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So you’re comparing a 10 year old mini with a PC that has a $2k GPU? How is this a meaningful comparison? A basic 10 year old PC could also do whatever you’re using the mini for.
I never stated why or what I use either machine for.

I thought we were talking about the price of Apple hardware and whether it is worth the Apple premium?

IMHO, yes it is.
 
I never stated why or what I use either machine for.

I thought we were talking about the price of Apple hardware and whether it is worth the Apple premium?

IMHO, yes it is.

It may well be (I agree Apple's stuff is well made, and certainly it holds its value), I just don't get the relevance of your examples.

Just because you e.g. upgrade you gaming PC every few years doesn't really speak to why a Mac used e.g. to stream videos has great longevity in that role.

The mini has likely traditionally been one of the most reliable Mac products, given its low TDP and lack of GPU. Their laptops have had a spottier track record, though, with swathes of them having GPU failures through running hot. Of course, the answer there is always "you should have bought AppleCare".
 
The thing is, this is what Apple does with everything. You could apply this discussion to almost every device they've made.
So what's your point? That we should just smile and indulge Apple without comment, like parents making excuses for a wayward teenager?
Someone on here was saying "the base iPhone has 256GB now so why doesn't the Mac Mini have more than a phone!?', and no, it doesn't. The base iPhone still has 128. The base iPhone Pro line has 256.
If someone posts a false assertion like that then, of course, it is perfectly fair to rebut it...

These are just a few I picked out based on my memory and random searches.
And in a previous post I pointed out, on the same basis, several cases where Apple have apparently responded to public criticism (not least increasing the base RAM from 8 to 16GB, which - surprise surprise - turned out to be perfectly do-able without a price hike).

I'm certainly not affected by the price of Mac Pro wheels or Pro XDR Display stands - and even if I were to buy a Mac Pro or an XDR there are cheap work-arounds that wouldn't have any practical input on the utility of the hardware - but talking to PC-using friends, those dumb decisions really made Apple the butt of the jokes and reinforced the image of Apple being not just a "premium" company but a ludicrously over-priced, pretentious "luxury" brand. Then you get someone interested in the power of Apple Silicon for "only" $600... until they find that matching the RAM and storage spec of their 32GB/1TB PC will literally double the price...

To put it into perspective, just the GPU cost $2100. The whole PC if I was to build one new, would cost me $4500.
...and to get a really comparable GPU in a Mac you'd probably have to pay at least $2200 for a M2 Max Studio, if not $4000-$5000 for an M2 Ultra. Plus - since I bet that PC would have had plenty of RAM and internal storage - several of Apple's expensive RAM and SSD upgrades. Realistically, though, the PC GPU escalator is mainly driven by the need to play the latest AAA games at full resolution, lest your fellow gamers kick sand in your face - and they're gonna be throwing an entire beach in your face if you turn up with a Mac...
 
This is tempting me more and more. I already have a 500GB external drive right now LOL. I would get an absolute steal on the base model. No argument there.
I’m not a heavy user by any means, but I’d struggle with only 256. I’ve got Logic, Live, and the Affinity Suite’s installed, plus email and a few photos and files, and I’m on about 400/512GB on the Mini, and 300/512GB on my MBP. Most of my work documents are saved on external SSD drives. I’m constantly managing storage, transferring stuff onto SSD, which is a bit of a chore.

I’m going to be getting the M4 14” MBP this month, and will stick with the base 16/512 configuration. My sweet spot would be a 1TB drive, but I can’t really afford the extra.
 
For $499 (really, who in the US at least is paying more than $499 for the base model...) the mini verges on toy territory. I am not going to freak out over the 256gb base storage despite the fact I want more than that.

Of course Apple would love to see you spend $200 to upgrade to 512gb or $400 to 1tb, but I think they really want you signing up for 2tb of iCloud storage via Apple One. Which I have and use and everything is fine because I am immersed in the Apple ecosystem between multiple family iPhones, iPads, and Macs. And if your workflow dictates that iCloud storage won't substitute for fast internal storage, and 256gb won't do it, then either pony up for more internal space or use a fast external drive.

Beyond true. It isn't something I need at all, but at $499 and as someone that uses my laptop docked 95% of the time, it just makes sense. Hell, I might discover that I can get away with just an iPad on the go.
 
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Beyond true. It isn't something I need at all, but at $499 and as someone that uses my laptop docked 95% of the time, it just makes sense. Hell, I might discover that I can get away with just an iPad on the go.

Is there something a Mini can do that your docked laptop can't? I sometimes think about what you're describing, but I always seem to come back to wanting a single device for simplicity's sake. The FOMO for a $499 Mini is strong, however!
 
Is there something a Mini can do that your docked laptop can't? I sometimes think about what you're describing, but I always seem to come back to wanting a single device for simplicity's sake. The FOMO for a $499 Mini is strong, however!

My laptop is an M2, so it would be an upgrade there. While I use a USB-C hub that makes docking easy, this would be an overall cleaner solution. I use iCloud storage for all of my files, so the simplicity of a single device isn't really relevant in my case.

I currently run the beta on my laptop, and I have seen the spinning beach ball nearly every single day since Apple Intelligence was introduced. I hope that is just a beta issue and not a sign of what's to come for my M2 chip. If it is a sign of what's to come, it just makes sense to use a $499 mini for my daily work flow and every few years trade in the old one and upgrade for such a cheap barrier to entry.
 
