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Resolved Should I ask for a Mac mini for Christmas this year?

WilliApple

WilliApple

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 19, 2022
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Colorado
I made a decision with a different forum. I likely won't ask questions on this forum again because I need a Mac, not a PC. Also I am asking for advice on a Christmas gift, not advice on getting a job...

I need a new Mac, and at the moment I have an M1 MacBook Air with 8 GB of RAM. The reason I need a new Mac is because I am a software engineer/video editor who is running off of 8 GB of Ram. I have a 512 GB SSD right now.

I asked my parents for the M4 Pro MacBook Pro for Christmas and they said that "Santa will not get me that" because he would need to buy a $1500 product for my 3 other siblings as well. I even found some amazing deals on it, and I guess that didn't work either.
They said it will most likely be a birthday or a graduation gift.

Now I am back in square one. I started looking to see which iPad I would want even tho the focus is on the Mac right now, and somehow, I completely forgot about the Mac mini!

I already have a 1080p display, mouse, and keyboard!

I found that you can get the Mac mini for $499 from Costco, and that is much better than $1500. To make things better, Santa in the past have bought an Apple Watch Series 8, and the iPad mini 6 at 256 GB, both with AppleCare+.

Now you did see that I have 512 GB on my M1 MacBook Air. I have an external SSD that is 2 TB, what if I use that for storage? Is it hard to use an external SSD for storage? And so I have multiple monitors, what if I buy myself a second display, perhaps better than 1080p with Christmas money and YouTube revenue?

I would like to know what you guys think. Yes, I know storage isn't upgradable, but if I have an external SSD will I be fine?
And last question. Does Screen Mirroring my Mac mini with my M1 MacBook Air work reliably from school (about 5 miles away)? This could easily get me the best VPN and I can bypass the school firewall haha... I would also use the power of M4 and 16 GB of Ram on my Mac mini from my MacBook Air if I wanted to go to the living room for example.
 
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WilliApple said:
I want to in the future. In almost ready to start monetizing it.
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How about you making an app / product on your current Mac in order to make enough money for the new Mac? And don't tell me you can't do it because there are people that have done so on PowerPC iBooks with 1GB of RAM.

So why don't you release your app or product or whatever you do and make enough money to buy a new MacBook or Mac mini? You've got other siblings as well. I think your attitude towards your parents is a bit selfish, but we're from different cultures and different families. In my family nobody gets a Christmas present, unless you are a child. If you are 16+ you no longer get any Christmas present or birthday present. I haven't gotten any gifts for 10 years already and I'm not particularly sad about it. The sooner you learn to work for your stuff the better. I'm not trying to be mean, but for real.

And I mean I code as well, does it make me a software engineer? Nope.
 
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There’s very, very little that a base Mac mini will do for you that your MacBook Air will not. Apple Intelligence and… that’s about it.

Ask for a display, or a hard drive, or… I dunno… something totally unrelated. You won’t get the benefit you’re looking for from a base M4 mini.
 
Ask for an Apple gift card. That way, your parents can keep their spending of THEIR money to their Christmas budget for each child.

Since that will probably NOT be enough to buy the whole computer, get yourself a job and save up to cover the rest.

If other people are going to give you gifts too, let them know Apple gift card is something of interest. That might get you a little more towards your Mac.

Work your job until you have enough to get whatever spec you actually need, ideally thinking about life of device vs. only immediate want/need. That may mean you have to put in another week or three of labor at your job... but then you get a Mac that will still be useful to your needs years from now.

OR, ask for Amazon or even VISA/MC gift cards (so you can shop anywhere). Then, put that money towards a PC which can likely get you much more spec wants/needs for far less than the same spec upgrades in a Mac (because PC has tons of competition while Apple is the lone "company store" 💰 💰 💰 ).

Develop something great on that PC to make some money. Then- if you still want a Mac- apply your profit/(developer) income towards getting whatever Mac you might want at that time.

One more thing: for developer work, you'll likely quickly come to realize 1080p resolution on the monitor is insufficient. So before you might quit the job right after you have enough for the Mac, consider hanging in there long enough to add a 4K monitor or better too. I suggest ultra-wide so you have plenty of space to have multiple windows open side by side. That way you can code in 1 or 2 windows and see the results of the work on the same screen.

