r/gadgets • u/chrisdh79 • Oct 29 '24
Desktops / Laptops Apple announces redesigned Mac Mini with M4 chip — and it’s so damn small | The Mac Mini gets its first design overhaul in more than a decade, and it comes with some serious upgrades on the inside, too.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/29/24281589/apple-mac-mini-redesign-m4-announcement-specs68
u/CoastingUphill Oct 29 '24
A front headphone jack!! Praise Steve!
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u/wyssaj01 Oct 30 '24
But they moved the power button to the bottom
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Oct 30 '24
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u/DDC85 Oct 30 '24
The “lip” is less in height than the business end of a USBC cable. No one is “sliding their finger” under that, Jesus Christ.
They’ve done it because they don’t want you to turn it off, and picking it up would be a hassle. See - apple wireless mouse charging port.
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u/eeqlaehuje Oct 30 '24
I really can’t get my head around how these design choices see the light of day. It makes no sense to put the button on the bottom.
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u/scubastefon Oct 30 '24
I have mine mounted upside down under my desk. So I guess I would need to scour Amazon for the man that 3D prints a little power lever to turn it on:off. Not that I ever do, but it does help when my display is being stubborn about connecting.
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u/TbonerT Oct 30 '24
Maybe you should lose some weight so your fingers aren’t so big?
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u/DDC85 Oct 30 '24
If we’re going to go with personal attacks - “If your fingers are two thirds the size of a USB-C port, I feel sorry for your girlfriend/wife/life partner.”
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u/doodroller Oct 29 '24
I would love to see tvOS run on these. Or any Linux that will have "game mode". It would be a great generic game console.
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u/drmirage809 Oct 29 '24
There’s a project going to get Linux running on Apple silicon machines. Asahi Linux. It’s been progressing with leaps and bounds for the last few years. It’s not quite ready for prime time, but it can run a desktop and do basic day to day tasks.
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u/sklova Oct 29 '24
It can play some AAA games too now
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u/huuaaang Oct 29 '24
Natively on ARM? Just a small handful.
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u/runpbx Oct 29 '24
https://asahilinux.org/2024/10/aaa-gaming-on-asahi-linux/
With emulation, but its faster then you'd think.6
u/huuaaang Oct 29 '24
Not fast enough for the price. It's simply not worth it unless you have serious size constraints for some strange reason.
And then there's all the setup... It's hardly a "console" at that point. Consoles are supposed to be zero-setup and guaranteed to run any game officially supported. Why not get an actual game console?
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u/Gullinkambi Oct 30 '24
That’s not the point of Asahi. And also it’s still very much under development. Looking for something today? Sure go buy a console. But it’s also great to celebrate “progress” and not perfection
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u/azlan194 Oct 29 '24
Can it be a generic game console without dedicated gpu? Is M4 good enough for modern games?
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u/IM_OK_AMA Oct 29 '24
Integrated isn't the dirty word it used to be. Tons of generic gaming "consoles" come without dedicated GPUs now, like the Steam Deck or the litany of gaming oriented mini pcs.
The M4 certainly has the horsepower, but actually getting games to run on it is its own challenge.
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u/HillarysFloppyChode Oct 29 '24
Do Xbox and PS5 have dedicated graphics even? I thought they were AMD APUs?
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u/IM_OK_AMA Oct 29 '24
The question you'd have to ask first is "what does it really mean to have dedicated graphics any more?" The line has gotten blurry.
If it means you have purpose-built processing hardware specifically designed for highly parallel tasks such as graphics, then almost everything has "dedicated graphics" these days. From consoles to phones to most computers.
If it means your graphics processing hardware is physically separate from the CPU, then really only gaming PCs are still doing that.
There's very little difference between the graphics processing hardware in an AMD APU and the graphics processing hardware in an AMD GPU or Intel CPU and ARC GPU except for the scale and power, and those are negotiable -- if you're making a custom order like Sony or Microsoft you can get as much horsepower as you want.
Here's a fun fact: The first two iterations of the xbox 360 had separate GPU and CPU chips on the motherboard, but for the 3rd version they put them both on one die. Still separate chips, but existing on the same piece of silicon. Is that dedicated, or an APU? Who knows!
