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M4 Mac mini's efficiency

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#551

Post by criddell »

kevincox wrote: post #528
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…

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…

Aesthetics can be very important because attractive things work better:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/202165712_Emotion_D...

Apple could have found a way to put the button somewhere else and make it nearly invisible, but that's expensive and the Mac mini is clearly designed with cost in mind.

If you want cheap and functional, you're in luck because that's pretty much all anybody makes.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#552

Post by [deleted] »

sjoerger wrote: post #358
cchance wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like seriously WTF are people turning it off its 3 watts at idle lol, most power supplies have that much phantom drain lol

Not everyone lives the same way. I am seriously considering a Mac Mini as my next upgrade yet I live in a RV and move frequently. Are there ways that I can keep the Mac mini powered while traveling.. sure, but why would/should I?

[deleted]

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#554

Post by lifeinthevoid »

rty32 wrote: post #544
lifeinthevoid wrote: post #496

I just bought an ASRock Deskmini x600 with a Ryzen 7700 to run as low-power Linux server / workstation. Given the trouble I had with this thing due to (I believe) buggy amdgpu drivers and/or buggy firmware, I'm inclined to throw it out and just buy this Mac Mini.

Well, I wouldn't consider 7700 low-power in any sense, maybe 7640U or 7840U on a mini PC. You are running Linux the entire time?

True, it was low-power in my mind compared to my previous gaming rig. Yup, running Linux the entire time.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#555

Post by ryandrake »

MVissers wrote: post #545
volemo wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Apple doesn't want you to use it while charging. They succeeded.

Them succeeding at stopping users from doing a normal computing task does not make it good UX.

When a company’s products go from “helping user do what he wants” to “coercing the user to do what company wants” then the company has lost its way.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#556

Post by ryandrake »

azinman2 wrote: post #433
afavour wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it made charging annoying and flow-breaking enough that people would put it off as long as possible — which would make people realize that the Magic Mouse's battery lasted for weeks on a charge At a certain point this just reads like Apple apologia. They made a mouse you can’t use while it’s charging as a means to advertise how long the battery lasts? What?

But it’s not an apology, it’s the right design decision. The battery charges to a usable amount extremely quickly, and if you could plug it in all the time most would, which defeats the point.

Why should Apple care if I want to leave the device plugged in all the time? How does this choice remotely affect them?

Same with this power button: why should Apple care whether or not I power off the device when I’m done using it and turn it back on in the morning? This all just seems like pointless behavior control.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#557

Post by ryandrake »

H1Supreme wrote: post #356
lukevp wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you fully shut down a mac laptop, you have to press and hold the power button to turn it back on. Not sure what you’re talking about here and probably why you’re getting downvoted.

My M1 Macbook Pro turns on (after being fully shut down) by keypress.

That’s a pretty wild definition of “fully shut down” that manufacturers (not just Apple) are pushing. When my device is shut down, I expect it to be fully de-energized and drawing zero current. How can a keyboard action re-apply power if the button itself is not completing the power circuit?

This is one of the reasons I’ve started putting all of my devices on power strips with physical switches that de-energize the AC mains. You can’t even trust devices to power off when they say they are off.

The number of devices in your home that draw current when they are “off” is too damn high.

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#558

Post by lelaurent »

azinman2 wrote: post #433
afavour wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it made charging annoying and flow-breaking enough that people would put it off as long as possible — which would make people realize that the Magic Mouse's battery lasted for weeks on a charge At a certain point this just reads like Apple apologia. They made a mouse you can’t use while it’s charging as a means to advertise how long the battery lasts? What?

But it’s not an apology, it’s the right design decision. The battery charges to a usable amount extremely quickly, and if you could plug it in all the time most would, which defeats the point.

If you’re using it for gaming, it would be preferable to leave it plugged in to avoid the danger of the battery running empty.

Why not let the users use it as they see fit?

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#559

Post by awiesenhofer »

timc3 wrote: post #453
rgbrgb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what else do you need?

What I look for is, 128GB RAM minimum, decent number of PCIe lanes because I want two fast NVMe drives, a HBA card ( though this I guess could be external ), two network ports minimum, ZFS, sane terminal, native support for containers and VMs. Native support for UPS interfacing, native support for backup of containers and VMs. And lastly a community of other users doing the same. Dual power supplies is a nice to have…

So you are sad that the Mac mini isn't a bog standard HPE/Dell/etc Server?

Boy will you be pissed when you find out about laptops, phones, game consoles and basically every other compute form factor.

Might want to look into rackable Mac Pros though!

Re: M4 Mac mini's efficiency

#560

Post by afavour »

azinman2 wrote: post #433
afavour wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it made charging annoying and flow-breaking enough that people would put it off as long as possible — which would make people realize that the Magic Mouse's battery lasted for weeks on a charge At a certain point this just reads like Apple apologia. They made a mouse you can’t use while it’s charging as a means to advertise how long the battery lasts? What?

But it’s not an apology, it’s the right design decision. The battery charges to a usable amount extremely quickly, and if you could plug it in all the time most would, which defeats the point.

> if you could plug it in all the time most would, which defeats the point

The point of a mouse is to be a usable mouse. If folks care enough for it to be wireless then they can use it that way, but if they don't what's actually wrong with using it plugged in? Screams iPhone 4 era "holding it the wrong way". Baffles me why you'd want to provide fewer options for your customer to charge their wireless mouse in order to make them do it the "right way".

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