The Apple Mac Mini was an affordable way to owning a Mac, and Apple has made subtle improvements over the years to make it more powerful. The last big model came out long back in 2014 and now in 2018, they have launched a new model. While fans know exactly what’s been happening, most of us are left pondering over what this hype is all about. After all, why should someone buy what essentially looks like a small computer, without a monitor or any peripherals, while being pricier than the average PC? And if the Mac Mini was so great, what’s so great about this 2018 model?
Why do people use Mac Minis for?
There is a perception that Macs are only for photo and video editors, and professional photographers. That’s true to some extent but there are those who use it as their daily driver, their everyday desktop, while some use them as their entertainment centres connected to a large screen TV and home theatre systems. Some others run web sites off it, some stream content off it to their mobile devices, and much more. The Mac Mini is a niche, but a well-justified one.
Its design allows it to be so minimalistic yet so powerful you can do development, run a home sound recording studio even run live musical instruments through it, with the right add-on hardware of course. A good display, a mouse and keyboard is all you need to get going. The Mac Mini with its efficient, clever design, and a neat operating system does wonders. If you want, you can even run Windows on it like other Macs do. So, it’s compact, elegant, powerful and it runs for years. The last Mac Mini from 2014 is still going strong and has operating system updates to the latest 10.14 Mojave build. It’s an investment that pays dividends through the years, unlike most hardware that turn slow and obsolete in a year or two.
We now move to the next obvious question – What’s so great about this new Mac Mini?
An all-new design
The Apple Mac Mini (2018) has a newer design but it’s not any different from the 2014 model. It’s a 100 grams lighter, and that brings its total weight to 1.3kg, lighter than the vast majority of laptops. While you probably won’t, you could if you wanted, carry your Mac Mini to work and back. Connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse, and you’re good to go. Apple claims this is a more environmentally-friendly construction, a lot nicer than the 2014 model. It runs cooler too. Of course, it looks as sleek if not, sleeker than the previous models. It’s available in Space Grey, and yes, it lacks any optical drives and the connectors are all lined at the back. It’s as minimalistic a machine as it gets.
Way more powerful processing
A small form factor does not mean Apple skimped on performance. The new Mac Mini runs an 8th generation, 4-core Intel Core i3 processor but there is even a 6-core Core i5 model which costs a bit more. This sounds like decent performance but don’t forget Apple tweaks its own operating system so you get a lot of performance from this piece of hardware. It comes with 8GB of DDR4 RAM, but you can upgrade it to a whopping 64GB. With its stock configuration, it can do a lot, but upgrade the RAM and you have workstation-class performance should you need it.
Blazing fast drive performance
The processor might have been a good enough performance boost to be excited about, but the storage performance bump is through the roof. Apple has opted for an SSD, while abandoning the archaic hard drive. The lower-end Core i3 model comes with 128GB of storage, while the 6-core Core i5 model has a 256GB SSD. Read and write rates and said to be 4 times faster. It’s a PCI-Express based SSD so performance gets a massive boost here. The real difference should be noticeable when you power it up, load endless photo albums, large audio and video editing projects. Importing projects, writing them back, loading software, watching a movie while doing all those things is where you will notice the SSD benefit.
Support for external GPUs
The Mac Mini uses Intel’s integrated UHD Graphics 630 solution which works fine for most applications. Most of the modern software use graphics cards in all kinds of ways to enhance performance. Even a web browser makes use of it. The brute performance from a dedicated graphics solution makes a world of a difference, however the Mac Mini never had a dedicated solution onboard. In this model however, Apple has added support for its external Blackmagic eGPUs which you can purchase separately. It uses one of the many Thunderbolt 3 ports to perform this feat. This is great for anyone into 3D modelling, video editing or even gamers.
4K and 5K display support
We briefly mentioned Thunderbolt 3 a while back. The new Mac Mini has four of these ports that can be used to charge devices, or connect additional displays or other accessories, not leaving out the two USB 3.0 ports. The Mac Mini has support for multiple 4K displays, even a single 5K display. Thunderbolt 3 is an incredible piece of kit that enables speeds of up to 40Gbps.
The latest software updates, for years to come
None of this magic the Apple Mac Mini has been known for would not be possible without an equally impressive piece of software, Mac OS. Apple ships the Mac Mini with the latest version, Mojave. There is a world of improvements and tweaks that are present on the latest builds. One of the finer, new additions is a new dark mode makes using the Mac for long hours easy with little strain to your eyes. Other software developers are working hand-in-hand to make that experience more seamless. Previewing large files and adding markings to them is simpler now. If you’re an iPhone or iPad user, it’s now simpler to move data back and forth between devices. Facetime has seen big changes on the mobile devices, and the Mojave lets Mac users make video calls with 32 people simultaneously. And if you’re overwhelmed by all of this, don’t fret. If you’re a Windows user, like other Macs, you can also install Windows on this and use your existing software on it.
These were just some of the things that make this new Mac Mini so great. You purchase this and you are sorted for a very long time to come. The possibilities are of course endless and you’ll be an owner of something really special and iconic. Want to know more, head over to our product catalogue or come down to our store so we can show you what the Mac Mini is all about.
