The new Mac mini is almost certainly coming

[EugW]

I'm starting to feel the same way.

Is your 2018 Mac mini just a temporary machine until M2 is out? I'm still hoping for a discounted Mac Studio, but I'm just not seeing them here in Canada. Those US Amazon.com discounts on the M1 MacBook Air and the M1 Pro MacBook Pro are pretty sweet.

 

[Boil]

The thought actually comes to mind that the M3 is the CPU that's been broadly linked to a move to the 3NM architecture which is meant to be a leap ahead for power consumption and battery life in laptops.

3nm has multiple variants...

M2 Pro / M2 Max / M2 Ultra / M2 Extreme should all be on one of the first two 3nm processes, and I would expect the M3 family of SoCs to use some of the later three process variants...

So we could see a 5nm-based M2 Mac mini, and (hopefully) a 3nm-based M2 Pro Mac mini...

 

[crowe-t]

Is your 2018 Mac mini just a temporary machine until M2 is out? I'm still hoping for a discounted Mac Studio, but I'm just not seeing them here in Canada. Those US Amazon.com discounts on the M1 MacBook Air and the M1 Pro MacBook Pro are pretty sweet.

I didn't get the 2018 Mini yet. I'll get it within a week. It'll be a temporary machine until the M2 is out. My 2009 Mini is in need of a replacement.

 

[Miat]

M1 –> M2 is incremental only in comparison to Intel –> M1. It is still a significant improvement.

 

[EugW]

Damn. No Black Friday deals on the Mac Studio in Canada (or the US) AFAIK. There is a CA$140 or US$100 gift card provided for the M1 Mac mini though if you're so inclined.

However, it doesn't apply to edu purchases anyway so it's pointless for me. I can already get the Mac Studio 32/512 for CA$2249 edu, which is US$1690.

I'm hoping to see the M2 Mac mini 24/512 for CA$1529 edu, which is US$1150. I'm predicting the M2 Mac mini will get 1 year longer macOS support than Mac Studio. (As in both will be the same length of time for support, but the M2 Mac mini will come out 1 year after the Mac Studio did.)

 

[EugW]

Damn. No Black Friday deals on the Mac Studio in Canada (or the US) AFAIK. There is a CA$140 or US$100 gift card provided for the M1 Mac mini though if you're so inclined.

However, it doesn't apply to edu purchases anyway so it's pointless for me. I can already get the Mac Studio 32/512 for CA$2249 edu, which is US$1690.

I'm hoping to see the M2 Mac mini 24/512 for CA$1529 edu, which is US$1150. I'm predicting the M2 Mac mini will get 1 year longer macOS support than Mac Studio. (As in both will be the same length of time for support, but the M2 Mac mini will come out 1 year after the Mac Studio did.)

People on eBay are nuts.

Somebody on eBay just paid CA$2000 for a 5 month old used base Mac Studio from a seller with no selling history. Brand new Mac Studio Canadian edu or Apple Canada refurbished are both CA$2249 (US$1685). That means that eBayer paid just 11% less for a used unit. I'm also seeing grey market sealed units brand new going for $2199 (US$1645) at small third party brick-n-mortar shops.

BTW, I wonder where these grey market units are coming from. I also wonder how many are truly brand new and how many are open box but resealed by a less than trustworthy shop.

 

[Miat]

Apple store is down for "updates" here in Australia.

The M1 Mini was released in November 2020, without warning.

Interesting, is all I am saying.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Apple store is down for "updates" here in Australia.

The M1 Mini was released in November 2020, without warning.

Interesting, is all I am saying.

Here in the US, the store is still up and running.

 

[pshufd]

People on eBay are nuts.

Somebody on eBay just paid CA$2000 for a 5 month old used base Mac Studio from a seller with no selling history. Brand new Mac Studio Canadian edu or Apple Canada refurbished are both CA$2249 (US$1685). That means that eBayer paid just 11% less for a used unit. I'm also seeing grey market sealed units brand new going for $2199 (US$1645) at small third party brick-n-mortar shops.

BTW, I wonder where these grey market units are coming from. I also wonder how many are truly brand new and how many are open box but resealed by a less than trustworthy shop.

View attachment 2115277

I post DriveDX stats on my Craigslist ads which tell you how much time they've been powered on along with disk wear stats.

I do see computers asking above MSRP sometimes.

 

[gusping]

Apple store is down for "updates" here in Australia.

The M1 Mini was released in November 2020, without warning.

Interesting, is all I am saying.

It'll be for the Black Friday deals. Don't get your hopes up.

 

[gusping]

Slightly off topic, but the Mac Studio is £300 off in the UK at Costco…. tempting.

 

[EugW]

Slightly off topic, but the Mac Studio is £300 off in the UK at Costco…. tempting.

That doesn't seem to be the case here in Canada for Costco.

BTW, for those of you getting Mac minis and needing more ports, Plugable has a 5-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 Hub that is on sale today on Amazon Prime, so I just ordered one. It converts one Thunderbolt 3/4 host port into 3 Thunderbolt USB-C ports and 1 USB-A port. It can also work as a USB-C hub without a Thunderbolt host. It also comes with a USB-C HDMI dongle. Club 3D has an identical one based off the same Goshen Ridge chipset which in Canada is similarly priced right now, but doesn't include the HDMI dongle.

I have confirmed the Plugable sale is available at Amazon in both Canada and the US, but it's not available at Amazon in some other countries I checked, like the UK. With that Mac Studio though, you may already have enough ports.