And since you'll likely be developing for more than just Apple tech (if you want to maximize developer income), get yourself a monitor with multiple inputs so you can plug in a PC to the same monitor for easy switching/testing/debugging between BOTH major platforms.
 
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FreakinEurekan said:
There’s very, very little that a base Mac mini will do for you that your MacBook Air will not. Apple Intelligence and… that’s about it.

Ask for a display, or a hard drive, or… I dunno… something totally unrelated. You won’t get the benefit you’re looking for from a base M4 mini.
Click to expand...

The base mini will come with 16 GB of RAM which will help development a lot.

If the mini is in budget and you want it, go for it.

Contrary to some above saying it won't do much for you for development, 2x RAM, better GPU and better Apple intelligence support are all things you can leverage to develop for new machines.
 
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
Ask for an Apple gift card. That way your parents can keep their spending of THEIR money to their Christmas budget for each child.

Since that will probably NOT be enough to buy the whole computer, get yourself a job and save up the rest.

If other people are going to give you gifts too, let them know Apple gift card is something of interest. That might get you a little more towards your Mac.

Work your job until you have enough to get whatever spec you actually need, ideally thinking about life of device vs. only immediate want/need. That may mean you have to put in another week or three of labor at your job... but then you get a Mac that will still be useful to your needs years from now.

OR, ask for Amazon or even VISA/MC gift cards (so you can shop anywhere). Then, put that money towards a PC which can likely get you much more spec wants/needs for far less than the same spec upgrades in a Mac (because PC has tons of competition while Apple is the lone "company store" ).

Develop something great on that PC to make some money, then- if you still want a Mac- apply your profit/(developer) income towards getting whatever Mac you might want at that time.

One more thing: for developer work, you'll likely quickly come to realize 1080p resolution on the monitor is insufficient. So before you might quit the job right after you have enough for the Mac, consider hanging in there long enough to add a 4K monitor or better too. I suggest ultra-wide so you have plenty of space to have multiple windows open side by side. That way you can code in 1 or 2 windows and see the results of the work on the same screen.

And since you'll likely be developing for more than just Apple (if you want to maximize developer income), get yourself a monitor with multiple inputs so you can plug in a PC to the same monitor for easy switching/testing/debugging between BOTH platforms.
Click to expand...

Excellent post, I could not have said it better.
 
WilliApple said:
I despise PC, do not suggest PCs to me ever again. Yes, I used to own multiple and my workflow is pretty much Mac only as well.
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Shouldn't a software engineer be using different operating systems and different computers? How many Linux Distros have you tried? Shouldn't a software developer put their "hate" aside and do what a customer tells them to do? I still think you should understand your parents since you have siblings and buy the Mac for your own money. Can't you get M1 Mac mini 16GB somewhere cheap? So what if it's used.
 
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even having a second machine or one with enough ram to run one or more vms will help for testing.

sounds like parents have a budget for this for christmas, asked what he wants and this is one of the things?

go for it.
 
iHorseHead said:
Shouldn't a software engineer be using different operating systems and different computers? How many Linux Distros have you tried? Shouldn't a software developer put their "hate" aside and do what a customer tells them to do? I still think you should understand your parents since you have siblings and buy the Mac for your own money. Can't you get M1 Mac mini 16GB somewhere cheap? So what if it's used.
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I use both a Mac mini and a custom-built Linux PC but it’s reasonable to prefer one or the other. The Mac is cheaper, more stable, and more portable, but the Linux has more memory and GPU power and is better for gaming and running Docker containers. Just pros and cons for each.
 
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WilliApple said:
I made a decision with a different forum. I likely won't ask questions on this forum again because I need a Mac, not a PC. Also I am asking for advice on a Christmas gift, not advice on getting a job...
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If you want to ask them then just do it. It’s not that complicated.

If the reason for posting this question is you want to know if the base Mac mini is any good, I think it is. I’ve been using mine for a while and am happy with the performance for the price. You’ll likely want to pair it with an external SSD to make up for the lack of internal storage though.

