New Mac Mini or current 27" 5k iMac?

[thirdsun]

I don't understand what the current iMac doesn't do that a future new iMac might do that's making this decision so difficult for you that you feel forced to wait. If you need an iMac now, get one now. It isn't going to suddenly stop working when the iMac line is updated.

While true, I'm looking at a configuration in the range or upwards of $3500. I'm not spending this kind of money on hardware that is approaching 2 years in age. This should be a computer for years to come and it's not like Apple is currently asking a lower price with the new iMac on the horizon in 2019.

I know, these days CPU advancements have slowed down, but I'd still like to use the current generation of chips, particularly since Intel suddenly has to compete and offer more cores due to AMD's recent resurgance. Furthermore I'm expecting major changes to the iMac design.

 

[Coyote2006]

Does it really? I've been looking into this issue for a while now and it seems unless you're fine spending upwards of 1k for a hard to find, single inout LG Ultrafine 5K there really isn't a true alternative to the iMac display. If you're fine with 4k and an effective resolution of 1920x1080 at the recommended 2x scaling, sure, you could buy two good monitors or one exceptional for 900$, but I think it's too much of a compromise. If you, like me, really want that 2560x1440px screen real estate with crisp text rendering, 5K is the only option.

Therefore I'm leaning towards waiting for an upcoming iMac upgrade right now. On the other hand and since my aging iMac (non-retina) needs to be replaced yesterday while nobody can estimate when the update will happen, I might consider getting a mid-level Mac Mini now and running a QWHD or UHD setup temporarily. The Mac Mini may get relegated to media center duty later and the display can be used as second monitor for the highly anticipated iMac.

I'm somewhat torn to be honest.

I just "feel" the same.
And I just wonder how the new iMac would fit in the range with the iMacPro. I'm quite sure that apple updates RAM and removes HDDs from the next iMac and then you'll have more or less already an iMacPro.

 

[thirdsun]

I just "feel" the same.
And I just wonder how the new iMac would fit in the range with the iMacPro. I'm quite sure that apple updates RAM and removes HDDs from the next iMac and then you'll have more or less already an iMacPro.

It's much cheaper however. An iMac Pro would be out of my range, but for $3500 I can get an iMac with Core i7 and most importantly 1 TB SSD (Seriously, nobody should be buying fusion drives). That's still significantly less than the 5000$ entry price of the iMac Pro.

 

[ElectronGuru]

If the cost of an internal SSD is too much, then consider buying the iMac with the standard 1 TB Fusion Drive and use an external Thunderbolt 3 SSD as the boot drive.

Another option may be separating (unfusing) the fusion and rebuilding that pure ssd as a boot drive. But it would be smaller than 256.

OP: 5k is a premium for a single large panel. I use mine 80% of the time split down the middle. Buying external, dual 4Ks would offer more real estate. And if your content requires scrolling (web pages etc), rotated 4K are even better.

 

[strawbale]

Another option may be separating (unfusing) the fusion and rebuilding that pure ssd as a boot drive. But it would be smaller than 256.

OP: 5k is a premium for a single large panel. I use mine 80% of the time split down the middle. Buying external, dual 4Ks would offer more real estate. And if your content requires scrolling (web pages etc), rotated 4K are even better.

Be aware: The flash part of 1TB fusion drives in recent iMacs is really small!

 

[fuchsdh]

It's much cheaper however. An iMac Pro would be out of my range, but for $3500 I can get an iMac with Core i7 and most importantly 1 TB SSD (Seriously, nobody should be buying fusion drives). That's still significantly less than the 5000$ entry price of the iMac Pro.

Yeah the iMac Pro is overkill for a huge number of people, and it's essentially a product with no "good-better-best" SKUs—at $5K you get very good CPU, GPU, memory, storage, but if you don't want or need all that stuff you can't really walk it back.

Especially if you don't need internal GPU performance or want more bang for your buck/don't really care about ECC RAM the iMacs are more than enough power for even many professional use cases. Xeons are the best-binned CPUs but they're also going to be pound-for-pound slower than the i series outside of multicore, especially in certain tasks (video encoding for instance, as they don't have H.264/HEVC built-in.)

 

[Cashmonee]

I don't understand what the current iMac doesn't do that a future new iMac might do that's making this decision so difficult for you that you feel forced to wait. If you need an iMac now, get one now. It isn't going to suddenly stop working when the iMac line is updated.

