
2018 Mac Mini Review - janvdberg
https://marco.org/2018/11/06/mac-mini-2018-review
======
dTal
>Number one — and this is a big one these days, especially for this product —
is that it’s not any less useful or versatile than the outgoing Mac Mini,
including the generous assortment of ports. If the previous one served a role
for you, the new one can probably do it just as well, and probably better and
faster, with minimal donglage.

Wow. This is what it's come to. "It hasn't gotten worse! Yayy!"

~~~
realradicalwash
The quote is a bit out of context. The sentence right above it:

>It makes almost nothing worse and almost everything better, finally bringing
the Mac Mini into the modern age.

So, no, it's not "yayy" because it "hasn't gotten worse", it's "yayy", because
"[it makes] almost everything better".

~~~
drcongo
Anyone who owns a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar will definitely be saying "yay it
hasn't gotten worse!" about these.

~~~
crad
I'm pretty happy with mine, but thanks for speaking for us all with your
sweeping generalization.

~~~
phaus
I work at a company where most of us use Macs. Everyone that has upgraded from
a 2013-2015 MBP to the touchbar model absolutely hates it, including me.
There's gotta be someone around here that actually likes it, but I haven't met
them yet.

Its OK if you like it. I'm sure lots of people do, but you know damn well
significantly more people have had issues with this laptop than normal, so I'm
not sure why you're implying otherwise.

The keyboard is by far the worst I've ever used, and I've owned a variety of
$200 Wal-Mart black friday laptops and a couple of netbooks, in addition to
some high end stuff. I had a friend with an older MBP attempt to show me
something using my computer and he could barely type on it without frequent
mistakes. Within a minute he was getting frustrated. It just feels terrible. I
never thought anything would be worse than typing on a touch-screen but
Apple's engineers have accomplished a horrifying miracle. Its like they
intentionally tried to design something that's as loud as a mechanical
keyboard while still having worse tactile feedback than a $5.00 rubber dome
keyboard.

On top of that, its not noticeably faster, after 4.5 years it still maxed out
@ 16GB Ram (They fixed this in 2018 but its too late), which is not enough for
my use case + it died after 3 months (Not the keyboard, it was a power issue).

This is both the most expensive and the worst computer I've ever owned. The
2013 MBP I'm using now as a loaner while I get my new one fixed is, to quote
Steve Jobs "Like getting a glass of ice water in hell." It just works.

~~~
reaperducer
The touchbar made me realize that I have a habit of resting my fingers up
there. I came to this realization because when I didn't think I was typing
anything, stuff would happen. Eventually I realized I was touching virtual
buttons on the touchbar.

I don't hate it, but I wish more of the tools I use took advantage of it.

I think it could be massively improved by shortening it a little on the left
to make room for a physical escape key. That's about 95% of my problem with
it.

~~~
wild_preference
Consider mapping CapsLock to Esc (and Ctrl when long-pressed) with Karabiner.
I haven't used my physical Esc key since 2014 or something. Might help with
your issue.

~~~
copperx
If you remap CapsLock to Esc, what key do you use for Control for doing
Control A, Control E, Control K, Control Y, Control N, and Control P in every
application?

~~~
wild_preference
I tried to address this in my parentheses, but Karabiner specifically lets you
bind CapsLock to both: Esc when tapped alone, and Ctrl when held down in
combination with other keys.

And your post also answers you sibling comment: Ctrl modifier is useful
outside of just Emacs.

Try it out. I believe the API changed in the macOS release before Mojave, so
they relaunched Karabiner under the name Karabiner Elements. This option is
under the "Complex Modifications" tab.

If I was writing a list of tricks for macOS power users to try, this would be
my number one. Up there with binding a global show/hide hotkey for iTerm (I
use Ctrl-Space, thus CapsLock-Space).

~~~
Fnoord
I prefer Magic Trackpad 2 (or native MBP 2015 trackpad) to any other way of
navigation but Vi keybinds -if available- work as well.

I currently use Karabiner for this as well, but a slightly different
configuration.

The two rules I use are:

* R-Cmd + hjkl are arrows (which works great with HHKB but even on native MBP it requires less movement of hand from trackpad or typing hand than the arrow keys)

* Caps solo is Esc while Caps with another key equals Ctrl.

Is there a way to do this in Linux as well? I currently have to use Linux
regularly and I rebind Caps to Ctrl however for Vim it isn't ideal. So I'd
like to have the same functionality I have with Karabiner on Linux (Xorg /
console).

~~~
tincholio
You can use xcape on linux to do this. I use it to map CAPS to CTRL/ESCAPE,
and right shift to RIGHT SHIFT/COMPOSE

------
jillesvangurp
People are missing the point about the integrated graphics. For me this is a
feature not a bug because it has USB-C instead.

That means that instead of hopelessly compromising thermals and power supply
with some power hungry, yet limited GPU (because of the small form factor) you
simply buy the CPU and memory that you need. It simplifies the job of keeping
it cool.

CPUs are evolving a lot slower these days. This one should last you many years
before it becomes a problem. Having upgradeable memory all the way to 64GB
means that too is not going to be a problem any time soon. It means that a mac
mini should have a serviceable life of 3-5 years or more if you are less of a
power user.

Additionally, you plugin an eGPU of your choice and additional storage via
USB-C. Better, when improved eGPUs become available, you can sell your old one
and buy a new one without having to tear the machine apart. They also don't
overtax and compromise your power supply or cooling.