Using it on a 1080p monitor is not ideal, but it works. I have an old 1080p monitor as a second monitor to my primary 5K one and it handles it fine.
 
Are you MacBook Air M1 users ok with your Mac? Me I am OK !
 
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If someone's parent is offering to purchase their kid a computer, that's fine. Similarly, if they have a passion for software design, then they should be able to do that on whatever system works for them, regardless of who purchases it. Whoever purchases the computer is completely out of the equation. Whether software development is a hobby or profession is completely irrelevant to this thread. Therefore, I see no point in derailing this thread by putting blame on people, specifically the OP. Instead, we should be assisting with what computer the OP should get. Furthermore, they have clearly explained parameters, so it is unclear to me why we are suggesting the OP get a PC or Linux system. So rather than doing this, offer advice that is directly influenced by the question--what machine should the OP buy.

As it happens, I have already assisted the OP with this issue and given my advice elsewhere.

However, I cannot say all this without giving my own piece of advice: A base model Mac mini will likely suit the OP well, especially given it has 16 GB of RAM. However, upgrading to 24 or 32 GB of RAM could be beneficial if memory is your main concern and you'd like to future-proof well. External storage is almost always a viable option if internal storage is scarce.
 
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rm5 said:
If someone's parent is offering to purchase their kid a computer, that's fine. Similarly, if they have a passion for software design, then they should be able to do that on whatever system works for them, regardless of who purchases it. Whoever purchases the computer is completely out of the equation. Whether software development is a hobby or profession is completely irrelevant to this thread. Therefore, I see no point in derailing this thread by putting blame on people, specifically the OP. Instead, we should be assisting with what computer the OP should get. Furthermore, they have clearly explained parameters, so it is unclear to me why we are suggesting the OP get a PC or Linux system. So rather than doing this, offer advice that is directly influenced by the question--what machine should the OP buy.

As it happens, I have already assisted the OP with this issue and given my advice elsewhere.

However, I cannot say all this without giving my own piece of advice: A base model Mac mini will likely suit the OP well, especially given it has 16 GB of RAM. However, upgrading to 24 or 32 GB of RAM could be beneficial if memory is your main concern and you'd like to future-proof well. External storage is almost always a viable option if internal storage is scarce.
Click to expand...
Most rational post in this thread.
 
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redheeler said:
With 16 GB RAM I’d say he’s okay to stay with the M1, but 8 GB would likely cause some slowdown. How much memory does your M1 have?
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Me I have 8gb and I am ok… It could start to be slow for a bit if I open many large apps but I can use one large app at once without problems!
 
rm5 said:
If someone's parent is offering to purchase their kid a computer, that's fine. Similarly, if they have a passion for software design, then they should be able to do that on whatever system works for them, regardless of who purchases it. Whoever purchases the computer is completely out of the equation. Whether software development is a hobby or profession is completely irrelevant to this thread. Therefore, I see no point in derailing this thread by putting blame on people, specifically the OP. Instead, we should be assisting with what computer the OP should get. Furthermore, they have clearly explained parameters, so it is unclear to me why we are suggesting the OP get a PC or Linux system. So rather than doing this, offer advice that is directly influenced by the question--what machine should the OP buy.

As it happens, I have already assisted the OP with this issue and given my advice elsewhere.

However, I cannot say all this without giving my own piece of advice: A base model Mac mini will likely suit the OP well, especially given it has 16 GB of RAM. However, upgrading to 24 or 32 GB of RAM could be beneficial if memory is your main concern and you'd like to future-proof well. External storage is almost always a viable option if internal storage is scarce.
Click to expand...

I think he asked to his parents to buy a MacBook Pro to him, however it’s too expensive… So he will ask for a Mac mini… The thing is that it might still be expensive (499$ and he has brothers so maybe 499$ each) getting 24gb of ram is not a bad idea but it will be more expensive…
 
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Astuces iOS said:
I think he asked to his parents to buy a MacBook Pro to him, however it’s too expensive… So he will ask for a Mac mini… The thing is that it might still be expensive (499$ and he has brothers so maybe 499$ each) getting 24gb of ram is not a bad idea but it will be more expensive…
Click to expand...
He did say the base model likely would suffice fine for OP, and I agree.
 
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