Buying a 2014 mini right now (am I crazy?!)

[STC1709]

Gotta remember that the latest Mac mini was a downgrade from the previous one. At the rate Apple is screwing up, there's no reason to believe (at all) that the next mini, if there will be a next one, will be a significant improvement over the current model. In many ways, you can count on it being more irritating.

Buy a mini now. The future of the mini looks grim

While that is true it was a downgrade from the 2012 mini, believe it or not the 2014 2.6ghz mid level mini geekbench is almost on par with the 2015 macbook pro and the high end 2015 geekbench outperforms the 2015 macbook pro.

 

[Boyd01]

the high end 2015 geekbench outperforms the 2015 macbook pro.

The 13" 3ghz 2015 MacBook Pro (8675) is close to the 3ghz 2014 Mini (8295). But the 15" 2.8ghz 2015 MacBook Pro is 13905. Now the top 2012 2.6ghz Mini Server had a geekbench score 11759, which is pretty close to the 15" 2.2ghz 2015 MBP at 12313.

It's really disappointing that you could buy a 2012 mini that was 50% faster than the top of the line 2014 mini.

 

[joesl]

I wouldn't base the value on an expected 6-8 year run. It may or may not make it that far, and you may find yourself replacing a hard drive within that time.

Are you talking about the mechanical drive or the SSD? Thanks!

 

[Partron22]

I just replaced a 12 year old IDE Firewire 400 spinner because I dropped it 4 ft while it was reading. The replacement drive is only 6 or 7 years old. The drive in the old mini is a 32GB monster from 2005. Slow as all getout, it's only 5400rpm, like 2014 Minis, but it still works fine.

I got a nice of magnets out of the deal, and 3 more platters to add to a belt.

 

[thekev]

Are you talking about the mechanical drive or the SSD? Thanks!

More the mechanical drive, but either one can fail. SSD controllers fail too. As for HDDs, it's usually considered a good idea to replace within 3-5 years. it's not that you can't sometimes stretch them for a longer period of time. It's just not always a good idea. I also typically determine value based on more conservative estimates.

 

[jpietrzak8]

Buy a mini now. The future of the mini looks grim

Nah. The future of Apple's entire desktop lineup, and therefore the future of OS X itself, looks grim. Ten years ago, there was a huge effort to get people to switch from PCs to Macs, and it made sense to do so: the hardware was comparable, and their OS was light-years ahead of Windows. But they've let everything slide, to the point that Apple's hardware is now both significantly inferior to and more expensive than PCs, and Microsoft has essentially caught up to OS X with their latest Windows offerings.

In short, don't buy a Mini now. Prepare instead to switch to another platform, because OS X itself is slowly dying.

 

[MRrainer]

More the mechanical drive, but either one can fail. SSD controllers fail too. As for HDDs, it's usually considered a good idea to replace within 3-5 years. it's not that you can't sometimes stretch them for a longer period of time. It's just not always a good idea. I also typically determine value based on more conservative estimates.

With TimeMachine backups, you can use the hard-disks for as long as they run. Same for SSDs.

Though - does anybody know the specs for Apple's SSDs (TBW/DWPD)?

 

[philipma1957]

Okay so 850 quid for an old pc . why not compare what 850 quid gets you in an iMac or a macbook via the refurbished store in the uk?

here is the iMac refurbished at 869 quid
Refurbished 21.5-inch iMac 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 - Apple (UK)


so how do you think they compare?

 

[turbineseaplane]

I'm having a hard time seeing a future for the Mac Mini honestly.

It's role as "get Windows users to switch and keep using their existing PC accessories while jumping into the Mac ecosystem" just doesn't seem like something Apple cares about anymore.

It feels like they barely care about the Mac much at all, let alone trying to get Windows users to switch to it.

 

[MRrainer]

Yeah, it looks dim. But I really hope it's on a (very long) multi-year refresh cycle.
Apple probably sees from their telemetry-data that tons of them are in use from all ages. Because it doesn't have a screen and very few moving parts, the MacMini receives a lot less wear-and-tear than a notebook. Consequently, a lot of them probably run for as long as the hardware does - which can be six years plus.
That and the rather slow advancements in Intel's CPUs over the last few years don't really warrant a full refresh at the rate of their mobile devices.

Nevertheless, a Mini to drive that 5K screen would be so nice....
Actually, a Mini do drive one 5K screen and two 4K screens, that would be totally, badass-awesome ;-)

 

[jpietrzak8]

Yeah, it looks dim. But I really hope it's on a (very long) multi-year refresh cycle.

Even that would be too little, too late. You can't just refresh a device forever; you need to keep up with developments, adapt to new situations. For example, VR is here now; I can go onto Steam today and find dozens of VR-oriented games. But yeah, I can also guarantee that none of them run on a Mac, because Macs can't do that; not only were they not designed with that capability in mind, they were designed to ensure that you could never add that capability. The graphics card you started with is the graphics card you will have forever.

There are other issues: in a world where many homes now have a dozen or more portable devices (between phones, tablets, odd IOTs, etc.), Apple computers now have fewer ports, and those ports are generally not backwards-compatible. Every Apple computer now needs to come with an array of external adapters and hubs in order to be useful. Which is bizarre!

And, of course, Apple is working hard to make sure all their computers have no upgradable RAM, no upgradable drives, no upgradable anything.

This wouldn't be nearly so bad if Apple had a wider range of options and a more frequent refresh cycle, but even that has gone to the dogs in the last few years...