I currently have an imac 5K that is nearly 5 years old now. I maxed it out at
the time with all the bells and whistles and it has served me well. So, money
well spent despite the shocking price initially.

I'd totally consider spending 3-4K on a setup with a mac mini, decent eGPU +
monitor, and external ssd storage (I actually have a Samsung 2TB T5 already).
The new imac pro would cost more and deliver less value. What I like about
this setup is that it is completely modular and I can replace individual
components without having to worry breaking the other components.

I imagine the mac pro next year will also emphasize expansion and upgrades
through USB-C rather than internals. Basically the old model without dedicated
GPU and upgradable Xeon CPUs + Memory would be exactly the right product right
now. Egpus can be replaced easily and with a solid base configuration, a pro
machine should have a long productive life.

~~~
mijustin
What would you recommend for a Mac-compatible eGPU these days?

~~~
kylec
The Blackmagic eGPU is designed to be plug-and-play compatible with Macs. You
can even buy it directly from Apple:

[https://store.apple.com/xc/product/HM8Y2VC/A](https://store.apple.com/xc/product/HM8Y2VC/A)

Also, one nice thing about this eGPU is that it has two Thunderbolt ports, so
you can plug a Thunderbolt display like the LG UltraFine 5K directly into it.

~~~
Applejinx
Well, THAT's interesting. I've been looking at some Blackmagic stuff for
streaming and camera work, that would take burden off my desktop computer. It
looks like the new Mini plus this plus outboard x264 encoding (also includes
ability to run a good dynamic mic into the encoding) would add up to an
insanely flexible livestreaming setup that could do both GPU-needing things
and camera-based things without loading the computer, and be expandable later
with SDI camera inputs and the ability to do production video switching.

It… didn't occur to me that I might be thinking about running such a rig off a
Mac Mini. But then it didn't occur to me that a Mac Mini would come out and be
in some conditions faster than any other Mac currently made. Interesting
times…

------
blinkingled
The pricing is not really justifiable especially given the most use cases of
the Mac mini (Home Theater, NAS, Backup etc.) are better handled by other
OSes.

The NUC8 with comparable specs (sans 6 core CPU) comes at under half the
price! If you needed the 6 cores sure but given most workloads other than
encoding don't - it's questionable. Even then the 6C processor doesn't cost
enough to make up for the difference.

~~~
veidr
What OSes are better for a "Home Theater" TV computer?? That's a serious
question; I recently replaced a creaking old Mac Mini (that couldn't do 4K)
with a new Dell, after going a little bicurious with respect to Windows 10
(for software development work)... and, surprisingly, it's a complete and
utter shitshow.

I was astonished, actually; I had assumed Windows would be better than macOS
as a TV computer, other than integration with Apple services (Apple Music, my
kids photos as screensaver).

Nothing could be further from the truth. It's a shitshow. 100% of Windows
media players are garbage (VLC included, and there is no Movist). They can't
play high-bitrate video without stuttering (on way better hardware), they show
some ungodly mishmash of scaled UI and tiny unreadable UI on a 4K TV, for each
player you install (about 10, so far, for me) you have to google for an hour
to make sure they aren't malware (and of course almost all of them _nominally_
are, trying to install all sorts of insane adware shit during the install
phase, although that is par for the course on Windows)...

It's been 2 months and I saw the new Mac Mini and despite the 200%+ markup on
storage I couldn't help but think _Hmmm...._

My TV also has at its disposal Xbox (OK but not great), PS4 (pretty shit), iOS
(Apple TV, pretty shit), and Nintendo Switch (has no TV computer features at
all, basically).

So what OSes are you talking about? Linux?? Android?

~~~
muro
Why do you need a PC at all? A TV can play movies directly from a NAS.

~~~
xfitm3
I don’t trust my TV enough to be on the network.

~~~
kitsunesoba
Yes, this precisely. Smart TVs of all flavors as well as Roku boxes
voraciously mine your viewing habits, connected devices, network layout, mic
input, and practically anything else they can get their dirty little hands on.
They’re usually running out of date OSes and are full of holes to boot, making
you a potential vector for smart device botnets.

Smart TVs and Roku boxes simply cannot be trusted. I have a brand new,
relatively expensive Sony smart TV and while its Android TV support is more
than adequate I don’t use it at all and keep it off the internet at all times.
Instead, I use an Apple TV 4K.

~~~
spookthesunset
> Instead, I use an Apple TV 4K

Which is what I'd do but unfortunately Google insists on using it's own video
codec for 4k instead of H.265. Meaning your 4k AppleTV can't play YouTube
videos at 4K. My smarttv can though... We use AppleTV for everything else.

------
maxxxxx
I really don't like when reviewers test the high end configuration only. This
makes the review pretty useless for most of us who may be considering a lower
spec.

~~~
bluedino
Car manufacturers rarely send their low end models out to reviews as well.

~~~
hi5eyes
and Ferrari sends tuned versions of the car

~~~
reaperducer
Some car companies not only send out tuned versions of the cars, but a team to
tune the car during the review.

You see this on _The Grand Tour_ all the time.

------
drej
Macs aside - this video clearly shows the wonderful experience you can get
when an audio/video producer cares about audio quality. Spoken word recorded
with clear audio is so lovely.

I listen to podcasts and audiobooks on a daily basis and I really really
appreciate someone putting the effort into this. Thanks!

