Hey guys,
My wife and I are looking into buying a Mac mini, we were planning on just buying the basic $499 model. I read though it shows concerns about there being 4 gigs of ram.
Overall, we will be using it for surfing the web, word processing, email, uploading photos, and managing our iTunes libraries...so I didn't think that would matter.
Also, eventually I plan to buy a USB DVD burner to burn our home movies to DVDs.
So, anyone with the basic model, will that cut it?
Thanks!
My mother-in-law has one and it seems like a nice enough machine for the same sort of usage.
No! I have a 2 year old one of the base models. It really, really needs an SSD. OSX just feel slugish and slow without one, even more so than Windows. You're probably fine with the 4 GB of RAM, but an SSD will make that thing feel awesome to use versus painful. You could probably add an SSD in yourself. Just look for a tutorial.
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It sounds fine enough but when I went for the 2014 Mac Mini, I went mostly all out except for the CPU. I got 16GB of ram and the 1.1 TB Fusion Drive (which basically as good as an SSD for most purposes without your free space always being down to the wire). You won't be able to play the latest AAA games on the Intel graphics chipset but Indy stuff and older games will be fine. Of course, in my case, my Mac Mini is basically my only PC, I rely on it for all the stuff you mentioned but also for video encoding, a media center, and as part of my wifi solution. So it's on pretty much 24/7.
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Yeah, my wife has one and she likes it.
I would probably push for the 8gig of ram, but you should at least get 5 years out of 4gig if that's all you are doing.
I second the SDD recommendation.
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If you can stretch to it, the middle model is probably going to last longer: much faster CPU&GPU and twice the RAM.
I have a Mac Mini 2012 (i7/8GB/Fusion drive) and absolutely love it. Silent, low power, fast, tiny and not integrated like the iMac.
Hmmm...alright, well Im able to get the middle tier model for about $585 before tax, due to a sale and a 10% off coupon.
That has 8 gigs of ram 2.6, ghz professor, and a 1TB hard drive. Debating whether or not it's better to just go with that as opposed to the basic 4 gig of ram model that has 1.4ghz processor.
The most taxing thing we will be doing is burning home movies to DVDs.
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Eh I have found that if you plan to generally keep up with the OSX upgrades, the unit will slow over time. Having the extra specs may be worth it.
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Wish I'd been able to put a 10% coupon towards my purchase ;). I would definitely go the extra specs also. Macs tend to have a long lifespan in my household so the value is there.
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You'll want the 8 gigs either way. I think the CPU bump is debatable. Does that come with an SSD? Moving to an SSD with OSX provides a huge speed boost across the board.
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I agree with the above, the extra money is worth it for the middle spec. OSX in general is more RAM hungry than Windows and there is a definite improvement going from 4 to 8GB. Also I would go for an SSD but if you can't swing it for now get the middle spec and then maybe later if you decide it needs a speed boost you can upgrade it.
Ended up on the middle of the line MacMini. I'm really enjoying it...but, perhaps some tech folks out there could answer this one for me.
I'm currently using an older Sony TV through HDMI, which works fine, but it's too big. I also have an older (maybe 7 years old?) "Element" tv with an HDMI port. When I use the Element through HDMI, I'm not getting any display from the Mini. However, if I'm on my appletv, I can mirror back to the Element no problem. I checked in the display settings and it recognizes the Element display...BUT, once I disconnect the AppleTV, the display to the "Element" vanishes and goes back to saying No Signal.
Can anyone figure this out? To be honest, I'd rather use the older TV since we had the Sony in our front room. For the time being it does the job, but isn't a long term fix.
Thanks for the help in advance!
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Still digging around trying to fix this...
So, I connect the Mini to the Sony tv. It displays fine. I then mirror it to my apple tv. I then disconnect the Sony TV and connect the Element TV. I'm getting a display no problem. It works great.
However, as soon as I disconnect the airplay, the Element tv drops the display and states "NOT SUPPORTED."
I've gone through each resolution, and no dice. My next step is to buy a VGA to HDMI adaptor and try that using the VGA port on the Element tv.
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