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back to article Mourning Apple's war against sockets? The 2018 Mac mini should be your first port of call

The world's fourth biggest PC company sells three desktop PC lines, but it hadn't updated one of those three for four years. Maybe Apple had forgotten that the humble and unassuming Mac mini was there at all. But it fixed that this week. The Mac mini has been revived as a machine for grown-ups, professionals such as …

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              1. Crypto Monad Silver badge
                Reply Icon

                Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

                > Is any linux distribution from 2007 still supported?

                Yes.

                RHEL 5 (from March 2007) still has "Extended Life-cycle Support" available until November 2020. This "delivers certain critical-impact security fixes and selected urgent priority bug fixes and troubleshooting for the last minor release" - for a price.

                See https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata#Life_Cycle_Dates

                RHEL 4 (from Feb 2005) is technically still in its "Extended Life Phase", but since support has ended, this doesn't count for much. "No bug fixes, security fixes, hardware enablement or root-cause analysis will be available during this phase". You just get access to the documentation and knowledgebase.

                3 0 Reply
              2. Rainer
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                Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

                > Is any linux distribution from 2007 still supported?

                RHEL5.

                If you pay RedHat for it.

                3 0 Reply
            2. Mark 65
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              Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

              On the other hand, Apple gave up supporting my 2007 iMac in 2014, even though it still works - only the Bootcamp Windows gets security updates these days.

              My 2008 iMac has just gone out of support for new versions of the OS, which did irritate me as the lowest hardware they support for Mojave is less capable than my machine in both GPU and CPU. I can move up to High Sierra from Sierra and still get security fixes or I can do like I have with my 2007 Macbook and install Linux on it and be supported for quite some time. Linux Mint installed without issue and runs snappily on the old hardware.

              Official support for Sierra ends September 2019 and, presumably, High Sierra will be around September 2020. That would mean 12 years of support for that hardware. Support for 12 years is pretty good and I am only irritated by the lack of further support because it seems to be artificially enforced given the aforementioned supported spec.

              I have to confess that I have a newer machine that is a Hackintosh. That is an acquired taste but I did it because there was no path available where I could have an Apple machine with user upgradeable and replaceable components. I had a sketchy graphics card in the iMac which I only realised was a recall item after the recall ended. It promptly shat itself shortly thereafter. I would have preferred to be able to replace the component myself but didn't have a clean-room to remove the screen and dick about with the internal layout and custom card form factor. This machine will last a very long time and would only be hindered on the macOS front by a change in architecture from x86 to ARM.

              2 0 Reply
          2. The Specialist
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            Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

            > I just upgraded a old M6400 to a quad core CPU which will keep it going running Windows 10

            That reminds me Trigger's quote regarding his broom from "Only Fools and Horses"

            I've had the same broom for 20 years - I only had to change the head 17 times and the handle 14 times.

            18 4 Reply
            1. jelabarre59
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              Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

              That reminds me Trigger's quote regarding his broom from "Only Fools and Horses"

              I've had the same broom for 20 years - I only had to change the head 17 times and the handle 14 times.

              Which is yet another plus for "PC"s (and remember, PC != MSWindows) and a minus for Apple/Mac. The very idea that you *can* upgrade components is yet another reason NOT to buy Mac.

              9 0 Reply
            2. jason 7
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              Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

              "I've had the same broom for 20 years - I only had to change the head 17 times and the handle 14 times."

              But you know...it's nice to have that option, rather than having to throw the whole broom away cos its all one piece or glued together.

              9 0 Reply
          3. Joe Montana
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            Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

            Louis Rossman is a good point, if a mac fails outside of warranty people are likely to go to someone like Louis to have it repaired. If a generic PC fails outside of warranty, people usually just throw it away and replace it. This even happens when there's a software failure and the underlying hardware is fine.

            4 4 Reply
        2. Waseem Alkurdi
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          Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

          I can vouch for that. I have one from 2010 still going strong (headless server) and 2 from 2012 editions - again running one of them as headless server and the other as my working from home kit.

          The 2010 ... You said it's running headless. Can I assume that you're not running macOS? If that's the case, can't a similarly specced machine with a similar footprint (think about these machines which are small enough squares that you can hang off the monitor) achieve the same result, with the same footprint and same power consumption?

          2 3 Reply
          1. The Specialist
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            Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

            Oh it is running OS X.

            The only things that are plugged into them are power cord and network cables.

