New Mac Mini with M4

Post by echoangle » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 6:26 PM UTC

thejazzman wrote: post #494

echoangle wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? As long as you discount the price of the new product by the perceived value of new vs used, that’s the correct comparison to make. If a used product is the same quality and $100 cheaper, and just having something that’s new is not worth $100 to you, you should pick the used option. The goal is to get the best value per money spent.

mental gymnastics; used is not new. even new isn't necessarily new when it's not sold by an authorized seller because it can invalidate the warranty. new is new and has legal ramifications, you cannot compare them unless you're throwing in a trustworthy extended warranty that matches -- and pretty much nothing matches apple in that regard

Post by sharno » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 6:28 PM UTC

crakhamster01 wrote: post #479

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.

Post by NBJack » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 6:28 PM UTC

supportengineer wrote: post #419

goosedragons wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

But you have to run Windows, which is a deal breaker for most people.

Post by Rohansi » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 6:29 PM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #279

Rohansi wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way the new Mini is too small to allow upgradability. You can buy a Windows mini PC that is not only smaller than the new Mini but also allows upgrading both RAM and SSD. And that's without using LPCAMM2 - just normal SO-DIMMs. (Example: https://trigkey.com/products/trigkey-green-g4-16g-500g-n100 )

That system you linked to is an extremely poor example. It relies on an external power brick, is incredibly underpowered, only gives one PCIe lane to the M.2 slot limiting it to ~800MB/s according to their specs (meaning it's only PCIe gen3), and has only one SODIMM slot (meaning it's operating with just a 64-bit memory bus, half the bandwidth of mainstream consumer PCs). It's basically a 12 year old PC shrunk into a…

Post by NBJack » Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 6:29 PM UTC

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…