~~~
cptskippy
I had a hard time watching him talk because the over dubbed audio is
completely out of sync. It's really bad right around the 1 minute mark. I
ended up minimizing the window and just listening.

I honestly don't care for this audio, it's crystal clear and perfect for a
podcast but the video is of him sitting in front of a window with a dog and
the absence of any environmental noise is odd.

~~~
ihuman
"Yeah, sorry about the audio sync. I was fighting it for the entire edit, and
ran out of time to really nail it.

Next time, I’ll pipe the audio directly into the camera instead of relying on
manual syncing during post, which had tons of drift."

[https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/1059869643928670208](https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/1059869643928670208)

~~~
cptskippy
Thank you for confirming that I'm not insane. :)

------
kace91
A $2500 desktop computer with integrated graphics?

Honestly, it feels like a bit of a joke.

~~~
sgt
A huge chunk of that is the SSD. It's actually very reasonably priced,
especially considering that you get a Mac ecosystem along with the computer.

~~~
robertAngst
> considering that you get a Mac ecosystem

People consider this a good thing?

EDIT: To clarify, the cost of their proprietary devices mean spending an
additional bit. Every other company uses USB C now.

~~~
wlesieutre
I have a Windows 10 computer for gaming and oh my god am I glad I don't have
to use that for anything productive.

But hey, at least it's the year of desktop linux!

~~~
PascLeRasc
With Steam Proton you could call this the year of desktop linux gaming!

------
ryanwaggoner
Ugh, all the comments about how it's overpriced in this thread.

 _" This is crazy! You can just build your own for half the price!"_

Snooze. You could have made this comment about most of Apple's products for
decades. Some people apparently just don't get it, so here it is from my
perspective:

As long as Apple does what I need, I'm not going to buy anything else. I'm
definitely not going to build my own PC to save a few bucks. I recognize that
not everyone is in this position, but my time is valuable and the difference
between "click buy" and "research and buy a ton of parts and assemble them and
install software and drivers and blah blah blah" is worth thousands of dollars
to me.

I rely on a Macbook Pro for work every day. I generally keep them for 2-3
years, and given my preferences, work setup, software, and how much money I
make with these things, I'd pay triple (or more) what Apple currently charges
for them vs. getting some shitty Dell or Lenovo and hassling with Windows or
Linux. That's not to say everyone should feel that way, but that's my
situation, and I'm not alone.

~~~
tomduncalf
100% this, but for people who don't make money from using the computer I can
see how the high prices are a real problem

~~~
ryanwaggoner
But Apple's strategy has never been to go after the price-sensitive market.
Complaining that their prices are way higher than commodity parts you can
piece together yourself makes zero sense. That's like complaining that a
Ferrari is way more expensive than a Honda.

~~~
tomduncalf
Yep, good point. I read someone online commenting that Apple's "price
sensitive" option are second-hand devices as they (historically) remain
updated and working well for a long time. Hopefully the new 3rd generation
keyboard will stand up to years of use - I'm not at all confident that my 2017
will have much resale value due to the keyboard issues.

~~~
symfoniq
Resale value on my 6 month-old MBP 2017 was pretty rough.

------
thresh
The review doesnt tell you that you cannot upgrade or replace your SSD.

~~~
KozmoNau7
Which also means the entire thing has to be thrown out when the SSD eventually
dies. Sure it's going to take a while, but it will happen. Yay consumerism, I
guess.

~~~
tzs
In late 2014 I replaced the disks in my 2008 Mac Pro at work and my 2009 Mac
Pro at home with Samsung EVO 840 and 850 SSD disks. I kept track of
accumulated writes.

Both machines were heavily used for development and consumer type stuff. No
big data stuff or big media stuff.

Samsung rates these things at 150 TB write endurance for the 850 and something
around 120 TB for the 840.

My projection based on that usage is that it will take over 35 years to reach
100 TB.

Samsung's ratings are quite conservative. Reviewers that have put these things
through write torture tests to the point of error have typically gotten
several times Samsung's rating. Around 170 years worth of writes at my usage
rate.

I haven't seen numbers for Apple's durability, but if it is within even
distant sight of Samsung's EVO performance you can expect to have retired the
computer for other reasons long before the SSD dies.

I'd expect that the only reason the SSD might lead to getting a new computer
is that you want a bigger SSD, but even that might not be an issue because
Thunderbolt 3 gives pretty good performance for external disks.

My Mac Pros have both been retired, replaced with a 2017 iMac (one iMac could
replace both office and work computer because we switched to working at home).
My Samsung EVOs are now on the iMac in an AKiTiO Thunder3 Quad Mini enclosure.

The internal SSD in the iMac gets just short of 2000 MB/s for both read and
write, according to Disk Speed Test from Blackmagic Design. The Samsung EVOs
get around 465 MB/s write, 520 MB/s read, so 1/4 the internal disk but still
fast enough for most purposes.