            I also have Raspberry PIs as well for dedicated tasks like hosting HASSIO & messing about for IoT stuff before I promote them to "production" level.

            2 0 Reply
        3. applebyJedi
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          Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

          I have a 5k iMac that is just over 3 years old. Cost £2,000 and needs a new main logic board. At a cost of £580.80 which is the price of a whole computer in the windows environment.

          My MacBook 12" needed a new screen after 8 months. Fortunately that was in warranty because it would have cost nearly the price of a new machine to replace the screen.

          Apple is no where near as bullet proof as they would have you believe, but the OS is less taxing than windows so that it keeps going, even if your hardware doesn't.

          5 5 Reply
          1. Mark 65
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            Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

            I have a 5k iMac that is just over 3 years old. Cost £2,000 and needs a new main logic board. At a cost of £580.80 which is the price of a whole computer in the windows environment.

            I have serious doubts about the iMac design. For anything other than a controlled 20 degree Celsius temperature controlled environment I think they simply end up burning themselves out. My graphics card shat itself. You've got a logic board issue. I simply think they end up running too hot thereby shortening their components' lifespan. They need to come out with a new modular desktop box. The iMac Pro may have plenty of power but I'd wager that using it regularly will come at a heavy cost (excluding purchase price).

            2 0 Reply
            1. Anonymous Coward
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              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

              Heat killed 2 out of 2 iMacs our department had. The fans just got louder and louder and even taking it to bits and vacumming the thing out didn't help in the end. It was non recoverable and so a whole machine including the massive monitor was out. I'm sure we could have spent some time getting various bit repaired but time was too short. Swapped for a Mac mini and a standalone (non-Apple) monitor.

              Eventually moved the Mac mini over to a mini PC.

              0 0 Reply
        4. jelabarre59
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          Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

          > Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs

          I can vouch for that. I have one from 2010 still going strong (headless server) and 2 from 2012 editions - again running one of them as headless server and the other as my working from home kit.

          And I can make my Linux boxes last way beyond that. Generally my Linux kit only gets replaced when I acquire some newer (yet still used) kit, or the machine completely dies.

          3 0 Reply
          1. big_D Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

            I can vouch for that. I have one from 2010 still going strong (headless server) and 2 from 2012 editions - again running one of them as headless server and the other as my working from home kit.

            2010 isn't anything of a big deal. Still over half of the PCs at work are on an upgrade cycle, because they pre-date 2010.

            I've worked with other customers who still have PCs from the turn of the century in production environments. They still wobble along and don't cause any problems. They are generally attached to plant that costs high six figures.

            2 0 Reply
        5. Dave K
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          Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

          > Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs

          Hmm, they used to have a longer usable life, but I doubt that's the case any more. My old Mac Mini (2008) also ran great until I retired it last year, but one of the primary reasons it lasted so long is that I could upgrade it. If it was stuck with 1GB of RAM and the 180GB HDD it originally came with, it would have been obsolete several years earlier. Thankfully with an upgrade to 4GB of RAM and a 750GB drive, it kept me going for a few years more.

          These days? I'm not so sure. Apple's hardware is pretty reliable, but the fact that modern Macs are increasingly soldered together and unupgradable means that "planned obsolescence" is increasingly built into them. Decent PCs are also pretty reliable these days (just recently retired my previous PC which was from 2010), so it's not that clear cut any more. Saying that, I'd be interested to confirm just how upgradable (or not) the new Mac Mini is...

          4 1 Reply
          1. Mark 65
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            Re: Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs ...

            These days? I'm not so sure. Apple's hardware is pretty reliable, but the fact that modern Macs are increasingly soldered together and unupgradable means that "planned obsolescence" is increasingly built into them.

            To be fair, with 4 Thundebolt 3 ports you have upgrade paths for GPU and fast storage covered. This was not possible before in the older generations that had Firewire 800 and USB 2. You need only worry about whether the RAM is soldered in. As for the CPU, you should always think a little forward when buying.

            Your chief concern would be making sure operating temps remain under control. Do so and these should last a fair while.

            1 1 Reply
      2. big_D Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        That is the thing, if you need macOS, you are lumped with over priced, under specced kit. If the applications are important, but the underlying OS not, then you have much more choice and can get much more power for the same price.

        And for businesses, this is generally where the decision falls. They need hundreds or thousands of desktops for their employees and the choice is 399€ from Dell/Lenovo/Fujitsu or 899€ from Apple, and the PC for 399€ is marginally faster and runs all the corporate software, what are you going to do? How do you justify more than double the price? Or for the same price, you can have a much higher specification PC.

