M4 Mac mini's efficiency

Post by volemo » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 11:43 AM UTC

Ikatza wrote: post #535

kevincox wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it is rarely used there is no benefit of making it hard to access. There is no harm in having an easy-to-access button that is rarely used. I guess someone thinks the astetics are worth it, but even if the power button did notably harm astetics (which I doubt) I would take functionality over astetics any day. If there were two models with different power button placements which one do you think people would b…

Apple makes it difficult to access because they want to make sure you don't use it often, as they believe the experience of waking up the computer from sleep is better than starting it up. It's a conscious decision based not on design, but on UX, as with the Magic Mouse USB port.

Post by rty32 » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 11:57 AM UTC

rstuart4133 wrote: post #303

dangus wrote: post #53

I see a lot of reviews that say things like this but seem to be written by people who aren't testing against commonly available mini PCs that are built on efficiency architectures. How different is the efficiency of this compared to something like an Intel N100/200/300 or a Ryzen 7 7735HS that you can get in cheap mini PCs from manufacturers like Beelink? I am not doubting that Apple's processors are class-leading bu…

All his tests are published here: https://github.com/geerlingguy/top500-benchmark?tab=readme-o... He does test some N100 machines. TL;DR: The M4 blows everything away, but isn't a general purpose machine. The N100 is slightly better than 50% of the power efficiency of the remainder. It's also slightly faster despite having less cores. Single core speed is looks to be twice the speed of ARM. An N100 box with 16GB of R…

Post by MVissers » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 12:31 PM UTC

volemo wrote: post #541

Ikatza wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple makes it difficult to access because they want to make sure you don't use it often, as they believe the experience of waking up the computer from sleep is better than starting it up. It's a conscious decision based not on design, but on UX, as with the Magic Mouse USB port.

You can’t possibly bring up Magic Mouse as an example of good UX.

Post by fatata123 » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 12:53 PM UTC

s6af7ygt wrote: post #514

henryfjordan wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a way of signaling how the product should be used. Plug it in, hit the power button, put it down, and never turn it off again. For many users that's probably the only time they will ever interact with that button (or want to). I actually think it's a really good choice and shows Apple really understands design. And with the relatively low power consumption it makes sense. It's not like it's drawing a ton of powe…

Zero power draw is still less than a little power draw. A couple million of these babies running on idle is a considerable amount of power. Please, turn off devices when you're not using them.

Post by Y-bar » Wed, Nov 13, 2024, 1:18 PM UTC

kissiel wrote: post #510

Y-bar wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since I turn off my Mac almost every night, just like I turn off my television, lights, and other stuff when I don’t use them. To me, personally, it makes no sense to waste the electricity for about 15 hrs * 365 days per year. I would put the power on any vertical side of the mini if I were designing it for my use.

I really hope you mean you unplug the power cable from the TV, cause none of the modern TVs turn off when you ask them to. The TV bootup takes too long for it to be "off" off.