
The 2014 Mac Mini reviewed - bane
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/11/not-the-upgrade-we-were-hoping-for-the-2014-mac-mini-reviewed/
======
mmastrac
Ugh. This is the trend that will finally push me off Apple desktop/laptop
hardware:

"you'll finally see that the new Mac Mini's RAM is soldered directly to the
motherboard. It's no longer user-upgradeable, so make sure you order all the
RAM you need when you buy the computer in the first place."

~~~
jiggy2011
I wonder why they did this? In the case of the macbooks and iMacs at least, it
can be somewhat justified as a space saving measure. However the new mini is
the same size as the old one and it's already quite tiny.

~~~
smackfu
One tangible reason is support costs. A new Mac mini is never going to the
Genius Bar because of bad third party memory, or badly seated memory, or a
static shock administered to the mother board while the memory was being
changed.

Even if those are quite rare, support incidents can be expensive, so it could
be a dollar or two average per mini being saved.

~~~
jacquesm
I remember when CMOS was new and static really did damage just about every
part you handled if you weren't careful. Little conductive wrist band
connected to steel desk, carbon coated conductive foam to work on and so on.
But for the life of me I can't remember when a part failed due to static in
the last decade or even longer. If anything broke it was either a cable or a
soldered connection to a board.

Sure, I've had RAM break, but that was _factory_ installed RAM that was
several years old. This is definitely anecdata but it would be interesting to
know how much damage static really does these days. If you're going out of
your way to pet your cat prior to installing your RAM chips on a glass floor
or something like that then you're probably asking for it. But regular
precautions (place RAM container _on_ the case before opening package, hold
the case while inserting the RAM) seem to be more than enough. On chip ESD
protection has come a long way since the 80's.

[http://www.amazon.com/On-Chip-Protection-Integrated-
Circuits...](http://www.amazon.com/On-Chip-Protection-Integrated-Circuits-
International/dp/0792376471)

------
zrail
I have been using a 2012 mini as a home server, but recently when I needed to
upgrade I decided to get a Dell T20. Cheaper, more and more powerful cores,
and lots of internal expansion possibilities. Of course, the trade off is that
it's considerably bigger, but it's just sitting in a closet at home so it's
not a big deal. Oh, and at idle it only uses 20 watts, about the same as the
mini.

------
JeremyMorgan
I posted this a few days ago:

[https://twitter.com/JeremyCMorgan/status/529727399353937922](https://twitter.com/JeremyCMorgan/status/529727399353937922)

I was curious because of the differences in the U vs M processor so I went
into Best Buy and ran Geekbench on one.

I know CPU isn't everything... but what exactly would be a reason for putting
a power saving CPU in something that's plugged into the wall? My current Mini
already uses far less power than any of my old stand up PCs of the past.

I'm kind of puzzled what the selling point to the Mini is now. At first it was
an affordable Mac for those who don't have the money (or want to spend the
money) for a pro, but at this point it seems to just be an underpowered box
you can't upgrade for roughly the same price as a macbook air or better
powered PC.

~~~
jws
Power=heat. If you want a tiny box without a lot of fan noise you need to
watch your power.

I think the point of the Mini is "good enough for many people". And great for
them. No sense buying RAM sockets you will never use, solder it down. That's a
cheaper and more reliable connection.

Most people who purchase a mini never upgrade RAM or persistent storage.
Remember that if you are posting on HN, you are an anomaly and live surrounded
by similar anomalies so you may not realize it.

~~~
danieldk
_Remember that if you are posting on HN, you are an anomaly and live
surrounded by similar anomalies so you may not realize it._

Most non-technical Mac users that I know have MacBooks (having worked in a
linguistics faculty, I knew many). The only Mac Mini users that I know are
actually techies.

Edit: of course, in the end it does not really matter. The Mac Mini is
probably a tiny slice of the total number of Macs sold. For other models
people (including me) already accept paying much extra for upgrades.

~~~
jws
It occurs that I may have an observer bias, since I only see someone's mini if
I am in their office or house, but can see their laptop many places.

I was going to use Amazon's _Best Sellers_ to try to ferret out how few Mac
Minis really get sold compared to iMacs and laptops. At least at this moment,
Mac Minis are the best selling Mac. No doubt from fence sitters waiting for an
announcement, but interesting none the less.

#12 Entry level Mini

#21 Middle iMac

#30 Middle Mini

#34 Low end iMac

#42 Whiz-bang 5k iMac

#50 2012 Mac Mini (quad core coveters)

#80 High end Mini

#87 Ancient, used 17" iMac. Really? sort of in the weeds here.

#100 2012 Mini, but volume must be near zero to be under that iMac.

------
protomyth
Its actually more expensive when you try to get near what the 2012 model had.
They really messed this one up. 2 cores not 4, soldered RAM, and no 2 hard
drives.

I wish Apple would throw people who cannot buy the Mac Pro a bone, but that's
not the way of a consumer electronics company.

