Mac Mini Thoughts/Opinions

[wibbly]

For the past couple of years or so I've used either my MacBook or MB Air but I've kind of reached the point where I need a bit more than that for day-to-day use.

I was thinking about a Mac Mini along with maybe a Dell monitor for my everyday desk unit but have little experience of them. Predominately I need it for coding, Lightroom, Adobe products and such like.

Any comments or thoughts about them would be most welcome.

 

[Gilbert89]

For the past couple of years or so I've used either my MacBook or MB Air but I've kind of reached the point where I need a bit more than that for day-to-day use.

I was thinking about a Mac Mini along with maybe a Dell monitor for my everyday desk unit but have little experience of them. Predominately I need it for coding, Lightroom, Adobe products and such like.

Any comments or thoughts about them would be most welcome.

What are the specs of the MB?

A Mini would be great if you are willing to get rid of the poor hard disk those things come with a replace with a SSD.

Could you not add an SSD and extra RAM to your MB being a cheaper alternative?

 

[wibbly]

What are the specs of the MB?

A Mini would be great if you are willing to get rid of the poor hard disk those things come with a replace with a SSD.

Could you not add an SSD and extra RAM to your MB being a cheaper alternative?

MacBook is pretty old and past it's sell by date to be honest, it's an old 2006 or 2007 model. My MB Air does the job admirably but having previously hooked up a screen to it I'd prefer to keep it more simple and portable and have a stand alone desk unit.

Being used to Apple products, having used them for almost 3 years exclusively I'd prefer to stick with that route, but cash flow doesn't yet dictate an iMac sadly.

How difficult a job is it to swap out to an SSD on an MacMini and if doing so would it matter if I bought a second hand older one, say c.2009?

 

[MagicBoy]

The 2009 Mini's are the oldest I'd look at. First of the line with a sensible graphics chip (nVidia 9400M) and can take up to 8GB RAM.

I bought one on the day they launched and it's been ticking over silently in the spare room 24x7 ever since without an ounce of trouble connected to a 24" Dell monitor. The only thing letting it down now is the stock HDD. An SSD upgrade like the Crucial M4 would pep up OS X nicely I expect as it worked wonders on my MacBook Pro.

 

[Somnambulist]

Get a Refurb 2011 Mini (they pop up fairly regularly), wack an SSD in it. I have a 2010 one and tbh I feel like the Core2Duo inside is showing it's age a bit - anything from 2011 onwards is good, although you obviously lose the optical drive slot.

 

[Rambaud]

I added a 256Gb SSD + 16Gb of RAM to my 2012 Mini and am pleased with it.

However, the 500Gb hard drive is nearly full up so that will be replaced with a spare 750Gb drive.

 

[pingwing]

I have the 2012 mini with 16 gig of ram and 2 256gig m4's, it's amazing (covers everything I need, can game ok, do work and its silent whilst I do it).

Anything post c2d would be good but you really need an ssd to make them fly

 

[wibbly]

Thanks for the thoughts on the MacMini. OK, stupid question time if I'm allowed

I've been looking around at MacMini prices, and am wondering if it's worth buying a second hand one. For the cost of one, plus adding an SSD and increasing the RAM would be kind of heading into the realms of a second hand iMac by the time I added a monitor to it.

What are the advantages of the MacMini over an iMac given what would be needed to add to it...

 

[pingwing]

Well ideally an imac is a nicer route to go (personal opinion) but the initial outlay to have an SSD in one is much higher (I now refuse to own computers with any mechanical hard drives after 3 years of ssd's but thats personal preference).

For me I went mini because I got a good deal on 256gig m4's in the amazon black friday sale, already had a good monitor and got the student price on the mini. Going for an imac would have been a fair bit more as I would have wanted the 27" with an ssd (being over £1500) and the cost looked to spiral out of control (though it would have made civ5 more playable), so getting a mini is more about balancing what you really want from a mac to what you need. I feel I need an ssd much more than a dedicated graphics chip (HD4000 isn't too bad really) and the cost difference between tearing apart a mini for one and either getting an imac with one in new or taking apart an older style one made the mini the sensible option.

 

[wibbly]

Thanks for your thoughts Pingwing. I'll do some more thinking (and squinting on my 13" MB Air) for little while longer