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Mac Mini user-servicability questions
- Thread starter boynigel
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The 2012 models have upgradable RAM, while the 2014 models do not. As for the upcoming 2018 models (if there are any), no one here knows for sure until they are announced.
wow, first they do it with the 17" imacs and now with the mini's. are they trying to scare off my business?! i've had both RAM and hard drives fail in my old macs. so now if such failure occurs i have to send my computer to a service center, get charged a ton of dough and be without the computer for weeks for something that should be able to be resolved by me within minutes. PC's are starting to look better and better to me. never thought i'd say that, but here i am.
There's a thought that occurs now that the 2018 iMacs may follow the iMac Pro and lose the RAM access door in exchange for better cooling of the Coffee Lake 6 core CPUs.
A 2018 Mini might also lock in the RAM but Apple could offer user replaceable RAM and ensure they get a good average selling price by only offering SKUs with 16Gb RAM pre-installed at Apple prices. That way professionals who can't be without their machine for weeks at a time can replace their own RAM and Apple don't have to offer poverty specs to hit a self imposed price point that cheapskates will buy because Crucial can get their RAM quotient up for cheaper.
If the next Mini has a 2.5" drive bay with SATA port (for use in a Fusion Drive) that would be great for those of us who would replace the HD with a 2Tb SATA SSD...
And in exchange for Apple selling some very expensive RAM upgrades. I was very psyched to be able to bump my 5K iMac to 24GB of RAM because it is one of the few Macs sold now with user-accessible memory, but I shudder to think what that upgrade would've cost me from Apple.
If you think about it, don't you think it'll be extremely silly of Apple to offer an 8 core i9 and then tell people they can also add their own RAM by ditching the basic 8Gb you get in exchange for 32Gb bought from Crucial? How long would it take for articles to pop up showing how users can get a machine so close in power to an iMac Pro for a fraction of the price by carefully specifying a 2018 iMac and then putting an order in for third party RAM and purchasing an eGPU for some real graphics power?
Technically I think Apple will have to lock the RAM away for cooling reasons anyway (same as the iMac Pro) but that might hit the rest of the range if Apple intend to make the 2018 27" iMac the same SKU throughout as the other Coffee Lake CPUs run hot due to the 6 cores.
What you get therefore, could be a much quieter 2018 iMac (better cooling solution) at the expense of a higher average selling price (locked away RAM).
Filling this gap, therefore, could be a Mac Mini with an average selling price closer to $2k than $1k. Whatever CPU they choose I'd be more interested if they added a user upgradable HD and RAM even if Apple get their money from the consumer by putting a generous amount of RAM in it to start with.