Note that the Samsungs are SATA drives. Something that made more direct use of
TB3 could probably go much faster.

~~~
slantyyz
I bought a 1TB Samsung 840 Evo in September 2013, and it just died last month.
So it was in operation for around 5 years.

I used it for development type stuff. It outlasted the 2011 MBP I bought it
for. In fact, I ran it on 3 different computers during its life span.

Overall, I'm pretty happy that it got the 5 years. With spindles, I prefer to
replace them every 2 years to avoid headaches.

------
catchmeifyoucan
This article makes me happy. To see that Apple is listening. I'm super excited
for the next Macbook Pro,and I really hope we really get something that is
better, more reliable and practical. I'll be thrilled if they can find their
groove again for the Macbook Pro

------
matthewmacleod
I'm in the market for a new machine, but unfortunately that GPU is too anaemic
to make sense. It's a shame, because otherwise it looks like a pretty great
proposition. An eGPU is an option, but at £500+ and twice the size of the
machine, not a vary attractive one.

I guess the options are throwing down the cash for a 15" MacBook Pro, or
waiting to see what they come up with for the Mac Pro next year…

~~~
nik736
I have the same issue, I don't understand why they are able to fit a Vega in
the 15" MBP but not in the larger Mac Mini.

15" MBP is not an option for me because of the touchbar and keyboard, so I am
basically out of options.

~~~
hjnilsson
Yea, it could at least have been an option. But my guess is they didn't want
too many SKUs, and wanted to hit a price-point of less than $1000.

~~~
kalleboo
Also they need to preserve a market for the "modular" Mac Pro next year

------
rado
In a world of 5K displays and Apple's insistence on smoothness, this GPU just
won't work.

~~~
thirdsun
Is that really an issue with Intel's integrated GPUs? Honestly asking.

I'm considering a Mac Mini, but there's no way I'm going back to low PPI
displays and the lack of affordable 5K / 27" options concerns me (in my
opinion 4K/UHD at 27" is a borderline unusable combination with its effective
resolution of 1080p - feel free to convince me otherwise).

If those few 5K options can't be driven smoothly by an Intel GPU, it's settled
and I'm waiting for an iMac update instead. Ideally I'd like a multi monitor
setup though.

~~~
basejumping
Looking to buy a 4k 27 inch external monitor for my 2018 macbook. What's the
problem with it and why is it not better than a 1080p?

~~~
thirdsun
It's better than 1080p as it is much sharper and crisper, but 1080p at 27
inches results in rather large UI elements. An effective resolution of
2560x1440px (as seen in any iMac 27) seems like the proper resolution for a
display of that size.

Read more about it here:
[https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/](https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/)

~~~
tabs_masterrace
I'm curios about this too, does the Mac Mini offer "scaled" options, like
MacBooks do with their built-in display, when connecting to an external 4k
monitor? I think it does some supersampling, resulting in higher effective
resolution.

~~~
thirdsun
Sure, it does offer scaling, but you really want 2x scaling - I tried non-
integer values on a 5k display, just to get a sense for it, and it was as
disappointing as expected. Slightly blurry text, rather obvious that this
wasn‘t the recommended native setting.

In my opinion 2x scaling is the only option and that leaves you with an
effective resolution of 1920x1080 points - sure, it‘s sharp, but far from true
5k and more importantly the same screen real estate we used to fit into 20-24
incch displays for years. It‘s the wrong resolution for 27“.

------
benologist
Is anyone worried that Apple's transition to their own CPUs will render these
x86 machines obsolete very fast? How long did it take for the pre-x86 Macs to
fall behind when the software started focusing on x86 instead?

~~~
rangibaby
Apple waited for 5 years to release a version of OSX that couldn’t run PPC
apps on x86 Macs.

Last PPC Mac: 2005

First x86 Macs: 2006, PPC apps work on x86 Macs

Adobe CS3 (first native x86 version): 2007

OSX 10.5, last OSX version released for PPC Macs: 2007

\--

OSX 10.6 (x86 only, PPC apps still work): 2009

Adobe CS5 (x86 only): 2010

OSX 10.7, PPC apps no longer work: 2011

------
shurcooL
> Unfortunately, we still don’t have any great standalone 5K displays. (The LG
> UltraFine isn’t.)

What’s wrong with the LG display? It gets a lot of criticism, but I find it
hard to understand why. There was an interference shielding issue, but it was
fixed more than a year ago.

For anyone familiar with the matter, what is it that makes the LG not great?

~~~
scaasic
My personal issue with it is the lack of standard inputs, which make it
impossible to use with an eGPU setup (excluding the Blackmagic, but that's a
whole other kind of subpar). The data ports being exclusively USB-C is
probably an issue for some as well.

~~~
kylec
If your complaint about the Blackmagic eGPU being “subpar” was the power of
the Radeon Pro 580, you’ll be happy to hear that one with a Vega 56 is now
available:

[https://store.apple.com/xc/product/HMQT2VC/A](https://store.apple.com/xc/product/HMQT2VC/A)

~~~
scaasic
It was partially the 580, partially the inability to swap out the card. It's
nice that they're offering Vega options now, but for that model I'd be paying
a $500 premium over a comparable setup, with TB3 out being the only benefit.
I'll stick with my Dell P2415Q + Akitio Node for now.

------
dev_north_east
I bought a mac mini ten years ago (for about E400?). It still lives on today
as my parent's desktop. I passed to them many years ago and not one problem.
Fantastic machine.

However I cannot justify the prices they're asking for these ones. I'm looking
for a new machine for myself now, but no way will these be considered.