 

[EugW]

That doesn't seem to be the case here in Canada for Costco.

BTW, for those of you getting Mac minis and needing more ports, Plugable has a 5-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 Hub that is on sale today on Amazon Prime, so I just ordered one. It converts one Thunderbolt 3/4 host port into 3 Thunderbolt USB-C ports and 1 USB-A port. It can also work as a USB-C hub without a Thunderbolt host. It also comes with a USB-C HDMI dongle. Club 3D has an identical one based off the same Goshen Ridge chipset which in Canada is similarly priced right now, but doesn't include the HDMI dongle.

I have confirmed the Plugable sale is available at Amazon in both Canada and the US, but it's not available at Amazon in some other countries I checked, like the UK. With that Mac Studio though, you may already have enough ports.

The next day after buying this Thunderbolt 4 hub, I came across a good deal on a used M1 Mac mini, so I caved and bought it instead of waiting until M2. 16 GB RAM and 1 TB storage. However, I will re-evaluate when M2 arrives.

I just finished installing Ventura. It was on Big Sur, and I couldn't get it to install Ventura through Internet Recovery, so I just installed it via a USB installer. So far so good.

 

[EugW]

This thing is fast! While I think my 2017 iMac is fast enough that I have no problems using it every day, the M1 is basically an order of magnitude faster. Impressive. An M1 Max Mac Studio would have been total overkill for me. (I was looking at the Mac Studio on the used market, but locally they are rare, and sell for far too much money.)

And it seems I got really lucky with my purchase. Despite being used with no more warranty, this thing wasn't used much at all. It has less than 6 days of total power on time, and only 2.5 TB of SSD writes. 🤯 And it looks brand new. 😎

 

[gradi]

I came across a good deal on a used M1 Mac mini, so I caved and bought it instead of waiting until M2. 16 GB RAM and 1 TB storage. However, I will re-evaluate when M2 arrives.

Glad you found a good one. These days, IMO, if someone wants or can make use of an M1 Mac Mini (or one of the other Apple Silicon Macs) then it probably makes sense to just get it. Apple supply chain problems, China issues, etc. may mean even further delays for new releases. Sure, one of these days there will probably be an M2 Mac Mini or something else (probably at a higher price), but some people on these forums have been telling people since the summer of 2021 to hold off buying a M1 Mac Mini because the next big thing was just around the corner. I feel sorry for the poor saps who listened to that advice and have been waiting for the last 1.5 years or last 1 year or last 6 months.

I bought an M1 Mac Mini 16gb/512gb + external 2tb SSD earlier this year. I have it connected to 2 monitors and it works well for Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, Topaz programs, etc.

By the way, what program did you use to give you all that info?

 

[EugW]

I bought an M1 Mac Mini 16gb/512gb + external 2tb SSD earlier this year. I have it connected to 2 monitors and it works well for Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, Topaz programs, etc.

Nice. I didn’t buy earlier because of the pricing. I didn’t want to pay retail on a two year-old 2020 Mac mini, but the used pricing on a 16 GB model was too high… until Friday.

By the way, what program did you use to give you all that info?

That program is DriveDx. They have a free 15 day trial.

 

[Boil]

The M2 Pro Mac mini, aka "The NeXT Big Thing", is almost certainly coming...! ;^p

 

[Miat]

I have transcended the limitations of the mere desktop and found a new true path to enlightenment.

Just ordered an M2 Air.

 

[EugW]

I have transcended the limitations of the mere desktop and found a new true path to enlightenment.

Just ordered an M2 Air.

How much RAM?

 

[Gudi]

How much RAM?

Who cares!

Just ordered an M2 Air.

Did you get the 512GB model with twice the SSD speed?

 

[EugW]

My 2017 Core i5 iMac has much faster USB-C and USB-A ports than my M1 Mac mini. Also, the USB-A port on my Thunderbolt 4 / USB4 hub is twice as fast as the USB-A port on the Mac mini.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/usb-on-m1-macs-isnt-actually-10gb-s-also-definitely-not-usb4.2269777/page-21?post=31762971#post-31762971

I wonder what the USB speeds are like with M2.

 

[Kim Larni]

I didn't want to wait any longer. Jumped from the 2018 Mini to the base Studio M1 Max. Solved many problems and now I'm happy.

 

[EugW]

I didn't want to wait any longer. Jumped from the 2018 Mini to the base Studio M1 Max. Solved many problems and now I'm happy.

Since I don't need the power and memory capacity of the M1 Max, I wasn't prepared to pay retail for a Mac Studio, but I'd been looking on the used market for them because the number of ports they have is pretty attractive. However, the pricing on used Studios is really high here in Canada. I don't understand it, but people are paying 85-90% (plus tax) of new edu or Apple refurb pricing for a used Studio. That just seems crazy to me.

Pricing of used Mac minis seems more manageable sometimes with more significant discounts so I got one, but I had to "settle" for 16 GB RAM (which truthfully is probably fine for me), and had to buy a hub too to get more ports.

 

[Gudi]

I like the current design too and prefer all metal to plastic but the reason for plastic is better radio communications so it does have a practical purpose. I use wired peripherals to sidestep the Bluetooth issues.

A much bigger Apple logo might already be enough for better radio signals.

 

[Miat]

Did you get the 512GB model with twice the SSD speed?

I got the 2TB.