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New Mac Mini

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Re: New Mac Mini

#411

Post by antifa »

skydhash wrote: post #324
misterprime wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always imagined a 24x7 docked laptop was a good setup for a couple reasons: 1. built in UPS due to the battery. 2. easy to grab and go in an emergency situation. Could you tell me more about the liability it creates? Is it a fire hazard? Decaying battery performance?

I don’t know about the current M1 CPU, but my last work computer was a 2015 MBP and the fan was always on. Plugging a monitor enabled the dedicated GPU. So I had to keep it plugged so it does not crawl to a stop due to throttling. Being in tropical weather did not help either. The battery bulged within one year. And the one I replaced it was deteriorating fast. My current mac mini has much better thermal and I bought…

> Plugging a monitor enabled the dedicated GPU

Is this still true if the lid is closed?

Re: New Mac Mini

#412

Post by antifa »

yamtaddle wrote: post #362
Nextgrid wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More than a dozen chrome tabs and a few discord servers has been enough to crash/significantly slow down my m1 Mac mini On the other hand, maybe there should be pushback against shitty inefficient software? I remember a decade ago being able to have a dozen browser tabs and instant messaging clients on 4GB of RAM just fine, and neither the web nor instant messaging experience has changed significantly enough to war…

A few years back I was given an old 4GB Macbook to use temporarily when I started at a new job. Thing is, I could have kept using it indefinitely for the actual work, for which it didn't feel slow—but Slack (Electron) and Asana (project management... webapp, thing, that liked to eat tons of memory & cycles for no reason, at the time) were must-use tools and just having them open with nothing else brought that poor ma…

I had an employer hand me a macbook with a small HDD (not SSD) with 4GB or 8GB of RAM. It was incredibly slow, especially with slack. It's somewhat symbolic of why I'm glad I don't work there anymore.

Re: New Mac Mini

#413

Post by tjoff »

wilg wrote: post #322
rayiner wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn’t stop antialiasing. They stopped sub-pixel antialiasing and snapping stems to the pixel grid, which is less relevant on retina displays, to avoid artifacts when text is translated and animated.

Also subpixel antialiasing doesn't work if you rotate the display, like a phone, iPad, or Pro Display. It also requires you to know the pixel geometry, so may not work correctly on OLED or TVs or other display technology.

It works fine if you adjust for it.

Re: New Mac Mini

#414

Post by ehutch79 »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #241
Varloom wrote: post #182

I can't use my M1 mini with non-retina monitor because of how blurry it is. They stopped providing font anti-aliasing (default on Windows) few years ago in MacOS to make retina displays more relevant.

This happened to me the other day when I plugged my MacBook Pro into an external monitor. Sadlky I cannot use it in laptop mode at all anymore as it has a butterfly keyboard so of course not all my keys work. It's unusable with text that blurry. I thought something was broken at first. I guess they want to force us to buy a Pro Display XDR. No thanks, instead I'll buy a new computer and run Linux. EDIT: My mistake, t…

Your keyboard might be under warranty still

Re: New Mac Mini

#415

Post by szastamasta »

cherioo wrote: post #346
szastamasta wrote: post #253

I really love the idea of Mac mini, but when you add some more RAM and disk price is almost the same as for MacBook PRO, where you get almost the same hardware a superb display and a keyboard built in. And you can carry it around with you. These machines almost make no sense because of that.

I don’t think apple would allow that to happen. The same configuration of cpu and ram between mini and MBP differs by $700, unless you are comparing base MBP to speced-up mini.

Yeah, I mean it’s not exactly the same price. But after you pass a certain price point adding few hundred $ is not making a big difference. While what you get - mobility, battery, great keyboard and display, speakers, webcam, touch-id, etc is quite a lot of stuff for 700$. If you just add a good external display, it’s easy to pass the price of MBP. At the same time you loose nothing. It’s not really a desktop machine, that would be much faster or allow part replacement. It is just a laptop without a lot of parts.

Re: New Mac Mini

#416

Post by philistine »

jbverschoor wrote: post #327
skydhash wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know about the current M1 CPU, but my last work computer was a 2015 MBP and the fan was always on. Plugging a monitor enabled the dedicated GPU. So I had to keep it plugged so it does not crawl to a stop due to throttling. Being in tropical weather did not help either. The battery bulged within one year. And the one I replaced it was deteriorating fast. My current mac mini has much better thermal and I bought…

The mba doesn't have a fan or any moving parts, which was one of the reasons I chose it over the mbp

The M1 Macbook Air was a revelation. Finally, a fanless laptop fast enough for most everyone.

Re: New Mac Mini

#417

Post by phonon »

highwaylights wrote: post #408
phonon wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does DisplayLink require recording access? https://www.reviewgeek.com/75284/everything-you-need-to-run-...

Almost none of the YouTube/blogs recommending this mention it or seem to be aware (or have just clicked through and granted the permission without thinking about it), but it absolutely does require screen recording to operate. The DisplayLink driver requires your admin password to install, and installs itself as a background process that records the screen constantly in order to software render the extra display. The…

I am not sure using a screen recording api/permission in a driver is really the same thing as "screen recording". I.e. The recording is not being saved to a file. It's just a way to access the display pixel buffer.

But if that makes you uncomfortable, well you're going to have to pay$$$...

Re: New Mac Mini

#418

Post by tracker1 »

cmatthias wrote: post #400
simondotau wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's relevant because you are assessing value.

The original M1 (I assume that's what GP meant by "at launch") uses LPDDR4x DRAM modules, the same as many x86 laptops that have soldered RAM. You can literally look up the part numbers based on the photos of the M1 CPU package. Maybe I'm misunderstanding but I'm not sure why it would be any more expensive than x86 laptops' memory, and it might even be less expensive just due to the volume that Apple is likely buying…

My point was the configuration with the M1 has much higher throughput (more channels) than typical laptop/desktop configurations. This allows for allocation/deallocation to go more quickly, so while working it is less noticeable for many workflows. It really depends on what you're doing though.

The pricing structure Apple charges for more memory and storage is F'd up... I was just making a point that one doesn't need as much as you might think depending on the bandwidth and workflow.

Re: New Mac Mini

#419

Post by rsync »

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #8
bilal4hmed wrote: post #4

can this run dual monitors?

All of the Mac minis can do 2 monitors, the new M2 Pro one can do 3

Wait, what ?

I am looking at the rear ports of the M2 pro and I see 4x TB4 ports and 1x HDMI ... can't this drive 5x displays ?

If not, why not ?

Re: New Mac Mini

#420

Post by reaperducer »

iainmerrick wrote: post #172

"Available starting 1.24" January the 24th? January 2024? I wish the US would start writing dates in a sensible way!

I wish the US would start writing dates in a sensible way!

Looks like standard big-endian notation to me.

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