~~~
adamlett
Let me get this straight: You would not consider paying a premium for a
machine even though your experience tells you, that it has a useful life of
10+ years?

~~~
ntsplnkv2
All of my experiences with Mac have been like this.

Got a MBP for college, 2009. Still running as my mom's laptop in 2018.
Meanwhile my dad's 2 year old dell has endless problems, it's incredibly
cheap, despite having better internal hardware. It's slower, needed tons of
configuration out of the box, and Windows 10 is just awful. My dad's laptop
constantly has issues. My mom? Never once. It just works.

I will gladly pay for a product that is like that. I don't care what an SSD
costs on Amazon. I don't want to spend time looking up components and
motherboards and bargain hunting. I don't care about gaming and therefore the
GPU. People on here look at numbers and costs but they never consider the
customer experience.

It's far more damning of Apple to have the bad keyboard on the new MBPs than
have some overpriced hardware. Ask 99% of people on the street if they even
know what an i7 is.

~~~
pier25
I used to be as enthusiastic as you.

I've bought a number of Macs since I switched in 2007 and I've had a number of
tragic stories.

My wife's previous Macbook Air died during its second year. It was working
fine and one day it didn't turn on. Apple Mexico asked for close to $1000 at
the time to replace the logic which was simply ridiculous.

My top of the line 2011 MBP died when it was 2.5 years old because of a known
GPU defect. Apple fixed it over a year later but it was too late. I already
had a new machine and the second hand value of the 2011 plummeted. I ended up
giving it away to a junior dev in my team a couple of years later.

My current laptop is a 2014 13'' rMBP. I wanted to change the battery and
Apple Mexico asked for close to $400 since it argued the complete top panel
had to be replaced. I ended up doing it myself for less than $100.

I still prefer Macs for working because of macOS, but I don't know what I will
do when my current laptop dies.

~~~
ntsplnkv2
I'm sure lots of people have stories like ours, one way or another. Things
break. Not everything is perfect, but sometimes it is. How often are macs
really failing? We hear stories because Apple is hated and you-tubers love
getting scenarios where they can make an attack apple video. But without
actual numbers we have no idea if this is a trend or not. Consumer Reports
regularly ranks Apple as having the best failure rates.

For a long time smart car buyers never bought redesigned vehicles. Why? Their
reliability is unknown. As device gains in hardware continue to diminish,
perhaps it'd be wise for us to take this stance with electronics - and wait a
few years.

> I still prefer Macs for working because of macOS, but I don't know what I
> will do when my current laptop dies.

Sadly it's not much better on the other side. Premium window machines still
can't get basic things like the touchpad right. Windows 10 is pretty bad. I'd
gladly get another machine - but nothing offers what I like about my Macs. The
linux people aren't worth bothering with. Most people don't want to deal with
the limits - and there aren't a lot of manufacturers.

~~~
pier25
My biggest gripe is not that things fail (that's completely expected) but how
Apple reacts to that.

For example my 2007 MBP suffered from Nvidiagate. The GPU died during its
third year, many months after the warranty had ended. Apple fixed it, no
questions asked.

The 2011 Radeongate affair was ridiculous. There were thousands and thousands
of users complaining online. It took Apple 2 years from the first machines
failing to start a repair program AFTER a couple of class action lawsuits. It
was a massive fuckup.

I haven't bought any of the redesigned MBPs with the butterfly keyboard, but
again it took a couple of years to get a repair program after a couple of
class action lawsuits. Also, in the US Apple is all fine and dandy, but in
Mexico I've personally witnessed cases of Apple refusing to repair the
keyboard because apparently they couldn't reproduce the issue.

> But without actual numbers we have no idea if this is a trend or not

Yeah, Apple is as opaque as things can be. Even more now than they will not
even share the number of units sold in future reports.

------
bouvin
Looks promising. I've ordered one to replace my ancient cheese grater Mac Pro,
and it should be quite an update.

I've always been fond of the old Mac Pros (still one of most beautiful
machines from Apple), but the extensibility through TB3 has rendered many of
the advantages moot (and my Mac Pro is stuffed to the gills).

------
thirdsun
Side discussion: What are everyone's thoughts when it comes to external HiDPI
monitor options to use with this Mac Mini?

Ideally I'd want 5K displays (I'm used to the iMac 5K) but it seems that LG's
UltraFine is the only real option and the rest of the industry has settled on
4K/UHD at 27 inches, which results in a) limited screen real estate due to an
effective resolution of 1080p at 2x scaling and b) slightly less pixel
density.

I maybe fine with b) but both issues considered I'm seriously wondering why
UHD displays at 27" are so popular - it seems like a subpar and regretful
combination. Are my worries unwarranted?

~~~
zaphoyd
I’ve been using dell P2415Qs. I run 3 at the HiDPI “looks like 2560x1440”.
It’s not perfect 2x scaling, but it is close enough (185 dpi) and the price
$300-400 each cant be beat. I’ve considered switching to the 21.5 inch LG
ultrafines (220 dpi) but they are $700 and have very limited port choices
compared to the dells. I use the dell displays with multiple other machines
that don’t have USB-C graphics out. And want to be able to use the displays
with eGPUs that won’t have USB-C out.

I just hope the default GPU of the mini can drive 3 UHD displays without
choking on the dock animations :|

~~~
thirdsun
Well, at least 24“ are more reasonable for UHD or 1080p at 2x scaling. However
I currently use a non-retina iMac 27 at home (which I‘m looking to replace)
and an iMac 5k at work - I really want both: Screen real estate and retina-
level pixel density.