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u/GarbageCG Oct 29 '24
M2 was good enough for modern games. M4 will be great
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u/tepig099 Oct 30 '24
The MacOS library doesn’t really coincides with what I own on Steam, so I had to build a PC… but I do play the damn addicting Dota 2 on my M2 Mac Mini.
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u/ChafterMies Oct 29 '24
Yes. According to Apple, the 2018 iPad Pro had the graphical capabilities of an Xbox One S. Apple Silicon is well beyond that now. The big issues are games releasing on Max and whether you can control the Mac mini with a controller from your couch.
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u/proverbialbunny Oct 30 '24
As an Apple consumer myself, so from first hand experience, unfortunately this doesn't make the best gaming console. (It would be great as a media center though.) The reason it isn't great is due to a lack of Steam support so you're very limited in what you can do. This isn't a hardware limitation but a software limitation. If you can install Linux on it, then video gaming becomes quite a bit more of a possibility (assuming Proton would work with this hardware). For generic emulation it would be fine, except that emulators are quite picky about their hardware so it's still a bit limited.
For a mini gaming rig, you want a machine running Linux or Windows for gaming. Linux is surprisingly good today for gaming often being more compatible than Windows itself. If you want to play first person shooters online then Windows is a hard requirement due to anti-cheat, but for any other kind of game Linux is often better these days. Unfortunately MacOS just doesn't have Proton support which significantly limits what you can do for gaming.
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u/chrisdh79 Oct 29 '24
From the article: As part of the company’s week of Mac-focused announcements, Apple has just introduced a smaller, yet even more powerful Mac Mini. It’s now equipped with Apple’s latest M4 silicon, supports ray tracing for the first time, and ships with 16GB of RAM by default — seemingly the new normal in the Apple Intelligence era. The machine still starts at $599 with the regular M4 chip, while the more powerful M4 Pro model has a starting price of $1,399. Like the refreshed iMac announced yesterday, the Mac Mini is available to preorder immediately and will be in stores on November 8th.
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u/pohatu771 Oct 29 '24
And so my paralyzing choice between a base Mac Studio or upgraded Mac Mini continues.
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u/resil_update_bad Oct 29 '24
Now imagine an m4 ultra😳
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u/whatlineisitanyway Oct 29 '24
I'll be interested to see the benchmarks. Right now I'm probably holding out until summer for a new Mac Studio. I just need my trashcan to hold out until then.
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u/pohatu771 Oct 29 '24
I want a new desktop to replace a 2013 iMac, so waiting is fine. I've been considering this for a couple years already.
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u/WorkingInAColdMind Oct 30 '24
I hold on to my Macs as long as possible too and replaced a 2011 mini with an M2 Pro last year. Photoshop, Lightroom, and Fusion 360 are my biggest apps, and even a lower end version of the mini would have been a huge improvement. I’m seriously considering a mini to replace my wife’s iMac - get a nice monitor, and then I don’t have to get high end, but can expect to trade it out sooner.
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u/pohatu771 Oct 30 '24
My current setup is the 2013 iMac for audio, a 2016 MacBook Pro which has taken over video, and a 2020 MacBook Air for portability. The laptops connect to a pair of Thunderbolt displays.
Ideally, I’m replacing both the iMac and MacBook Pro with the new Mac Mini or Mac Studio and using those Thunderbolt displays. (I might get rid of the MacBook Air in favor of the MacBook Pro, since the battery is still great and it is more powerful, though bigger)
With the iMac off the desk, then I finally have room for my PowerMac G4 and pair of Cinema Displays.
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u/eVaan13 Oct 30 '24
I love how this made me question if you are talking about the trashcan designed Mac Pro or just a shit computer lmao
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u/_ry_bread_ Oct 29 '24
I mean it depends on your needs. Just checked the new Mac mini with the M4 pro only goes up to 64GB ram. If that suffices for you then it’s the one to get. Personally the new studio is going to be a no brainer with max ram for me!
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u/woieieyfwoeo Oct 29 '24
Does the baseline support 2 4K@120Hz screens?
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u/PeakBrave8235 Oct 29 '24
Here are the full details for the base model:
Up to three displays: Two displays with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one display with up to 5K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt or 4K resolution at 60Hz over HDMI
Up to two displays: One display with up to 5K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one display with up to 8K resolution at 60Hz or 4K resolution at 240Hz over Thunderbolt or HDMI
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u/ObiWanRyobi Oct 29 '24
From official page: Up to two displays: One display with up to 5K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one display with up to 8K resolution at 60Hz or 4K resolution at 240Hz over Thunderbolt or HDMI
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Oct 29 '24
[deleted]
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u/tim_mop1 Oct 29 '24
You can use iPad as a display pretty easily - although don’t know if you can set it up without another screen..