        Given that those cheap PCs with Windows integrate more easily into the corporate system, you can book on-site support and they use standard components that you can switch out yourself, it makes it very hard to justify Macs, unless there is an application that is critical to the company and only runs on macOS. Generally, that is limited to media businesses (advertising or film), where they have set up a business process using Mac software.

        For your average business, the little if no justification to go with Apple. It looks chic, but the normal PC is nearly silent and sits unseen under the desk. It runs macOS, but that doesn't matter if all of the applications (or equivalents) required run under Windows or Linux - especially if the company already mainly uses Windows or Linux.

        A normal PC doesn't run macOS? Okay, but you don't actually "use" macOS to create documents or edit photos. The more pertinent question is, does it rune Adobe CC or SAP or Microsoft Office, or LoB software. The underlying OS is irrelevant, macOS might do some things more easily than WIndows and vice versa, but at the end of the day, there are very few "unique" features that only one has.

        It all comes down to, are you already heavily invested in Macs? If so, you are going to have to go with the Mac mini or iMac range (or MacBook for portable work). If not, then there are much cheaper / more powerful options open to you, so you wouldn't consider a Mac mini anyway.

        It is only if you are waivering between macOS and Windows that there is any real decision to be made.

        22 17 Reply
      3. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        "(Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs, and have higher re-sale value, so that also helps to offset the higher purchase price)."

        There's a bit of forced obsolence in both, to be honest. My old 2006 Windows XP machine is very happy running Linux Mint 19, but I wouldn't want to try Windows 8/10 on it. One of my colleagues has an old iMac (~2010), which became unusable due to a succession of OS updates making it unbearably slow - they replaced it with a Chromebook.

        7 1 Reply
        1. rg287
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          One of my colleagues has an old iMac (~2010), which became unusable due to a succession of OS updates making it unbearably slow

          Whilst the successive OSes have got heavier, just as a point of comparison. I'm still running an early-2008 Macbook (the first metal-unibody one) and it's fine - though it did get a midlife RAM upgrade and the 5400rpm HDD has been swapped out for an SSD. That might be a bit biased since that model is a joy to work on - with a tool-free catch to get into the HDD compartment.

          The 2010 iMacs aren't too hard to whip the screen off the front of and swap the HDD for an SSD. Lifting out the big panels on 27" models does give me "the fear", but we've managed it a several times without incident.

          With the tumbling price of SSDs, updating the storage gives them a new lease of life.

          4 1 Reply
      4. DuncanLarge Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        "Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs"

        Really? Well tell that to the genius bar who will try to convince you that your 4 year old mac is a vintage computer.

        14 2 Reply
        1. snozdop
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          Just because it's considered "vintage" by Apple doesn't mean it suddenly stops working. It just means they haven't made it for more than 5 years, and therefore obtaining parts becomes harder.

          A four-year-old Mac would not be vintage. "Vintage products are those that have not been manufactured for more than 5 and less than 7 years ago." Source: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201624

          6 5 Reply
        2. The Specialist
          Reply Icon
          Coat

          @DuncanLarge- I'd love to tell the dudes at Genius bar regarding my Mac Minis are not vintage, but to date I had no reason to take any of them to Apple for "servicing".

          Never know, I might get the opportunity to do that next decade or the one after.

          I must be doing something wrong.

          6 1 Reply
        3. jason 7
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          "Really? Well tell that to the genius bar who will try to convince you that your 4 year old mac is a vintage computer."

          Oh yes I do very nicely out of folks that come to me for a new HDD in their Mac to replace the failed one, cos the 'genius' told them it was an antique at 4-5 years old and they needed to buy a new one.

          6 0 Reply
      5. Del_Varner
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        this: "(Macs typically have a longer usable life than Windows PCs, and have higher re-sale value, so that also helps to offset the higher purchase price)."

        I'm probably getting one of these new fangled minis because the iMac I bought 12 years ago finally went kaputt.

