrade pretty much all(?) Macs yourself back in those days, though

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#629

Post by nextos »

Wytwwww wrote: post #626
nextos wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minix if your budget is $200-400. Cirrus7 if your budget is $500-1000. There are many other manufacturers. I am biased towards fanless builds, like those two. NUCs are also a great option, especially if you replace the case with a fanless Akasa one.

> Cirrus7 It starts €599,00 for 2(!) core Celeron. Seems absurd when you can get a Mini for an extra €100 (you can run Linux/Windows in a VM and still get a magnitude or few better perf). Or even an used old NUC or something, you'd need to go back very far to get a crappier CPU... So the actual starting price seems to be €900-1000 (i.e. if you want an i5..) The Celeron G6900 has a 46W TDP and seems to be around ~20%…

Cirrus7 is expensive because you are paying for a very high quality machined chassis & case that act as a massive fanless heatsink. Those alone are pretty costly. The price cannot be compared with cheap NUC clones and mini PCs, nor with Apple.

I am not endorsing any particular brand, but Cirrus7 is not that expensive within the fanless market and the quality of the entire build is very high. They also somtimes offer nice discounts for students and SMEs. There are quite a few comparable brands and also DIY options with cases from Streacom or Akasa. If you want something cheaper, Minix is pretty inexpensive, especially when you take into consideration they offer a decent fanless enclosure.

Re: New Mac Mini with M4

#630

Post by shadowmanifold »

leetharris wrote: post #24

Love to see that it still starts at $599. My M2 Mac Mini that I got for $499 is my favorite gaming computer I've had in a long time. Runs many games like WoW, Dota, League of Legends, etc great. Anything that it doesn't run due to MacOS I use GeForce Now over ethernet. And this was with 8gb unified memory, now with 16gb it'll be even better value. Very excited to see how the GPU has improved in the M4, especially the…

It will make me a mac owner for the first time in 25 years.

I was just looking at a mac book air yesterday but I just can't get over the complete ripoff of a memory upgrade from the base model.

16 gig starting at $599. I honestly don't need to know anything else to buy one.

Post reply on HN