MAC MINI (NEW) UNDERWHELMING

[StellarVixen]

To me, these are really important points. Both of my printers, Time Machine drive, my scanner and my Apple keyboard are USB devices. With the limitations that Apple has imposed upon us, we are headed back to the days of messy desktops. I still remember my Tandy Color Computer 3 setup.

I actually find it interesting that we are rather ready to have bunch of external peripherals on our tables, than to break up with Apple and Mac OS, and go buy a computer with everything of that inside.

 

[Omega Mac]

In conclusion (again): Apple after much criticism from loyal hardcore users, did a 180 degree turn and produced a heavy hitting mini, never do I remember price being in that basket of criticism.

In this case. Apple delivered.

Q: Is there a chance these Mini's are being manufactured in the US?

In 2012 there was a rumour on this very site that Apple were to bring back Mac Mini production to the USA.

I've posed the question in that thread, it might explain the price rise but if not it might be simply Apples Mac mini pivot init the pro arena and prevailing economic times.

When that NEW Mac Pro is $15/20K you can always drop back to a Mac Mini as a mid pro option. Apples a big ship with notions of being a Clipper but when a big ship turns it's slow to do so, but when it does, those in it's wake - watch out!

It's possible Apple have their product line up re-alignment for the next 3+ years almost complete.

In S. Jobsian style, we're all waiting for - "Just one more pivot"

So when the new Mac Pro is released I expect a thundering rush for 2018 Mac Min refurbs.

 

[pl1984]

In conclusion (again): Apple after much criticism from loyal hardcore users, did a 180 degree turn and produced a heavy hitting mini, never do I remember price being in that basket of criticism.

Probably because, at that time, the price was considered acceptable. The new, base model Mini is now 60% higher than the previous, base model Mini. With a 60% price increase I would hope you could see why people might be critical of the new price.

 

[Omega Mac]

Probably because, at that time, the price was considered acceptable. The new, base model Mini is now 60% higher than the previous, base model Mini. With a 60% price increase I would hope you could see why people might criticize the new price.

Criticisms of the new models pricing is not to be confused with past criticisms of the previous model.

Further, the 2014 model is not even comparable to the 2018 model other than name and case format.

Naturally a new model will inspire a host pros and cons debate and analysis.

In truth, it looks more like Apple have gone for a jump start of the product line. So much so and this is pure conjecture, maybe Apple did have plans to PRO the line with upper tier options but due to time and technical limitations put that on the back burner and we got beefier than expected models sans the "pro".

Matching the colouring to the iMac Pro is suggestive of at least this or Apple being sympathetic to real world application of the mac mini.

Note: I'm trying to remember some standard marketing or industry aphorism. Along the lines of Speed, Spec & Price, you can only ever have advantage on 2 but never all 3 at once.

 

[theluggage]

Your complaint about external boxes (eg tb3 to dp or tb3 docks/breakout boxes) is “more to go wrong”.

You seem to think that computers need a lot of extra internal hardware to support single-use USB-A or DisplayPort sockets - they don't! A modern CPU chipset provides a shedload of USB 2, USB 3 (and 3.1g2 on the latest chipsets) ports that just sockets and a handful of "glue" components (which are not things that tend to go wrong). Its TB3 and USB-C that need a whole extra controller chip (and a bunch of PCIe lanes, just in case someone actually wants the full 40Gbps on that pair of ports) for every two ports.

...and I'm not asking for exotic, specialist interfaces here, just ubiquitous USB and DisplayPort as currently featured on a huge amount of brand new equipment. I'm not even rejecting TB3, just saying I'd happily trade 2 of those 4 sockets for half-a-dozen DP and USB-A ports...

Failing that, maybe someone will come out with a TB3 i/o box designed to stack neatly with a Mac Mini and designed as a desktop i/o expander rather than a laptop dock (so, plenty of USB A and C ports, maybe not ethernet and an internal PSU rather than a hunking great power brick designed to charge a 15" laptop).

Display connected to single-purpose DisplayPort socket:

GPU => DisplayPort Socket => Passive DP Cable => Display

Display connected to USB-C/TB3:

GPU => Thunderbolt or USB-C controller => USB-C socket => Active* USB-C-to-DisplayPort adapter => Display => panel
or
GPU => Thunderbolt Controller => TB3 socket => TB3 cable (active if over 1m) => Display => Thunderbolt controller => panel

...you've added a totally unnecessary controller and a third-party adapter cable purely to send the signal over a multipurpose port (when I say "things to go wrong" I include compatibility problems - a whole bunch of pre-2017 USB-C to DP/HDMI adapters failed on the 2017 Mac models, for example - and USB3 hubs are notoriously hit-and-miss).

(*yes, active - its not like TB1/2 where you just plug in a regular MiniDP-to-DP or passive cable and the whole port falls back to MiniDP - those adapters get warm, and all that extra circuitry is moulded into the plug making it vulnerable to damage and overheating. Also, any USB-C device other than bog standard USB-to-USB needs a cable ID chip so they're all active in a sense).

 

[Stephen.R]

just saying I'd happily trade 2 of those 4 sockets for half-a-dozen DP and USB-A ports...

And I’m just saying, I’m glad they chose to use ports that do more than one thing. Can we give this a rest now?

 

[redheeler]

In conclusion (again): Apple after much criticism from loyal hardcore users, did a 180 degree turn and produced a heavy hitting mini, never do I remember price being in that basket of criticism.

In this case. Apple delivered.

Delivered a hard-hitting Core i3 for $799? Not really. The $799 2012 Mac mini had comparable CPU performance to a base 2012 15" MacBook Pro, while the $799 2018 Mac mini falls well short of a base 2018 15" MacBook Pro.

