New Mac Mini is out. Is (almost) everyone happy now?

[georose]

Well, after reading what ya wrote...I want a Track-Pad!...Hint!-Hint!

Yes, the Apple Track Pads are great and there is no comparative Windows hardware like it at any price. It was always a pain to use Windows on my MacBook Pro for that reason as it didn't work as well with Windows. I thought it must be a conspiracy with the Apple driver for Bootcamp but it is probably something to do with the driver being too difficult to develop for Windows. The track ball is a workable solution but nothing can compare to the smooth scrolling with the Track Pad or the one on my MacBook Pro.

 

[harriska2]

Were you Happy?

Absolutely. The hardware is small and simple. It is fast enough and stable (as long as I follow some basic rules like don’t use wifi or bluetooth). I’m coming from Windows 7 and MS Office 2010. They worked fine but all browsers (Firefox, Chrome, etc) were serious memory leakers so either I had to upgrade to Windows 10 or go elsewhere. I don’t like forced upgrades so I went with the mini, which I fully adore. I use the same Samsung 40” 4k monitor as I did with Windows. I was able to remap the keyboard (same Dell) for copy/paste and pull in all my images and files. It took 3 weeks to learn Photos and curate images into the program (and fix dates - I use a reference library and keep images in dated folders). A lot of my stuff just slid over and worked (excel files, word files, Calibre library, videos, itunes music). I now have Filemaker and Final Cut to do all my databases and video editing. I have 2 cheap 10tb external drives, down from 6 external 4tb internal drives. I ended up getting a magic trackpad 2 that I adore, and I don’t like trackpads. I love it. Glad I made the switch even though, after about 25+ years with Windows - learning macOS took a fair bit of googling. It’s been 3 months and it feels like I’ve been on macOS for 20 years.

My husband, who is a mac fanatic, upgraded his work imac to a 2018 mini with a 27” 4k dell. He also loves it. I warned him about the magic mouse 1 possibly losing connection but it hasn’t done so in the past 2 or 3 weeks he’s used it.

 

[Easttime]

I’m happy with my 2018 mini i5, 16 gb Ram, 500 ssd. Upgraded from a slow 2014. I had a very rocky time with a nasty problem with wifi internet connect failures and bluetooth drops. Thought the 2018 mini was crippled with a radio interference Achilles heel and almost gave up. Finally fixed the Internet disconnect with a Mojave reinstall in Recovery mode, so it must have been a software glitch on my new mini not hardware. Touch wood, it has been gone for two months. The Bluetooth drop problem persists though, so I have to plug in my trackpad and keyboard to get consistent use from them during the workday (haven’t tried to get a Bluetooth dongle working). I have maxed out peripherals plugged into the mini (2 monitors one with a hub built in, 3 external hard drives, a USB hub, keyboard, trackpad and the occasional thumb drive or DVD Drive), all worked fine on the 2014 mini. Surprised the Bluetooth radio problem hasn’t been brought up in this thread, unless I missed it.

So it didn’t “just work”, but it’s my otherwise very efficient daily driver now.

 

[Martyimac]

Just a little more info. My 2018 has been upgraded to 32Gig of ram. While it drives my 24" Dell U2311H HD monitor just fine, when I hook it to my Dell P2715Q monitor, and drive that at 2560 x 1440, there is slight hesitation while using Firefox. Changing to a page, refreshes, selecting files to delete in GMail, etc show slight hesitance or stalls. It is minor but noticeable to me. Probably not the best description so hope folks understand what I mean. It's early and still on my first cup of coffee.

 

[harriska2]

Just a little more info. My 2018 has been upgraded to 32Gig of ram. While it drives my 24" Dell U2311H HD monitor just fine, when I hook it to my Dell P2715Q monitor, and drive that at 2560 x 1440, there is slight hesitation while using Firefox. Changing to a page, refreshes, selecting files to delete in GMail, etc show slight hesitance or stalls. It is minor but noticeable to me.Probably not the best description so hope folks understand what I mean. It's early and still on my first cup of coffee.

That is the same monitor my hubby has, except he only has 16gb ram. I think he runs at 1.5x but he uses Safari, not Firefox. He doesn’t notice any lag. Neither do I. Coming from 25 years on Windows and about 20 on Netscape/Mozilla, I switched to Safari and love it. I do know if I need web developer tools I would switch to Firefox. I do use several browsers but Safari is my main driver.

 

[crsh1976]

While I'm glad they finally updated the Mini, and included such goodies as 4 and 6 core desktop chips, as well as making RAM user-upgradable again, the tiny storage and upgrade pricing are whacked, so is the lack of any half-decent iGPU (or dGPU for that matter).

No buy from me, I'll go with a NUC instead.