I know this is not directed at me, but I can wait if necessary. I don't want to wait, but I can. I am weighing the known quantity of the current iMac vs the unknown of the next. Unknown as is in release date, pricing, upgradability, etc. The way things have been going with Apple products lately, I am tempted to take the known quantity.

While the DIMM modules in the 2018 Mac mini are socketed, you need to pull out the entire logic board to gain access to them. The 27-inch iMac has a RAM access door, making upgrades far more trivial. The upgrade experience is far different.

100% agree.

 

[jasnw]

While the DIMM modules in the 2018 Mac mini are socketed, you need to pull out the entire logic board to gain access to them. The 27-inch iMac has a RAM access door, making upgrades far more trivial. The upgrade experience is far different.

Different, but not critically so (IMHO). The difference between soldered and "remove the logic board" is far greater, basically insurmountably so. Could Apple have designed the DIY upgrade path in the new Mini better - hell yes. I think they aimed at a line between any-damn-fool-can-do-it (costing them a lot of $$$) and only-God-can-do-it (costing them greater animosity from an already-riled pro community). Personally, I think it's a compromise on Apple's end that I can live with.

 

[IdentityCrisis]

It's much cheaper however. An iMac Pro would be out of my range, but for $3500 I can get an iMac with Core i7 and most importantly 1 TB SSD (Seriously, nobody should be buying fusion drives). That's still significantly less than the 5000$ entry price of the iMac Pro.

You can get a iMac Pro for $3800 right now open box.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/used...hs4bU4Zkw2s7xamdMY50aAtkXEALw_wcB&lsft=BI:514

 

[thirdsun]

You can get a iMac Pro for $3800 right now open box.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/used/1380894/?c3api=1876,52248989522,&gclid=Cj0KCQiA28nfBRCDARIsANc5BFAo0TVhXxBboWly45bVn2EsSfmvc6Ipw7Uhs4bU4Zkw2s7xamdMY50aAtkXEALw_wcB&lsft=BI:514

Tempting price. I'm not in the US however.

 

[Fishrrman]

One thing about the 2017 iMacs:
They will be THE LAST desktop Macs to come WITHOUT the t2 chip inside.
Not sure if this is important to anyone, or no.

 

[IdentityCrisis]

Tempting price. I'm not in the US however.

It is in the US. They can ship to you of course.

 

[thirdsun]

It is in the US. They can ship to you of course.

I know. It’s me, not the Mac, who is not in the US.

 

[netnothing]

One thing about the 2017 iMacs:
They will be THE LAST desktop Macs to come WITHOUT the t2 chip inside.
Not sure if this is important to anyone, or no.

Honestly, this is one of the reasons I'm looking at an iMac instead of the mini. Read enough about the crashes related to the T2 and not sure if I want to deal with it. That and the GPU performance.

 

[HenryAZ]

As a practical matter, there aren't a lot of monitors out there that are better than, or more cost-effective than, an iMac monitor.

Someone who needs an Eizo 4K monitor, which cost US$1970*, $2800 or $6,000, depending on features, is probably not considering an iMac in the first place

* with hood

The main point of my reply was that with the Mini, your monitor choices are greatly expanded. I happen to already own the Eizo, and I was surely not suggesting someone go out and buy one. But the iMac is only a 27" display, and the monitor world is opening up with larger monitors that will run true UHD resolution, providing much more screen real estate. With the Mini, you can pick just about any of those, swap it out later for something even better, etc.

 

[B.A.T]

If you plan to do much photo editing with raw files or video editing get the iMac. I would STRONGLY advise against the fusion drive. I’ve got a 2013 iMac that is a solid machine that I hope to get a few more good years of service from. I’ve only had two issues. The internal support that holds the monitor in position broke on its own (I think this was a common problem with that model) and the fusion drive took a **** when I upgraded to Mojave (I skipped High Sierra). I replaced the fusion drive with SSD drives and couldn’t be happier.

 

[nutmac]

If you are comparing Mac mini with LG UltraFine monitor to a comparably equipped iMac, you are paying roughly $500 premium against 21.5" iMac and $700 against 27" iMac.

iMac is obviously a generation older (7th gen CPU), so not a fair comparison. And I would personally complement Mac mini with an HDR TV that has very low input lag (e.g., Sony's $500 43" X720E), space gray keyboard and trackpad (which you cannot get with iMac). Once you do that, Mac mini's value starts to become stronger.