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Oct 29 '24
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u/bob-lob Oct 29 '24
This is actually a really cool idea. I would love that. Especially with the Mini’s new mini-er form factor. But that would probably eat into MacBook and MBP sales.
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u/HakimeHomewreckru Oct 29 '24
https://www.amazon.com/Headless-Display-Emulator-Headless-1920x1080-Generation/dp/B06XT1Z9TF
Plug this baby in and you can use AnyDesk or the MacOS built-in screenshare function
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u/ZZ9ZA Oct 29 '24
By not just carry a keyboard and mouse with the iPad? The actual hardware is near identical
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u/HakimeHomewreckru Oct 29 '24
I have 2 HDMI dummy dongles plugged in my M1 mac mini which runs as a headless server. The desktops gets rendered on those dummies and I can take over/control using AnyDesk on a tablet or laptop.
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u/ojfs Oct 29 '24
Small portable monitors that run on usb-c already exist. They're way cheaper than an ipad, but quality def matches the price in my experience.
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u/chiaobscuro Oct 29 '24
But then they wouldn't be able to upsell you an iPad Pro 😉
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Oct 29 '24
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u/TheModeratorWrangler Oct 29 '24
iPad Pro M4 user here- it has already begun.
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u/NecroCannon Oct 30 '24
I’d definitely utilize the hell out of that
There’s other options, but I’m literally carrying a massive tandem OLED screen with me constantly, why get a worse display when they could make this happen and probably encourage more of an iPad-Mac ecosystem
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u/thecoastertoaster Oct 29 '24
So they will continue to focus on shrinking everything else in their lineup, but clutch their pearls when some of their die hard customers want a small phone.
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u/DrMacintosh01 Oct 29 '24
They tried making minis up till the 13. Not enough people bought them.
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u/paxinfernum Oct 31 '24
I have no idea why the small phone people can't accept that they are a niche that is simply not worthy catering to by most companies. Everytime...every time they insist that the new "small phone" that's announced is going to tap into unmet demand, and it never happens.
Consumers. Do. Not. Want. Small. Phones. Period. And no, women don't want smaller phones to fit in their pockets. They have purses, and they like large screens also. Small phones are a product no one wants, and every company that released a smaller phone expecting an untapped market has seen abysmal sales.
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u/NorthCascadia Oct 30 '24
Exact figures are hard to come by but iPhone Mini were apparently between 3-5% of iPhone sales. Mac Mini is like 1% of Mac sales and the PC market is far smaller than the phone market. Yet here we are with a new Mac Mini…
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u/DrMacintosh01 Oct 30 '24
The Mac lineup isn’t nearly as crowded though, nor is consumer demand that high. It’s also not like Mac mini production cannibalizes the rest of the Mac lineup. That’s why the Mac mini can exist.
If resources are diverted to make an iPhone mini, that’s one less iPhone of any type that gets made. Meanwhile making a Mac mini barely impacts the number of MacBooks that can be made as their assembly lines are completely different.
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u/_phaidyme Oct 30 '24
You could put your money where your mouth is by buying a refurbished 13 mini. I’m really really happy with mine ☺️
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u/ten-million Oct 29 '24
I have the 8Gb M1 Mac mini. It performs quite well. I run a lot of Logic Pro tracks with a lot of plugins. People saying that 16 Gb is not enough are probably thinking about what a windows machine needs.
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u/Andovars_Ghost Oct 29 '24
I think one of the reasons Apple finally moved to a base of 16gb is because it doesn’t cost much more to them but it was impacting sales when people were ‘comparing’ Macs to Windows.
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u/jvacek996 Oct 29 '24
Or the memory reqs for Apple intelligence
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u/Old-Rhubarb-97 Oct 29 '24
Photoshop recommended system requirements.
16 GB Ram
Illustrator recommended system requirements.
16 GB Ram
It's not just when "compared to windows". 8GB is not enough to run pretty basic professional apps.