------
rdl
I predict these will be pretty short lived; there will be a Late-2015 Mac Mini
with 4K 60Hz which hopefully also fixes the quad core problem (lack of).

Sticking with my 2011 and 2012; I might upgrade the 2011 to a 2012 if I can
get a cheap refurb.

------
rogy
We'd been waiting to replace our '12 minis with new ones in the office, but
have instead just gone for MBP retinas. Can't see any reason to go with the
minis now they're not upgradeable at all, other than price.

~~~
pptr1
Why does it need to be replaced? '12 mini would still be going strong.

------
bronson
I made a quick video with the same conclusion: stay on 2012 and wait until a
worthy upgrade comes along. (Well, unless you want PCIe SSD I/O bandwith --
that's much faster. But multicore is sooo much slower that it's not a clear
win.)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmmkD2rgNgA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmmkD2rgNgA)
No need to watch the video, all the info is in the description.

------
jdechko
In theory it's off-putting, but in practice I'm not really bothered by the
changes. If I were to buy one, it would only be as a home server for iTunes
Library hosting (to AppleTV) and as a backup destination for CrashPlan. My
current server is an old Dell desktop that draws a lot of power and it's
pretty noisy. Even the base configuration of the mini is plenty for what I
would want to do with it.

------
broknbottle
It would appear they are just offering what Intel has available. I'm guess the
Intel I5-4260U as it's 1.4GHz w/ Intel 5000 Graphics. It doesn't look like
Intel even offers a mobile version of i5 with 4 cores and I couldn't find a
mobile i7 with 4 cores and intel 5000+ graphics. This is one area A10 APUs
that AMD really has Intel beat.

~~~
kylec
Intel does offer quad-core mobile chips with Intel 5000+ graphics. Apple's
even shipping them in the 15" retina MacBook Pro. Here's the mid-tier chip:

[http://ark.intel.com/products/83504/Intel-Core-i7-4870HQ-
Pro...](http://ark.intel.com/products/83504/Intel-Core-i7-4870HQ-
Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_70-GHz)

The issue with using these in the Mac mini, as mentioned in the article, is
that they require a different socket than the dual-core i5 chips. If Apple
wanted to offer both dual and quad-core chips in the Mac mini, they'd need to
design and ship two different boards.

It might have been more costly to do so, but I think that Apple's doing their
customers a great disservice by not offering something between a dual-core i5
with soldered RAM and the $3K Mac Pro.

~~~
broknbottle
ah Thank you for pointing that out. I think the rMBP is actually a great
middle of the road option. It supports multiple monitors with
2xthunderbolt,1xhdmi. I've seen lots of companies opting for these over mac
minis and just having employees dock them in clamshell mode.

------
th0ma5
I got a Zotac Zbox a while ago instead of a mini and was wondering if anyone
else has seen any nifty things in the micro ATX world?

~~~
badsock
My main desktop machine is an Asus Chromebox with an upgraded SSD and Linux
installed. Had a hex-core 3.8GHz tower sitting right beside it, but I found I
never booted it.

I spend most of my life in terminal windows, but it runs FireFox, the Gimp,
and older games like HL2 just fine. Fan almost never goes on.

~~~
marktheis
I'm quite interested in that. What model/cpu/ram do you have? And when the fan
goes on how loud is it?

~~~
badsock
It's a M004U (AKA CN60). I should also have mentioned that I bumped the RAM to
6G (though 4 would have been fine). CPU is a Celeron 2955U, 1.8GHz dual core.

Fan's moderately loud. It seems to only come on when the GPU is stressed,
rather than the CPU (playing 3D games, essentially). Doesn't come on when I'm
playing movies or compiling code.

I run Arch with XFCE as my desktop, which I admit isn't very demanding - but
it's zippy. Can't say what it'd be like under Gnome/KDE, but if I had to bet
I'd say it'd be fine.

Installing Linux isn't for the faint of heart, but there's some good guides
and it doesn't take long.

------
louwrentius
The $500 Mini is a dishonest lie by Apple.

Look at what happens when you give the 1.4 Ghz model 8 GB Ram and a fusion
drive, it costs $850.

If you take the 2.6 Ghz model, you end up with $900 for that configuration. A
50$ price difference for a 1.4 vs 2.6 Ghz processor.

The Mac Mini performance and pricing is just maddening.

~~~
nodata
They're trying to kill it.

~~~
wj
Why try to kill it? Why not just do it by not offering it anymore?

~~~
officemonkey
Apple isn't one monolithic creature. I'm assuming that some are trying to kill
it (by making it underpowered with low sales) because they can't kill it
politically (it's one of Steve's babies.)

It's kinda like the old iPod. They kept making it _long_ after nobody bought
one, because it was the iconic turn-around device for Apple. Cook admitted
they had to stop making it because they couldn't find parts anymore.

------
andyl
Intel NUCs are similar in size to Mac Mini - I've been using for small linux
servers and dev boxes. NUCs can handle 16GB ram, quad-core, SSD, GB ethernet.

Small and quiet - a great little device.

~~~
judk
What are good retail NUCs?