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There are free office/productivity options (from Libreoffice to Google Docs) for every platform. As @mode11 says, some of us need MS Office because it’s the only practical way to exchange non-trivial documents with the world at large - or simply because you already know how to use it. Office wouldn’t be my first choice, otherwise - although I’d probably still want something cross-platform.

Not trying to defend PCs, Win11, or whatever, but I will defend an MS 365 subscription.

I have family members that just aren't tech savvy enough to deal with a non-MS product. Picture sending a resume in some LibreOffice format because you just don't understand file extensions, etc. You don't get the job.

I've always had to give them a work copy of office, or some black market version because full Office is a big ripoff for a infrequent user.

Then I find out that one of my neice had a single $79 version of MS office subscription which is sort of a ripoff. So I switched us all over to the MS Office 365 Family edition. 6 users, legit lisences, auto updates, etc. Each also gets a 1TB cloud drive. Cost is about $17 a year full retail per person. Less than $1 a month if you get codes on sale from Newegg.

Even the single version isn't completely terrible with Newegg codes for about half price. Usually in a bundle with some worthless antivirus program that should be discarded.

So MS 365 is actually very reasonable from a price perspective and for our family, it is rather essential.

Edit: I just ordered my M4 mini and paid the $200 upgrade to 512GB. Replacing my 2018 i5 mini with 256GB that required some storage maintenence this year, mostly my files, but the files that are not my managed data files are now at about $180GB. I just didn't want to worry about it for the next 5+ years. I used the edu store and a bunch of discounted/bundled apple gift cards to ease the pain.
 
My laptop is an M2, so it would be an upgrade there. While I use a USB-C hub that makes docking easy, this would be an overall cleaner solution. I use iCloud storage for all of my files, so the simplicity of a single device isn't really relevant in my case.

I currently run the beta on my laptop, and I have seen the spinning beach ball nearly every single day since Apple Intelligence was introduced. I hope that is just a beta issue and not a sign of what's to come for my M2 chip. If it is a sign of what's to come, it just makes sense to use a $499 mini for my daily work flow and every few years trade in the old one and upgrade for such a cheap barrier to entry.
I kept Apple "intelligence" turned off in the family iPhones, laptops, and so on. Even iCloud we don't use :)

What Apple wants you to do is to trade-in, not just your iPhone, but your Mac, iPad, and so on...one to three years later. The days where you could replace/upgrade the Mac's RAM, and even the hard drive, ended around 2019 (at least for my 27" K5 iMac).
 
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Not trying to defend PCs, Win11, or whatever, but I will defend an MS 365 subscription.
If you're using an Apple device I'd say Pages, Keynote, and Numbers will probably be more than enough for the vast majority of people. But Office does have familiarity on its side.

I purchased Office 2013 back when I was in College and when I no longer needed it I gave the license key to my mother since she had a need for Excel. These days though you can use Office on the browser and, I am probably wrong here, I believe you don't need to pay anything to use it.
 
Having just purchased the previous 2018 and M2 with upgrades, I just went with the base model this time. If I'm updating every 2-3 years and selling the old model, I don't really need to future proof. Likely in the next M6 model, they'll include the 512GB storage. I'll pocket my money for now towards the next upgrade.
 
Having just purchased the previous 2018 and M2 with upgrades, I just went with the base model this time. If I'm updating every 2-3 years and selling the old model, I don't really need to future proof. Likely in the next M6 model, they'll include the 512GB storage. I'll pocket my money for now towards the next upgrade.
I will admit, I am suspicious about Apple upgrading everything to 16 GB.

I think that when AI is released proper, it will take a big chunk of that 16 GB and we will be back at the same spot as what we were with 8 GB.

That said, I would look into the first bump, 24 GB but only by using the student discount (100 off) and fingers crossed that someone releases a cheaper SSD replacement, like this one:

 
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The other minor point Office has on it's side, is that the working world runs on it. So there is that.

True. When I was a student I never came across problems with the built-in conversion to MS Office formats in Pages or Keynote. Having said that, it's a lot easier to not have to convert things at all.
 
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I will admit, I am suspicious about Apple upgrading everything to 16 GB.

I think that when AI is released proper, it will take a big chunk of that 16 GB and we will be back at the same spot as what we were with 8 GB.

That said, I would look into the first bump, 24 GB but only by using the student discount (100 off) and fingers crossed that someone releases a cheaper SSD replacement, like this one:

The problem I can see with a large and fast SSD (over 1TB) is that more internal heat is generated.
 
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I will admit, I am suspicious about Apple upgrading everything to 16 GB.

I think that when AI is released proper, it will take a big chunk of that 16 GB and we will be back at the same spot as what we were with 8 GB.

That said, I would look into the first bump, 24 GB but only by using the student discount (100 off) and fingers crossed that someone releases a cheaper SSD replacement, like this one:


The person you quoted plans to update every 2-3 years. They are not going to be pressed with 16gb during that span.
 
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The person you quoted plans to update every 2-3 years. They are not going to be pressed with 16gb during that span.
That doesn’t take anything away from my post.

If my suspicions are correct and we have no way to turn AI off, that person will be struggling, memory wise for the next 3 years or so, until the next upgrade.

But selective reading and stuff…
 
That doesn’t take anything away from my post.

If my suspicions are correct and we have no way to turn AI off, that person will be struggling, memory wise for the next 3 years or so, until the next upgrade.

But selective reading and stuff…
There’s a great big switch in System Preferences for turning off Apple Intelligence. Are you speculating they will take that away?

Anyway, from the observations of others, it only uses memory when it is being used. If you don’t use it, you’re fine!
 
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