The i7 is hard-hitting, but brings the price to $1,099, and with a 256 GB SSD that's $1,299. Add an eGPU + enclosure to cancel-out the weak integrated graphics, and the price is just short of a 21.5" iMac with equivalent specifications + a built-in 4K display, keyboard and mouse, had Apple actually bothered to keep them current.

Edit: Calculated the price difference between the (theoretical due to Apple's disappointingly infrequent refreshes) iMac and Mac mini + eGPU to be about $200. If the Mac mini were released with an i5 as standard, the difference would be about $400.

The iMac's display retails for $699 when purchased separately, while the Magic keyboard and mouse retail for a combined $178.

Q: Is there a chance these Mini's are being manufactured in the US?

In 2012 there was a rumour on this very site that Apple were to bring back Mac Mini production to the USA.

I've posed the question in that thread, it might explain the price rise but if not it might be simply Apples Mac mini pivot init the pro arena and prevailing economic times.

People who ordered the new Mac mini are reporting them shipping from Hong Kong (source: Mac Mini shipping?).

 

[pl1984]

Criticisms of the new models pricing is not to be confused with past criticisms of the previous model.

Further, the 2014 model is not even comparable to the 2018 model other than name and case format.

I agree, however that doesn't negate this new Mini saw a 60% price increase compared to the previous Mini. I won't debate the value of the new versus previous. My personal feeling is the new Mini is a much better value than the previous one. However others may not feel that way.

 

[theluggage]

Further, the 2014 model is not even comparable to the 2018 model other than name and case format.

There was no 2014 Mac Mini! Next thing, you'll be claiming that there were two sequels to The Matrix and that Apple once made a mouse shaped like a hockey puck...

Seriously, though - the idea of a $500 "mass market" desktop Mac to tempt people into the Apple fold is probably dead, subsumed by the cheaper iPads. Today, the average person in the street, if they're not happy with a phone/tablet, wants a laptop - if Apple wanted to address the low-end mass-market with a Mac, they should have built the new Air down to a lower price (which is an argument for another thread).

I don't think that theres much disagreement with the idea that the 2014 models were neutered by the lack of quad-core processors. With 4- and 6- core "desktop" processors (rather than the old mobile-class CPUs) the new Minis are clearly going to stomp the 2014 range into a greasy puddle, so there's no point in price/value comparisons.

So I think the comparison is with the "better" and "best" 2012 Mac Mini models that were actually quite powerful for the time and obviously have a niche going by the way they've held their value... and were broadly speaking in the same $800-$1200 price range as the new Minis. That is problematic because it comes down to how much technological progress you expect "for free" after 6 years.

Issue 1 - does it matter that the $799 model has an "i3" branded processor? Its still quad core, and has a reasonable fixed clock speed (without turbo-boost) and there aren't any quad-core 8th gen i5/i7 desktop chips - they've all gone hex core. If it gives a decent performance boost over the $799 2012 (which is still $500+ second-hand) who cares? Remember, these are now desktop-class chips. Or, have Apple greedily gimped it with a cheap i3 simply to create an artificial "4 core good - 6 core better" distinction?

Issue 2 - Graphics. Basically, as long as the iGPU is powerful enough to run the UI smoothly who cares? These are not graphics workstations or gaming rigs, and 2018 integrated graphics are probably relatively more powerful in modern terms than the iGPUs in the 2012 Minis were w.r.t. their contemporaries. Plus now we have the option of external GPUs if we want really good graphics or GPU-based computation. Or - is it ridiculous that they haven't gone with a dGPU? Bear in mind that the Mini form factor was designed to hold an optical drive and a spinning-rust HD so space/cooling shouldn't be an issue. What about those i5/i7 + Vega Intel "semi-discrete" chips that are now available? As for eGPUs - seriously, have you seen the price and size of those beasts?

Issue 3 - Storage. The "server" version of the old 2012 Mini could be fitted with 2 hard drives, each of which could either be SSD or HD. Yes, the new machine can take 2TB - but that has to be super-fast Apple-proprietary PCIe SSD, so get ready to sell a kidney. If you want a lot of affordable storage tucked away in a neat little box with one power cable (which made the old Mini server so attractive), then the new Mini really is a non-starter. Or If you're going to take the approach that all you need "in the box" is space for the OS, applications and temporary files, and everything else is better on external drives, NAS or the cloud then the 256GB in the $1099 model is probably fine - but the 128GB in the cheaper model is still pretty hard to defend (bear in mind that a full Logic Pro - one of the applications that apple are touting for this - sound library install is about 60GB, and many users will have a ton of third-party instruments that would make sense to install on the system SSD) and woe betide you if you need to upgrade either model.

Issue 4 - RAM. There's no way of getting around this one - Apple charge twice as much for a RAM upgrade than the retail cost of buying the SODIMMs from scratch. These aren't some Magical Special Chips, its just bog standard commodity SODIMM RAM. That's just pure, unforgivable greed. Even if it turns out you can upgrade these yourself, having to buy 8GB and chuck it in the bin is stupid. So far, its not even clear that you'll be able to do that without hacking through glue, removing heatsinks and voiding the warranty.

Personally, I've currently got a recent iMac, but if I were looking to upgrade, the i5 Mini is somewhat attractive, but I'd probably need to close my eyes, think of England and stump up for a RAM upgrade.

 

[ElectronGuru]

Note: I'm trying to remember some standard marketing or industry aphorism. Along the lines of Speed, Spec & Price, you can only ever have advantage on 2 but never all 3 at once.

Good fast cheap, choose any two