        4 1 Reply
      6. jelabarre59
        Reply Icon
        Linux

        If everybody was like you and cared only about hardware specs and purchase price, then nobody would buy Macs. However, many people realise that the software and OS running on that hardware is where the value lies,

        Ah yes, so that, combined with the eye-wateringly-high price, and hostility towards upgrading/repairing and maintainability add up to a multitude of reasons why I won't be buying one. "Value" of the OS: hmmmm... yes and very-much no. It's pretty I guess (until they came out with the Fugly-Flatso look), has some interesting apps to run on it, but I don't like un-scalable walls around my garden. I can do pretty much everything I want/need on my Linux box, including adding a fugly-flatso UI to it (not that I ever will) that would look just like MacOS. About the only significant apps I'd want to run on Linux would be MMD (which doesn't have a Mac version anyway) and tax filing software (and the devs on those applications have about the programming competence of a Google developer; none).

        7 3 Reply
    2. rg287
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      It's another Apple "designer" product, and I don't see why anyone would touch them, nor why Reg would cover it at all seriously.

      I can - stacking them as a render cluster for Final Cut Pro to send jobs to via Grand Central Dispatch. Or for macOS/iOS application developers to send compile jobs to.

      Yes, you can get the same hardware for less, but not (legitimately) running macOS .

      Outside of that, nah. Don't see it. Too expensive for normal desktop usage (in either a corporate or domestic context), and sofa-surfers or "lifestyle" users who simply prefer macOS will buy a laptop anyway. Moreover, they've driven off the pro and prosumer photographers by binning Aperture. If I was a heavy FCP or Logic Pro user, I'd be keeping a very wary eye on the future of those products given that Apple have already binned off one pro app.

      The only Mac desktop users left are the ones wedded to the OS because of specific applications.

      24 8 Reply
      1. onefang
        Reply Icon

        "Or for macOS/iOS application developers to send compile jobs to."

        That's basically what I bought my Mac Mini for. Needed to make sure my cross platform application worked on Mac OS as well as Linux and Windows, and something to build it with. Didn't want to get a Mac with a screen, mouse, and keyboard, I already had a KVM setup with spare ports. Didn't have much spare space on the desktop for aa big machine. The Mac Mini was perfect for that job. I've upgraded it, and it's still working fine, so I don't need to buy a new one yet.

        My main desktop I do everything else with is Linux, and I have a small Windows test box to.

        22 1 Reply
      2. big_D Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        @rg287 or familiarity. The photographer we used for our family portraits just upgraded to an iMac Pro. He was waivering and thinking of going to Windows, as his old Cheesegrater Mac Pro was getting very long in the tooth and he was sick of waiting for a sensible replacement to come out. Then the iMac Pro came out just as he was about to swap. He stuck with Mac, because he knows the workflow and the montage software he uses is Mac only (there is probably a Windows equivalent somewhere, but he knows this software and has paid (heavily) for it.

        He likes the iMac Pro, it is much faster than his old Pro, although he had to get expansion boxes for some of the hardware from his old Pro. He can also use his Nikon again - the old Pro took too long to load and process the large RAWs it generated, he had switched to a Fuji for studio work and kept the Nikon just for "special" jobs, where he needed the extra resolution.

        His only complaint with the iMac Pro is the poor screen. He says it is great for drafting on, but the colour accuracy is dreadful, compared to his old Eizo display.

        14 0 Reply
        1. Davegoody
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          So use the Eizo as a second screen, assuming you (he) has the space.

          1 0 Reply
          1. big_D Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            So use the Eizo as a second screen, assuming you (he) has the space.

            Well, duh! Of course he has the Eizo set up as a second screen - that is how he knows the iMacs screen is so poorly calibrated.

            4 0 Reply
      3. deadlockvictim
        Reply Icon

        Windows 10

        rg287» The only Mac desktop users left are the ones wedded to the OS because of specific applications.

        There are some who really, really don't want Windows 10 and whose Windows 7 support will be running out soon. Linux, I suppose, is in theory an option.

        And if the machine would anyway have to be replaced, this Mac Mini is not at all a bad replacement.

        9 2 Reply
    3. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      You could have a bit of fun with the company graphic designer, you know the only one in your company who was on a Mac and therefore every company-wide software purchase had to also be Mac compatible reducing your choice to a few and your remote device management is difficult...

      Set up a PC with an SSD and a load of RAM and a decent CPU. Use the Adobe CC subscription to load on their favorite applications. Make sure the desktop had the links to these applications and then ask if he wants to try it out for comparison. Add two high-res monitors to replace the one that they are used to with the Mac. Then watch as they can't believe how fast it is and how it works pretty much exactly the same - no file issues, no font issues, no iCloud worries, especially when you explain it is much cheaper than the Mac. Watch how they slowly start using the Mac less and less and the 'trial' machine more and more.