 

[harriska2]

While I'm glad they finally updated the Mini, and included such goodies as 4 and 6 core desktop chips, as well as making RAM user-upgradable again, the tiny storage and upgrade pricing are whacked, so is the lack of any half-decent iGPU (or dGPU for that matter).

No buy from me, I'll go with a NUC instead.

I have a NUC and the fan drives me nuts. I don’t know if it’s the high pitched whine or what but it’s like nails on a chalkboard for me. Both the NUC and Mac mini are on the same 40” 4k monitor and they work equally well with their respective built-in gpu.

 

[ofarlig]

While I'm glad they finally updated the Mini, and included such goodies as 4 and 6 core desktop chips, as well as making RAM user-upgradable again, the tiny storage and upgrade pricing are whacked, so is the lack of any half-decent iGPU (or dGPU for that matter).

No buy from me, I'll go with a NUC instead.

The NUCs are LOUD in comparison, I would rather get the Mac Mini and an eGPU if I wanted to game or use the GPU for computational stuff, for the rest the iGPU works great.

 

[IngerMan]

I purchased my first Mac Mini (2018 i7 16GB 500ssd) a few weeks back. And I’m loving it. I started with Apple back in 2007 20” iMac. Many product lines since then. I always wanted a Mini and this refresh seemed like the right time.

I knew going to a mini was a bit like stepping back into the msdos days, where everything is not going to work with out some adjustments or changes. When you take an Apple desktop and add competitor Monitor, keyboard, mouse, eGPU, things need ironed out. I’m ok with that, it was what I expected. It took a bit of over a week but it’s all ironed out now. It feels a bit like the Rebel Apple setup. And again I’m lovin’ it.

Cheers.

 

[Partron22]

This rumor: "Apple is expected to move its Mac line to custom ARM-based chips as soon as next year."
has me thinking about the ill fated Macintosh IIvi and IIvx. Both sold for less than a year.
The thought of spending too much money on what's basically abandonware displeases me.

Apple is highly unlikely to give us any warning on something like this. They have not in the past. It could impact sales. It might also explain why we haven't seen much of the new Mac Pro yet. If it ran i7's, it could be out tomorrow. For some reason we have to wait til next year.

 

[tpivette89]

Am I happy with the Mini? Yeah I am. My i5/16GB/256GB version does everything I ask of it. The only thing that I am disappointed with is that the SSD is soldered. Seems as though they did the opposite with the 2014 model... instead of soldered RAM, we now have a soldered hard drive.

Oh well, life is a compromise, and this is as well. At least I can upgrade the storage via TB3, where as the RAM on the 2014 was absolutely not expandable at all. It is a good thing we got up to 64GB RAM potential and 6-core processors this time around.

And as for a discreet graphics card? Well, no other Mini other than the 2011 had discreet graphics (and by now, 7 years later, that didn't age well anyway vs the integrated graphics), so I didn't expect Apple to do something like that this time around either. If the user wants (and I doubt many of the buyers of the 2018 Mini will need or want to), they can add an eGPU.

 

[Stephen.R]

If the user wants (and I doubt many of the buyers of the 2018 Mini will need or want to), they can add an eGPU.

I think the only thing relating to this that I find a bit unfortunate is the advertised "run up to 3x4K screens".

There is no reference to a) this is dependant on system RAM, or b) this will push the limits of the iGPU. I think they made the right technical decision (a desktop CPU is still a better option than a mobile CPU with better iGPU IMO) but the specs on supported video output should have bene revised, or had some footnotes about technical limitations.

 

[StellarVixen]

So, this is it, huh?

No rumors for this year, no any mention...nothing...


See you again in a decade, perhaps? Or maybe never again?

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I ended up just upgrading my Mini to a 2TB SSD instead for now. That should keep it as a viable whole house media server for some time to come (500MB/sec average read/write now). I might throw in 16GB of ram instead of 8GB next as well. The drives (despite being RAID 0 and getting 225MB/sec sequential) were the biggest 'slow' factor. RAID 0 was "OK" but getting long in the tooth and the drives were 7 years old. I bought a 5TB 2.5" drive to replace the second one, but it turned out to need SATA power so I don't think that wasn't going to work (not sure that double height would have fit either, but it looked like it would). I just put one of the 1TB drives back in for now as an extra drive so it has 3TB internal and 10TB external at the moment.

 

[Partron22]

See you again in a decade, perhaps? Or maybe never again?

The future's so bright, I gotta wear night vision goggles.

 

[Micky Do]

Was looking to buy a new Mac Mini before the 2018 iteration broke cover..... While it may make pros and wannabes happy, the price and specs leave an average Joe such as myself wanting and far from happy. Fortunately my early 2009 Mac Mini soldiers on and will likely continue to do so for some time ahead, supplemented by a MacBook Air (as I now have a greater need for portability, but still prefer use a desktop). The 2018 Mac Mini is irrelevant from my point of view.