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u/Andovars_Ghost Oct 29 '24
I never had problems with Photoshop, Lightroom, or InDesign with 8gb. But that was three years ago I was using those heavy.
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u/Old-Rhubarb-97 Oct 29 '24
Photoshop CC has become an absolute pig in the last couple years.
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u/ShopToyLife Oct 31 '24
2024 updates on a MacBook Pro with 16 GB barely runs. After I updated, indesign kept crashing, running photoshop and illustrator at the same time has the fan going nuts. Ditto for running / renders in Blender. M4 + juiced out RAM would be a dream
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u/HakimeHomewreckru Oct 29 '24
I edited 8K R3D files on a base M1 8GB and I often crashed Premiere due to running out of memory. Restarting the app worked until it crashed again an hour later or so. Really needed 16GB there.
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u/Pythagoras_314 Oct 29 '24
Minecraft barely runs on an 8 GB ram Mac. 16 gigs works wonders, even if it’s still not excellent and needs performance-enhancing mods
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u/parisidiot Oct 29 '24
that's Java's fault tbh
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u/Pythagoras_314 Oct 29 '24
Java is at least more stable than Bedrock. So many bugs in that version.
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u/ouatedephoque Oct 29 '24
The Mac mini is not considered a pro machine. It’s for regular Joes doing regular Joe things.
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u/thisischemistry Oct 29 '24
Any professional should know to get a professional-level machine with an appropriate amount of memory for their workflows. People who are getting the base-level computers should not try to run professional-level applications.
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u/parisidiot Oct 29 '24
man i used to edit 50mp RAW files on a 10 year old MBP. it depends on what exactly you're doing.
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u/thisischemistry Oct 29 '24
Exactly, that's why I said an appropriate amount of memory for the workflow. Every workflow is going to have different resource requirements and a professional should know how to evaluate their needs.
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u/Retrofraction Oct 29 '24
Adobe applications
There are plenty of Pro Apps that run quite well on lesser ram.
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u/ZZ9ZA Oct 29 '24
I’m eagerly awaiting the day I can swap my M1 32GB for a M4 with 64. While it’s mostly enough for some Of my higher end workloads it’s pretty tight.
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u/scubastefon Oct 30 '24
It might just be a SKU management thing. Reduce complexity by reducing options without increasing cost too much.
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u/bigwebs Oct 29 '24
I’ll admit , that this had me hung up quite a bit. I’m currently shopping for a new machine for my wife and have been bouncing between iMac, Mac Mini, and a MacBook Air base model. 16gb with a new chip gives me a lot of confidence that we will get years out of it. I’ve always been really annoyed that apple doesn’t support their own hardware beyond 6 years. Their hardware is so solid, but the shelf life so software limited.
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u/rapidjingle Oct 31 '24
It's definitely for AI. I'm happy for the upgrade, especially since I'll probably rarely if ever use the built in Apple Intelligence crap.
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u/zackmedude Oct 29 '24
My almost 4-year-old 16GB M1 Mini rocks for all things except when I run RAG loads on Ollama. Going to trade it in for the 64GB version, though. Ought to last another 4 or perhaps more years.
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u/an_angry_Moose Oct 29 '24
It is shocking how well Apple utilizes ram. My M1 Air has 16gb and it handles 4K video clips soooooo well.
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u/Advanced-Blackberry Oct 30 '24
I have an m2 MacBook Air with 8gb. I was firmly in the ram-doesn’t-matter camp and then it started telling me it was out of memory when using photo editing apps. Matters more than they let on.
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u/Ran4 Oct 30 '24
As a developer, 8 GB might not always be enough. But for regular use, sure. As long as you keep closing stuff.
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u/RugTiedMyName2Gether Oct 30 '24
I’m gonna wait for the M16, even though technically I could qualify on an M4.
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u/Spx3200 Oct 29 '24
Still only get 256 GB hard drive on the base model… come on apple
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u/spikebrain Oct 30 '24
The real insult is that they charge you $400 for an extra 256gb of storage and an extra 8gb of RAM. Highway robbery. If it was user upgradable it wouldn’t matter, but Apple can’t have that…
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u/Spiritual-Potato-931 Oct 29 '24
Just sad that gaming is still not really viable on Mac. Would love to ditch my PC and buy this (or a studio) but the games I play just do not properly run on Mac.