Concerning the Ultrafine: Yes, it‘s too expensive and since I‘d need to
connect it to another PC without Thunderbolt it‘s not an option for me.

edit: There‘s also this option: [https://iiyama.com/gl_en/products/prolite-
xb2779qqs-s1/](https://iiyama.com/gl_en/products/prolite-xb2779qqs-s1/) \-
it‘s sold for under 700€ here in europe, but the 6bit is concerning.

------
robertsd247
There is zero justification for the pricing. It needs to be starting around
$399. Apple is still working the privileged pricing model. Considering it has
year old processor and 8GB RAM. For $800 an i5 and 16GB should be standard. I
can forgive that 128GB SSD but not the CPU or RAM.

Side note, why is a computer only for games, streaming, and mining bitcoin? It
that what the end user experience is limited to?

~~~
douglaswlance
Apple uses value-based pricing, not cost-based pricing.

~~~
robertsd247
Fair enough, but it "values" the Mac Mini at $799 with a year-old i3 and 8GB
of RAM? It valued the last one at $499 and it was 5 years old. I guess what
the market will bear is really true...for Apple.

~~~
douglaswlance
It's not about how much Apple values their products. Value-based pricing is
based on how much value the customer gets out of the product.

~~~
robertsd247
The customer will not get $799 of value out of a Mac Mini. It will be made
obsolete by Apple before that happens. Especially if Apple takes another 4
years to release the next one.

------
noja
Too expensive. If you just want a redundant NAS everything else is cheaper. If
you want a non-redundant NAS asingle disk NAS enclosure costs 54 bucks:
[https://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_cod...](https://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G151505170472)

~~~
user68858788
I'm fairly new to this NAS stuff. Is there a reason to have one hard drive per
sever, or is that just a limitation of this one in particular? I'm sure that
RAID over a network of hard drives is a solved problem, but I wouldn't know
where to start.

~~~
noja
It's a limitation of that odroid enclosure. You could do raid over iscsi (but
I wouldn't). Buffalo do a 2 drive enclosure very cheap, but I'd go for a
synology or qnap enclosure for a bit more money.

------
ender89
This is a really weird device. The mac mini has long been used as a home
theater pc of the apple ecosystem, due to it's formfactor and being the one
apple device that didn't come with its own 20 inch screen or 3 foot tall
tower. Apple tv, for all it's shortcomings, has sort of supplanted that and
you're much better off sticking that under your tv and running your plex
server somewhere else. So now we have a mac mini which is too expensive to be
a home theater pc or to be stuck in a closet serving media, and is comparably
priced with macs that have actual screens. So its like good for someone who
for some reason doesn't want to carry a macbook around but wants a semi-
portable workstation? or someone who wants an iMac with a bigger screen? It's
not useful as a mac mini, and it's pretty redundant thanks to every use case
being covered by an existing mac. Who is this device for? Who is buying this
over a macbook or imac?

~~~
gurkendoktor
I've bought two Minis as dev machines in the past. Portability was part of it.
I also saved a bunch of money because I already had a full set of peripherals.
Edit: Upgradable RAM and the ability to install a second drive was also great
in retrospect, I wonder if the latter is still possible with the 2018 model.

And I'm not sure whether glossy Retina screens are really the best bang for
the buck for developers. I often wish I had dual 1440p or a ginormous 21:9
screen when I'm dealing with complex projects.

------
nzjrs
I really wish people would more clearly disclose when they have been provided
a product to review by the manufacturer.

~~~
msh
Can it really be more clear than this:

Apple lent me a high-end configuration for review — 6-core i7, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB
SSD — which would cost $2499 (much of which is the SSD)

~~~
emptyfile
How about blazing red letters at the top of the page?

How about putting "paid review" in the title of the HN submit?

~~~
kd5bjo
But is this a paid review? He was lent the hardware, which means he had to
return it after he had made his review. While there’s certainly some conflict
of interest there, I don’t know anyone that would consider that a payment.

~~~
ilogik
it's common practice for journalists to get review unit, which they later
return. Not just apple, everybody does it.

Also, in case you're not familiar with Marco, he was a co-founder of Tumblr,
created Instapaper, and is the developer of Overcast (podcast app for iOS).
Not sure he needs the money

------
Down_n_Out
I've been an avid Apple user and supporter for many years, preached about the
stability and the superior (tongue in cheek) hardware. I was waiting for a
decent replacement for an ageing mini, but seriously Apple, at these prices??
It's insane. I've made up my mind after I saw the Apple event and
reading/following the news of them hiding their sales numbers from now on [0].

I've switched over to Linux as my main desktop completely. While I've been
using Windows for years, Windows 10 is just not doing it for me, even with
WSL, it just feels limited and unpolished. Anyway, rant over. [0]
[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/when-the-going-gets-
tough-...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/when-the-going-gets-tough-apple-
hides-its-numbers-2018-11-01)

------
jpkeisala
Slightly off topic but is there cloud Mac/Xcode that I subscribe to for my
occasional App development?

~~~
aequitas
There probably is but it will be built on top of Mac mini or Mac Pro farms as
Apple does not allow virtualization of macOS on any hardware not carrying a
Apple logo (I believe that is how it is actually stated in the terms even). So
of it is available it might not be a cheaper option.