 

[blenditall]

If you are comparing Mac mini with LG UltraFine monitor to a comparably equipped iMac, you are paying roughly $500 premium against 21.5" iMac and $700 against 27" iMac.

iMac is obviously a generation older (7th gen CPU), so not a fair comparison. And I would personally complement Mac mini with an HDR TV that has very low input lag (e.g., Sony's $500 43" X720E), space gray keyboard and trackpad (which you cannot get with iMac). Once you do that, Mac mini's value starts to become stronger.

You're saying the "value" becomes stronger essentially because the Sony monitor is less expensive?

 

[nutmac]

You're saying the "value" becomes stronger essentially because the Sony monitor is less expensive?

At $699 and $1299 for LG UltraFine 4K and LG UltraFine 5K monitors (respectively), LG monitors compare poorly to retina iMac.

Retina iMac starts at $1299 for 21.5" and $1799 for 27", both of which includes $99 Apple Keyboard and $79 Apple Mouse as well.

I didn't meant to imply TV is better than LG monitors simply because they are larger (some folks may not want 43" monitor). But if you want a larger screen and/or HDR, iMac cannot match Mac mini's value.

 

[Spectrum]

I just played with an LG 5K display at an Apple Store, and the quality of text (attached to a mini2018] was not at all on par with a 5K retina iMac. Text on LG was overly dark and a bit blurry. I don't understand why there was such a difference. Both were running Mojave. So, I post this as a word of caution. I assumed all retina high DPi 4K and 5K displays were more or less identical. Try before you buy if you can.

Was the scaling setting the same on both?

There must be something wrong with the monitor. It’s exactly the same as the monitor in the 5k iMac and will output the same quality retina.

So...I finally had a chance to compare again an LG 5K monitor (2018 mac mini) alongside a 2017 5K iMac. I ensured the macOS version were identical (both Mojave), the screen res was identical (default, "looks like 2560x1440"), and both had "Font smoothing" enabled in System preferences.

I can reiterate that there is a very clear difference: The text on the LG monitor is slightly darker and slightly blurrier - as if the screen is very slightly out of focus.

I took small screen shots on each and blew them up large in Preview. I could not tell the difference at the pixel level. This suggests that there isn't an inherent difference in the way the mac mini and the iMac is rendering the UI, but that the LG screen somehow just isn't as sharp at the pixel level. (Somehow?)

To finally test it wasn't a computer hardware effect, I asked for the LG 5K display to be connected to the 5K iMac via a USB-C > USB-c cable. The result was the same. The text on the LG display was darker/heavier and slightly (very slightly) blurry. The retina iMac looked incredibly sharp in comparison.

The sales clerk acknowledged the difference, although they did say they thought it was quite subtle.

SO. I stand by initial assessment. There is no way I would purchase a MM2018 and 5K LG screen (this is terrible value and quality compared to a retina iMac), and certainly there is no way I'd be happy to pair a 5K LG screen with a retina iMac if I needed a second display. The difference between the font rendering (and colour hue) of the two was too noticeable to me. I will venture over to the iMac forum to see if anyone else has noticed this.

The only small nag I have is that perhaps the Apple Store was using the wrong type of USB-C cable? Such that it was affecting both the output of the MM and the output of the retina iMac? Is that possible?

Thoughts anyone?

 

[harriska2]

If you plan to do much photo editing with raw files or video editing get the iMac. I would STRONGLY advise against the fusion drive. I’ve got a 2013 iMac that is a solid machine that I hope to get a few more good years of service from. I’ve only had two issues. The internal support that holds the monitor in position broke on its own (I think this was a common problem with that model) and the fusion drive took a **** when I upgraded to Mojave (I skipped High Sierra). I replaced the fusion drive with SSD drives and couldn’t be happier.

We have the 2013 imac with broken hinge and have a 1tb ssd in hand to upgrade. Leaving the broken hinge because it is buried way down and harder to get to. Hope it helps as the darn thing keeps locking up (both 2013s on el cap). The other 2013 is completely broken and getting recycled. Pretty lousy computers.

 

[mjfutures]

At $699 and $1299 for LG UltraFine 4K and LG UltraFine 5K monitors (respectively), LG monitors compare poorly to retina iMac.

Retina iMac starts at $1299 for 21.5" and $1799 for 27", both of which includes $99 Apple Keyboard and $79 Apple Mouse as well.

I didn't meant to imply TV is better than LG monitors simply because they are larger (some folks may not want 43" monitor). But if you want a larger screen and/or HDR, iMac cannot match Mac mini's value.

I read the iMac 27" 5K uses the exact same panel as the LG 27 5k.. is this not true?

 

[nutmac]

iMac 5K and LG 5K use the same panel. I should've said "LG monitors are poor value compared to retina iMac".