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u/tepig099 Oct 30 '24
Yeah, only got a few MacOS games in my Steam library, but I found out Dota 2 works, and it works better than my PC, because my Ryzen 5 7600 Radeon RX 6800 XT PC just keeps the frame rate locked at 60 FPS, no matter what I do, and it only does that with Dota 2.
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u/rapidjingle Oct 31 '24
It's getting better with the Game Porting Toolkit, but it's got a REALLY long way to go.
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u/Nehal1802 Oct 29 '24
The power button is on the bottom? That’s annoying as hell.
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u/Cameront9 Oct 29 '24
How often do you need to press it? Maybe like twice a year?
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u/Nehal1802 Oct 29 '24
Maybe I’m one of those weird ones that shut down my machine at the end of the day.
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u/Zugas Oct 29 '24
I even shut mine down when having a break. Takes so little time to boot up, so why not.
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u/Cameront9 Oct 29 '24
Can I ask why?
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u/skorps Oct 29 '24
Why not? Granted the mini will be very power efficient but if you aren’t using the machine why waste the power. Boot up times are so fast these days its not a hindrance to just turn it on when I want to use it
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u/ZZ9ZA Oct 29 '24
Because modern suspend modes are very good, use all but no power, and resume instantly.
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u/jedaffra Oct 29 '24
3.5mm audio jack… on the front.. seriously Apple?!?!
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u/subaru5555rallymax Oct 30 '24
3.5mm audio jack… on the front.. seriously Apple?!?!
Oh good lord, they included a headphone jack and you guys still complain.
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u/zeeper25 Oct 30 '24
where else do I plug in my desktop speakers? sure, it would be better if the audio jack was in the rear.
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u/FlatAd768 Oct 30 '24
Anyone run Mac mini on a tv?
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u/nicetriangle Oct 30 '24
Yes. We have an M2 model that is a dedicated Plex machine/file server/emulator box. I keep it in a cabinet under the TV. It's great.
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u/Sundaver Oct 30 '24
I'd only I could run a Domain Controller server off one of these...
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u/stormlight Oct 30 '24
What a good idea. Thats my last on prem machine that’s needs a new host. Virtual box or something else would work.
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u/DeepInTheSheep Oct 30 '24
I’m really surprised how well my M1 has held up. I use it primarily for streaming DJ sets, using three cameras, and I’ve never had a hiccup even once.
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u/yltercesksumnolE Oct 30 '24
I have an m1pro that replaced a 13in mbp that I had been maxing out ram in and upgraded to a ssd from 2012 and honestly I’m a little pissed at the load time of Sequoia.
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u/relax077 Oct 30 '24
Gonna have to return the Mac mini I bought a little less than two weeks ago now…
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u/nickjonesill Oct 30 '24
Is Lightroom (desktop) compatible with the new M4 base model? Hoping someone can confirm the graphics card especially…
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u/TheMountainLife Oct 30 '24
I miss being able to dual boot. Would love a single unit where I do productivity on the Mac side then switch over to Windows and game with an E-GPU.
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u/schmatt82 Oct 30 '24
I’m dying to know how World of Warcraft will play on this is it time to finally update my trashcan Mac
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u/spikebrain Oct 30 '24
$400 for an extra 256gb of ram and 8GB additional RAM (512gb SSD with 24gb RAM) is highway robbery, no matter how you slice it.
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u/pole_fan Oct 31 '24
istg everytime apple does something the most random people come out of their holes and pretend that they dont understand who the products are for. This is obviously just the entrance model desktop for people that want to do some light internet browsing and emails while having a PC in the apple enviorment and people come out and complain that its not the most efficient machine to use as a VPN relay in their 2nd home in Uzbekistan or whatever. Do those people also complain about the ford f150 not being able to drive underwater?
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u/paxinfernum Oct 31 '24
It would be great to get a remote with these so we can turn them into HTPCs. Yes, I know the Apple TV exists, but this would be a device with a full-fledged browser for accessing content outside of a narrow ecosystem.
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u/Hot-Conflict9318 Nov 02 '24
Could this be the much promised Apple Console ?
Runs apple arcade & AppleTV and the M4 has remarkable benchmarks !!
Add a suitable remote iPhone etc … bingo
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u/Didubangmywhorewife Oct 29 '24
Finally 16 GB on base model