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by ender89 2779 days ago
This is a really weird device. The mac mini has long been used as a home theater pc of the apple ecosystem, due to it's formfactor and being the one apple device that didn't come with its own 20 inch screen or 3 foot tall tower. Apple tv, for all it's shortcomings, has sort of supplanted that and you're much better off sticking that under your tv and running your plex server somewhere else. So now we have a mac mini which is too expensive to be a home theater pc or to be stuck in a closet serving media, and is comparably priced with macs that have actual screens. So its like good for someone who for some reason doesn't want to carry a macbook around but wants a semi-portable workstation? or someone who wants an iMac with a bigger screen? It's not useful as a mac mini, and it's pretty redundant thanks to every use case being covered by an existing mac. Who is this device for? Who is buying this over a macbook or imac?
3 comments
gurkendoktor 2779 days ago
I've bought two Minis as dev machines in the past. Portability was part of it. I also saved a bunch of money because I already had a full set of peripherals. Edit: Upgradable RAM and the ability to install a second drive was also great in retrospect, I wonder if the latter is still possible with the 2018 model.

And I'm not sure whether glossy Retina screens are really the best bang for the buck for developers. I often wish I had dual 1440p or a ginormous 21:9 screen when I'm dealing with complex projects.

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lostgame 2779 days ago
Weirdly, it has a lot of enterprise-scale applications and implications with it's ability to accept 64GB of RAM.

We're replacing a ton of those 'garbage-can' Mac Pro models with them. Lord knows we don't need kick ass graphics cards.

In terms of consumer-level applications, it definitely seems like the sell used to be the pleasant $500 price point.

The G4 Mac Mini, at $499, was my very first entry into the Mac world. I certainly couldn't afford $1,100 for an iBook G4 in High School.

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Humphrey 2779 days ago
Many people. This is targeted at professionals who need a max with good performance. Eg. Software developers. I can imagine this being a popular device.
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