      Sure Windows might be a bit rubbish with some horrible awkward UI decisions, but hardly any users 'use' Windows, it's just a resting place for their icons, printer and file manager - same as every other platform.

      37 25 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Sure Windows might be a bit rubbish

        And Micky D. is also a restaurant, so why eat at Maxim's?

        Dealing with rubbish is for the janitor, and masochists... And we're not all just running on nickles and dimes, unable to afford tools we like.

        21 10 Reply
      2. JBFromOZ
        Reply Icon

        Then watch them scream as suddenly Microsoft decides that .pdf is no longer a valid file format, and that native .pdf handling is nonexistent, and then see the reality distortion field you have generated unravel faster than the next microsoft system upgrade

        3 5 Reply
    4. herman
      Reply Icon

      Hmm, as o'l Democritus put it: "The poor will always be with us", but nevertheless, I'll enjoy my little Mac Mini and my gynyntonix, thank you Jeeves...

      16 1 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        "Hmm, as o'l Democritus put it: "The poor will always be with us""

        I think you have the wrong philosopher.

        Also some critics think what Jesus actually meant was "there will always be poor people because you can't get your shit together to run society properly". It wasn't just a value-neutral statement.

        4 1 Reply
        1. JEDIDIAH
          Reply Icon
          Linux

          Re: "Hmm, as o'l Democritus put it: "The poor will always be with us""

          Only the top 10% can be in the top 10%. There will always be distinctions even if your "poor" people are living better than Henry XIII.

          7 0 Reply
        2. Michael Habel
          Reply Icon

          Re: "Hmm, as o'l Democritus put it: "The poor will always be with us""

          Perhaps the "Poor" shouldn't have droped out of School, by first finishing their education, and then got a decent Job like everyone else. Instead of winging on about how a 7.45$ p/h (e.g. Minimun Wage Job), can't meet their expitations of trying to keep up with the Jones's.

          Being Poor is a lifestyle choice. You don't like being Poor? GET A FREAKING BETTER JOB! If needs be WORK FOR IT!

          2 18 Reply
          1. Martin
            Reply Icon
            FAIL

            Re: "Hmm, as o'l Democritus put it: "The poor will always be with us""

            Perhaps the "Poor" shouldn't have droped out of School, by first finishing their education, and then got a decent Job like everyone else. Instead of winging on about how a 7.45$ p/h (e.g. Minimun Wage Job), can't meet their expitations of trying to keep up with the Jones's.

            Being Poor is a lifestyle choice. You don't like being Poor? GET A FREAKING BETTER JOB! If needs be WORK FOR IT!

            That's either stupid, unfeeling, or just poor sarcasm. It's also badly written and riddled with spelling and grammar errors. Downvote duly administered.

            1 0 Reply
      2. JEDIDIAH
        Reply Icon
        Mushroom

        Silly toys from toy makers.

        You can blow way more money on a non-Apple product. In a free market, people line up to take your money. They will offer you all sorts of crazy things that you can't get in an Apple approved form factor.

        1 0 Reply
    5. Snorlax Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      @Lee D

      @Lee D:"It's another Apple "designer" product, and I don't see why anyone would touch them, nor why Reg would cover it at all seriously."

      <rolleyes.jpg>

      I'd hazard a guess that there are a lot of thing you don't see, or understand.

      Cast your mind back to the news from IBM the other week. They've been increasing their use of Apple hardware due to better residual values and fewer support calls.

      "IBM found that not only do PCs drive twice the amount of support calls, they’re also three times more expensive. That’s right, depending on the model, IBM is saving anywhere from $273 - $543 per Mac compared to a PC, over a four-year lifespan. “And this reflects the best pricing we’ve ever gotten from Microsoft,” Previn said. Multiply that number by the 100,000+ Macs IBM expects to have deployed by the end of the year, and we’re talking some serious savings.

      Needless to say, the employees at IBM got it right. And with 73% of them saying they want their next computer to be a Mac, the success will only increase with time."

      32 3 Reply
    6. Crypto Monad Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Definitely not trash.

      If you want a powerful server that you can stick in your rucksack or airline carry-on bag, there's not much to match this currently.

      The Intel Skull Canyon NUC is similar size and weight by the time you've included the PSU brick, but is limited to 32GB RAM and 4 cores (Mac Mini does 64GB and 6 cores). The NUC does have two replaceable PCIe SSD slots though.