But I believe Travis CI does have macOS workers available for free, but they
might be scarce in available time slots.

~~~
GordonS
I've been using MacInCloud at work for the past 2 years or so, renting a
single server for use as a VSTS/Azure DevOps build agent server, for iOS
builde. I'm very happy with it - the server we have is fast enough, both CPU
and disk, and it's been rock solid.

I've only contacted their support team about billing stuff, but they were
responsive and helpful.

Disclaimer: no affiliation, just a happy user.

------
bo0tzz
"...cost $2499 (much of which is the SSD)"

The cheapest SSD I can find goes for €129.47, and it doesn't seem to get up to
much more for consumer SSDs. Unless this SSD has some crazy specs that I'm
missing, it seems seriously overpriced to me.

~~~
veidr
Apple charges +$600 (USD) for a 0.25 → 1TB SSD upgrade.

I heard some complaints, but was all like "Yeah, but modern Apple SSDs are
3GB/sec, that is pretty good, bros..."

My coworker clued me in, though:

    
    
        1TB samsung 970Pro M.2 (3GB/s) 
        was as low as AUD$304 here just
        yesterday.   Thats ~USD$215.  I
        don't usually mind paying the 
        _AppleTax_ but that is ridiculously 
        overpriced.
    

I buy all sorts of overpriced Apple shit, but that _is_ so overpriced it's
kinda offensive.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
I don't know anything about SSDs (hint) but that SSD looks like it's on sale
at Amazon right now for $393. I'm more than happy to pay Apple a premium of
$200 or whatever to just get what I want out of the box and not have to think
about this, research options and compatibility, worry about drivers or who
knows what else, etc.

~~~
muro
There are no compatibility issues, drivers or who knows what else with PCIe
m.2 SSDs.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Yeah, I have no idea what PCIe m.2 is, and I don't really care to find out.
That's my point.

~~~
muro
I don't believe you:

If you put anything inside your PC, you'll have to look up how it connects :)

Even outside - whether it's USB-C or thunderbolt actually matters, HDMI vs
Displayport etc.

------
nl
This sounds like it’d make a decent development machine - better in many ways
than a MPB.

------
JustSomeNobody
> ... not a low end product anymore...

Apple is clearly pushing everything towards a more luxury high end. More than
ever, they're pushing the market to see how far they can go.

They're pricing me out. I can afford their stuff, I just find it hard to
justify it.

------
locusm
Having a user serviceable M.2 slot would have made this the perfect Mac for
me. Lets say I have Applecare for the first 3 years and the SSD dies on the
4th year, what are my options? Replace entire logic board with new CPU & SSD?

------
wufufufu
I'm impressed, but I am also not sure how accurate the benchmarks he's using
are for replicating real-world load.

I actually think it's pretty cost effective if you go for 32GB RAM instead of
64GB, and keep the baseline 256GB SSD storage. It comes out to $1,899. With
64GB RAM and 2TB storage, it comes out to $4,099, which is a huge markup for
things that can be self-upgraded on a PC.

Even $2,699 for the 64GB version doesn't seem that bad for effectively the
best MacOS running computer you can get currently.

~~~
neolefty
How hard is it to upgrade yourself?

~~~
tkxxx7
According to the article, you just need a T6.

------
karpodiem
Can't replace the SSD? Pass.

------
xedarius
I can upgrade the ram, the most useful piece of information in the review. If
I could upgrade the SSD too, I'd be tempted.

------
kbumsik
How is it compared to Intel's Hades Canyon? I'm thinking between those two
mini-sized computers.

~~~
benologist
I have the Hades' predecessor, one advantage of this line is a pair of M.2
slots in RAID that will later hold 4tb, 8tb, etc NVMe sticks allowing
massively more capacity at similar speed to the Mini's storage.

The AMD graphics in the Hades' is vastly better, but still significantly
inferior to anything you will connect via eGPU. A lot of casual usage will not
require the Hades' GPU but you'll always pay a power/thermal price for it. As
resolutions increase, or depending on your requirements now, you'll probably
be forced to pair it with an eGPU because it really only excels at 1080p for
3d stuff afaik.

One nice thing from the Hades' predecessor is fanless cases, I don't know if
they've emerged yet for the Hades Canyon but going fanless is really amazing.
Prior to that it could be loud, and the Hades added a second loud fan for the
GPU.

------
ksec
It doesn't seems Apple is interested in using AMD CPU / APU in their products,
otherwise they would have a decent iGPU along side.

I was expecting the Intel + AMD GPU combo to end up in this Mac mini, turns
out not.

------
torgian
I’m pretty sure I would rather buy an iMac than a Mac mini. An iMac at least
comes with a display, and the base 4K version is competitive in price and
features as far as I can tell.

~~~
kylec
I bought an iMac last year and regretted it. The performance was fine, but I
ended up disliking the fact that it was an all-in-one. The fact that you can
get iMac performance without a display attached is a big feature of the new
Mac mini for me.

~~~
torgian
Yeah. I guess if portability is a plus, that would be better than an iMac. I
move once a year so that wouldn’t really be a problem for me, but if you need
a Mac for portability, why not just get a MacBook?

I think the Mac mini is at an awkward price point. You need a monitor,
keyboard and mouse which cost you extra. At that point you can get a base
MacBook Pro.

I think it would only really make sense for businesses

------
mywacaday
Can anyone explain the market for this to me? In Ireland Mac Mini: 8th Gen i5
Processor/8GB RAM/256GB SSD €1269

Dell XPS 13 with: 8th Gen i5 Processor/8GB RAM/256GB SSD €1189

~~~
thirdsun
Unless the XPS can run macOS the comparison will be useless to the target
audience of the Mac Mini. Furthermore both are very different product
categories.

