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So there's a new Mini, but I didn't see any mention about...
#31
GuyGene wrote:
My old fashioned long time Mac user says I want replaceable RAM, drive, etc. But, when I look at Apple Store Mac mini, my current self says - BUY, BUY, it'll be good. With education discount, middle model, 16 GB RAM, DVI cable, it comes to $888, a good round number.

Oh, one other thing - wha' y'all think about only i5 processors now? No Mac mini with i7 now, eh? Wait, yes there is, but it only shows as an upgrade. Seems none of the regular Mac mini on main page shows i7.

i5 vs i7 means almost nothing when you are speaking about laptop processors of the same generation (which we are here). Just look at the number of cores and the processor speed. Confusingly there is a difference between i5 and i7 at the desktop processor level but I'll not go into that here.

For my needs, last year's 2.3GHz quad core will be my Mac of choice especially at the newly lowered refurb price.
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#32
sekker wrote:
This topic should probably be a sticky for our forum,.

This new mini form facrtor is exactly what we should have expected - except it's not as small as I would have thought Apple could produce.

To what do you refer to by "the new Mini form factor?
Huh
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#33
It's been a long road getting from there to here.
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#34
This new mini form facrtor is exactly what we should have expected - except it's not as small as I would have thought Apple could produce.

Yes, this is the mini I thought we might get and hoped we wouldn't.

I thought that Apple would change the external appearance of the mini if they were going for the non-user upgradeable assembly methods.

But apparently they aren't concerned about making this the "thinnest mini we've never made".

That's just as well. They'd probably have trouble with the number and placement of ports if they tried to make it much thinner.

For me, the real sticking point is the $699 price tag for the second tier minis. The cost of going from 8G to 16G is about the same as buying RAM from our sponsor. But you get Iris graphics as opposed to the HD 4000 in my 2012 mini. Even the base mini now has HD 5000.

As for the storage situation, that's pretty much a non-issue for me and most other mini users. It's a small percentage that would crack a mini for an internal storage upgrade. I had wanted to but external drives work just fine.

While I can appreciate a lot of DIYers are mourning the new build methods, and some will rightfully lament the lack of an i7 quad-core, most of us (which might not include any of you) would probably benefit from the improved graphics alone.

I hope we see some tests comparing graphics performance with the 2012 mini.
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#35
RAMd®d wrote:
I thought that Apple would change the external appearance of the mini if they were going for the non-user upgradeable assembly methods.

But apparently they aren't concerned about making this the "thinnest mini we've never made".

Wait for the Broadwell chips next year. Faster, smaller with lower power demands.

The chips that Apple's using today are of the same generation as the 2012 chips and there's little benefit to re-engineering the enclosure when the power and heat-shedding requirements haven't changed.
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#36
For all we know there could be other reasons Apple is not motivated to make the Mini smaller. A lot of people may still have a bias against it due to the perception that something that small couldn't possibly be a 'real' computer.... it took me a while to overcome that perception even after I bought my 2009 Mini....
Maybe someone at Apple snuck some market research in there....
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#37
yep, I have no problem w/ soldered RAM & agree it's more reliable.

but new models should all have 8GB minimum.

Oh well, maybe when Broadwell comes along next year...

decay wrote:
Macbook Pro Retinas and iMacs all ship with 8 GB minimum.

non-Retina MBP ships with 4 GB.
MBA ships with 4 GB.

There must be a reason some ship with 8 GB minimum. Maybe the systems run much better with 8 GB? That seems to be the general consensus here on the forum.
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