      8 1 Reply
      1. doublelayer Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        "If you want a powerful server that you can stick in your rucksack or airline carry-on bag, there's not much to match this currently."

        It really depends on your use case, but I think there is. For one thing, you have to figure out why you need a powerful server on the go. If it is to deploy it somewhere else, then you still end up in the small computer comparison. I'll grant you that sometimes you need six cores and 64GB memory on a server that you carry with you, but most of the time, probably not. The ease in modifying a NUC makes it a really good candidate for to-be-deployed server in a small box.

        In most cases, however, the computer you carry in a rucksack to provide you with a lot of power will be a laptop. You can get them with more processing and memory, although those are usually somewhat heavy. I assume that would be a more useful portable machine than a mac mini for most use cases. You can compute on it when you're on the go, rather than having to have mains power, a monitor, and input devices to run it.

        The mac mini also has lost some of its appeal when compared to other options in the small computers lineup. It is far too expensive now to be a logical choice for a media machine, especially as a raspberry pi can do it well. For server purposes, you would probably want a device running Linux on more expandable hardware, rather than using the OSX server app that has been losing functionality.

        As a mac desktop, it's not bad. It has the ports that we normal people want, and it is reasonably powerful. Still, it has lost some of the niches a mac mini used to fill.

        10 1 Reply
      2. onefang
        Reply Icon

        "If you want a powerful server that you can stick in your rucksack or airline carry-on bag,"

        I've regularly carried a desktop system, complete with monitor, keyboard, mouse, couple of network switches, WiFi AP, and assorted cables in my backpack. Then again, my pack is likely a litle bigger than your rucksack or airline carry-on bag.

        2 1 Reply
    7. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Well... if you're looking at gaming laptops, then you're probably running Winblows. That tells me everything I need to know. Or you're running Linux, which means you really should know better than to spout this nonsense.

      The Mini runs OSX, which is in itself a huge reason to cover it seriously. Not to mention the fact that it's most likely better designed in terms of heat dissipation and other reliability factors than your laptop. My 2013 mini's doing just fine with everything I throw at it, thanks, and has outlasted several non-Mac laptops.

      Price isn't everything. Some of us "mainstream professional power users" are willing to pay for an OS and a platform that works the first time, every time, rather than disposable hardware and a marginal, if ubiquitous, excuse for an OS.

      13 22 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Trollface

        Some of us "mainstream professional power users" ...are willing to pay for an OS and a platform that works the first time, every time,

        Yes but we were discussing OSX

        26 16 Reply
      2. JEDIDIAH
        Reply Icon
        Devil

        > Not to mention the fact that it's most likely better designed in terms of heat dissipation

        That's funny. My last Mini cooked itself to death and you can easily burn yourself on an iMac if you're not careful.

        The PC laptop is probably better equipped to deal with heat dissipation because it's not trying to achieve form over function.

        10 1 Reply
    8. JDX Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      >As I proved recently on another forum, for the same price (of all the models available) I can get a PC that out-performs the Mac for a-half-to-a-third of the price - and that usually a laptop with an HD screen to boot!

      Does the one you build fit in the same size box as the Apple one and weigh the same? Or are you saying a Skoda is the same as an Audi because they both fit 4 passengers and do the same mpg? Packaging is important to some people, even if not to you.

      And of course, some people will prefer to pay extra for MacOS because they prefer it.

      12 4 Reply
    9. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      "I can get a PC that out-performs the Mac for a-half-to-a-third of the price"

      The "all options ticked" Mac Mini runs to c. £2000. An equivalent-specc'd Windows PC would run to (unles I've made a mistake) £1215*. However, this doesn't quite tell the whole story - it's not as small, some of the case materials differ, and it doesn't look the same. Plus, by buying parts, you're not exposing yourself to the cost of paying someone to build it for you, nor take on the support burden. Now, obviously whether the size of appearance of the computer is an issue is subjective, but it is fairly obvious that there is a cost attached to all of those things, and it's up to the end consumer to decide if it's worth it or not (for me, no it's not). And obviously, there's the whole software environment thing...

      * https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/76R3jy if anyone's interested in checking my working

      9 0 Reply
      1. JDX Gold badge
        Reply Icon

        If you spec a similar micro-PC or whatever the form factor is called, how much does it cost?

        Personally I love that I could take the MM with me easily if I travel though I acknowledge this is probably not a common scenario.

        3 1 Reply

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