------
logifail
I bought my first-ever Mac just over three weeks ago, a refurbished Mac Mini
(2010 version, with Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz, upgraded by seller to 8GB and 240GB SSD
and High Sierra).

Pretty happy so far.

------
bluedino
I would have liked to see performance compared to the 2018 15” MacBook Pro,
since they are around the same cost. The 13-inch really got its butt kicked.

------
yakshaving_jgt
I'm just waiting for the same article but for Macbooks.

I can't wait to throw my money at Apple when they bring back MagSafe and
scissor switches.

Not holding my breath though.

------
jackfrodo
>Apple lent me a high-end configuration for review

Is this common, for a company to _lend_ a product for review, instead of just
giving it to the reviewer?

------
testaccit450
The new mac mini seems like a straightforward improvement from the other
versions with few things getting worse. I love that.

------
mohsen1
I'm looking forward to see server blades made out of those Macs. It's just
satisfying to see how they are built

------
singularity2001
Best display to buy with the new mini is probably: Eizo Flexscan ev2785 4k 27"

------
msie
I am eagerly awaiting iFixit's teardown of the new mac mini.

------
hartator
I wonder how it'll perform as a "super" Apple Tv.

------
invinciblehog
I wonder how long the Mac mini will stick around

------
ctz
> $2499 (much of which is the SSD)

Where 'much' is approximately 5-10%.

~~~
ukdeveloper
In terms of the retail price. More like 30-35%.

The 1TB SSD is a $800 option on the 128GB base model, and a $600 option on the
256GB model.

The 2TB SSD is an even more eye-watering $1600 option from the base model.

------
TwoNineA
Stop using Geekbench for reviews :(

~~~
jacobroyquebec
What would you recommend instead?

~~~
rado
FCPX BruceX

------
LeoNatan25
Apple’s new strategy seems to be, instead of having products that sell
themselves for their clear benefits, just flood either YouTube casuals or
Twitter “celebrities” (depending on target segment) with the highest end
config machine and expect praise.

~~~
winuser
That has always been Apple's MO. Ever since their "Think Different" marketing
campaign, where they realized they can convince the sheep to follow if they
associate with the brightest minds and celebrities (e.g., put an Apple logo
next to Einstein, next to an astronaut, etc.) without actually offering a
better product.

It's always been a fashion statement to own an Apple product...

What bothers me is how the technical community, both software engineers and
academics, have fallen into this trap.

A new Win10 pc is a much better development machine. Sorry, but I do prefer to
Think Different and don't care about what is fashionable, but make my choices
based on specs, utility and value.

~~~
jemurray
Since I am part of this aforementioned technical community, I will spend a few
extra dollars in order to get: 1) high resolution screen, 2) large track pad
that works well, 3) native "unix like" shell, 4) sleep that works 100%
reliably when I close the lid.

I don't consider it a fashion statement, I just want it to work. After 20+
years I don't like to tinker with my desktop anymore. I would go back to
Gnu/Linux for desktop, but finding the right hardware with the above specs is
a challenge if not impossible (I have yet to find a track pad driver that
works as well as Apples).

I have not reevaluated in 2018, If there is anything better I would like to
hear specific examples of hardware and OS combinations?

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
> native "unix like" shell

Funnily enough, IIRC Darwin isn't unix-like - it's an actual certified UNIX™:)
Although in the modern ecosystem, perhaps it's more appropriate and useful to
say that it's a Linux-like :-)

------
yuhong
As a side note, it is a good thing that Apple is supporting 16Gbit DDR4 on
time and schedule. (this was not always true in the past)

------
tonetheman
TLDR - Overpriced. Buy something else.

------
LeicaLatte
The pricing is a joke.

Refurbised Mac Pro with dual GPUs and SSDs are much better value.

------
Cenk
Off topic, but Marco has lost a bunch of weight! Not sure I love the beard
though.

------
me551ah
A 2500$ windows desktop will give you.

1\. A much better discrete GPU which can run titles in 4k.

2\. Ability to run games cause windows has DirectX.

3\. Ability to run Linux natively using WSL.

4\. Expandability - You can add components like more RAM or an additional GPU.

~~~
OJFord
> 3\. Ability to run Linux natively using WSL.

But what are you doing in WSL that you can't do on a Mac (or, of course, a
Linux machine) without a 'subsystem'?

Sincere question, because the 'Mac is not Linux' things that wind me up tend
to require X11 to fix, WSL would be no different.

~~~
me551ah
Mac ships with their own posix subsystem, WSL allows you to install a bunch of
popular flavours of linux on top of Windows. I personally run Arch Linux and
have access to a lot more bleeding edge packages.

~~~
rswail
To clarify, Mac ships with a native Unix [1], derived from BSD, not a posix
subsystem. It has its own init (launchd) and its own GUI, but most of it is a
Unix.

Using Macports or homebrew gets you most of the packages that are available
for the various Linuxes, GNU utilities etc.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_%28operating_system%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_%28operating_system%29)

------
joshstrange
The review was good but I'm honestly surprised that Marco, of all people,
would have such a badly dubbed video. Get Casey Liss to help you, his audio in
videos isn't as good as your audio but it matches his voice at least.
#AccidentalBadVideoDubbing

