The smaller mini loses some ports but gets tons of other functional updates.
  • Twofacetony@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 months ago

    Is there a reason why the two USBC I/O ports on the front aren’t ThunderBolt capable?

    Having a couple of I/O ports nice and accessible at the front is awesome, but why limit them to 10gb/s when TB3 will do 20Gbps, TB4 will do 40Gbps and TB5 will do 80Gbps. I imagine there will be many people out there that will inadvertently use the front ports thinking they’re the same speed

    • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
      3·
      2 months ago

      It costs extra to have hardware that can support the full spec on all ports simultaneously. The rear ports have the higher bandwidth to support screens with lots of pixels and a high frame rate, plus they are more likely to be daisy chained.

  • jqubed@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 months ago

    I had always expected the Mac mini to be about the size of the current Apple TV and was surprised by how much larger they were when I finally saw one in person. I don’t know if it really makes much difference, but I’m glad to see this.

  • b34k@lemmy.world
    11·
    2 months ago

    I know the mini has been around forever, but I just don’t understand the use case for this product in today’s world.

    The air is similarly capable, only a few hundred more, and not tied to a power cord/ monitor/ desk. As someone who owns a lot of Apple devices, and usually doesn’t need much of an excuse to buy more, this one still eludes me

    • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world
      4·
      2 months ago

      For stationary workstations limited to only driving two displays, permanently committing to one built in display hurts flexibility. A MacBook air can’t have a dual monitor setup where both monitors are the same size.

      The mini form factor cools better, and can do more sustained work with the same hardware.

      More ports means more straightforward connection to things like hardwired Ethernet, external storage, etc., good for certain stationary uses.

      A couple hundred dollars is like double the price. The MacBook Air starts at $1099 for the current generation, almost twice as much as the $599 Mac Mini. For now, the Mac Mini is also ahead by a generation in the M-series chip and base storage/memory, too, so it literally is more than twice the cost for a similarly specced MacBook Air over a Mac Mini. Presumably the next generation Air will also have some improvements to the base model, but I expect it to be the same price.

      I personally use my M1 Mac Mini as a pretty good home server. That might not be a super common use case, but I’d think it would make a way better desktop than a MacBook Air.

  • Leaflet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    2 months ago

    $200 base price increase, ouch.

    Edit: apparently it starts at $599, but for some reason Apple is showing me $799 for the base model.