Apple Mac mini 2018 - pros and cons

The last show of the best Apple manufacturer will be remembered by fans not only of the modified iPad Pro and MacBook Air, but also of the updated Apple Mac mini 2018, the advantages and disadvantages of which are discussed in this article.

Mini PC has been persistently waiting for its own turn for 4 years. Having decided not to change anything in appearance, the company from start to finish revised the hardware of the smallest PC in the series.

Design

4 years of silence were not in vain, user expectations were realized in improving the performance of the new product 5 times. The practical PC with the apple logo forced us to redefine the attitude towards portable digital electronics. Mac mini turned out to be faster than notebooks and ordinary PCs in the low-cost segment of the market.

In the past and this year, the corporation's designers have redesigned phones and tablet PCs, the dimensions and materials used have changed, and some “highlights” from the company have appeared. However, in the situation with the culprit of the review, this direction was decided not to continue. For a PC, such expressive components are not necessary, it is important to preserve the primary dimensions by equipping the device with new options.

The first thing that stood out from the rest at the demonstration was the appearance of a new color such as "Space Gray". The arrival of Space Gray was a welcome surprise for future consumers. Before that, this color came across only in the premium gadgets of the corporation.

Ports

Nothing remarkable happened with the shell of the novelty. It supports all popular and proven connection formats. With the new chip, all actions are now carried out 5 times faster. The new gadget received all the necessary slots:

1. 4 USB-C Gen 3 hardware connectors. Several PCs are connected to one display.
2. Slot for transferring digital information and clips to HDMI.
3. Out for the network, the speed of which reaches 10 Gb / s.
4. Ordinary USB sockets.
5. Out for audio.

A practical PC from Apple will be a good choice for users who love to watch video in the evenings and users who have professional activities in the field of audio and video processing.

What is allowed to connect?

One of the signs of the popularity of new nettop models from the "apple" company is the ability to create a server by connecting a couple of PCs. The satisfied owner of a new practical PC can connect:

• High speed media;
• Auxiliary video graphics accelerator;
• Up to 2 displays that support 4K.

Due to ordinary "Out" with a USB slot, various types of digital devices are connected, and therefore the gadget is relevant in any situation and for multidirectional tasks.

Transfer of information

In the new product, Apple "was not greedy" and added as many as 4 Thunderbolt 3 connectors to the back side. These slots have the following benefits:

1. Data transfer is carried out at a speed of 40 Gb / s;
2. PC and other external devices are charged through any of the connectors;
3. If not integrated enough, then an external video graphics accelerator is connected.

Due to the unprecedented "generosity" of the corporation, it became possible to connect two displays that support 4K-format at once.

Filling

Apple, apparently, decided to develop a "no-objectionable" modification of the Mac mini on the "once and at once" type, in order to satisfy the outraged fans for a long time. It should be noted that the company's developers have coped with this task.

Chip

Foreign bloggers and leaders of scientific resources have already received a novelty for review. The very first tests showed that the developers' long-term activity was not in vain. The laptop was equipped with 2 chips of the eighth generation, one with a 4-core, the second with 6.

The device is used not only as a miniature household PC. The gadget is actively bought for connecting several PCs, in order to solve difficult computing processes. In this regard, there are significantly more questions to the chip than to all other components.

It is for this reason that Apple has equipped the new product with two innovative Core i5 and i7 chips from Intel. Already the first tests gave only favorable reviews. For example, about 15-20 tabs were opened, audio and videos were played, but no "lags" or "brakes" were found. It should be noted that the time for copying to external media is less than 5 seconds. even for 5 GB.

RAM

The device is equipped with DDR4 RAM with a clock frequency of 2.6 GHz. As a result, "heavyweight" processes - rendering, working with capacious files and opening several virtual machines at once - will be faster.

It should be noted that the gadget is allowed to put up to 64 GB of RAM. Representatives of the company claim that such an Über-setting will function up to 7.8 times faster than the "ordinary" 16 GB.

Turbo Boost acceleration

Intel Turbo Boost has been around for a long time in PCs and has proven itself to be the best. The technology improves the performance of various types of programs. Simply put, information processing in a chip is much faster.

Turbo Boost is activated from the factory and operates automatically. In addition, the technology is applied when there is a lack of RAM. In fact, Turbo Boost boosts the chip's performance up to 4.1 GHz.

Carrier

The company abandoned the very obscure practice of the past, when Apple quickly did not want to put SSD-type disks in the usual modifications of poppies and preferred them either primitive HDDs, or a mixture of SSD and HDD called Fusion Drive.

From now on, the novelty is equipped only with SSD-carriers. The largest capacity is up to 2 TB. At the same time, they function up to 4 times faster than SSDs on premium modifications of 2014 - in particular, the stepwise read speed reaches 3.4 Gb / s.

Cooling system

The increase in performance led to the solution of problems with the cooling system. A practical shell interprets the equipment's own requirements. To fit the cooler, it was necessary to change the device of the power supply and specialized holes. Ultimately, the component received a 70% increase in performance and a 2x increase in airflow.

Performance

Naturally, most users at the same moment ask themselves the question: "What will the new incredible features give in reality, and how will they affect the operation of applications?" Here are some examples:

• Xcode - the layout on a mini mac with 6 cores is 2.2 times faster than on a 2014 device with 2 cores;
• Web Kit Compile - compiles 3.4 times faster;
• Adobe Photoshop CC - multi-threaded filters are 3.2 times faster;
• Pixelmator Pro - 3.3x faster processing of images using machine learning algorithms;
• Autodes Maya - rendering is 5.3 times faster;
• Final Cut Pro X - speed of exporting is increased by 3.6 times;
• Logic Pro X - 5.4x the number of Alchemy tracks.

Protection of personal information

Due attention is paid to data security in Apple devices. This year's desktop systems are equipped with the proprietary T2 Security Chip, an advanced data preservation chip. This chip has the following options:

1. Key security;
2. Fingerprint verification;
3. Secure boot option.

The proprietary T2 chip is activated at the hardware level, which makes it impossible for any external, harmful application to affect it. The new microcircuit will protect the device from the influence of virus software and hacker break-ins.

The latter danger has long been not an invention, in particular, of dubious bloggers. Every day there are many cases of pirated connection to PCs, webcams or passwords. In the new product, Apple has provided a unique protection concept, which is unrealistic to crack.

Equipment

The package contains only the packaging itself and a long power cord.

Specifications

Advantages and disadvantages

• Improved performance on all sides;
• The same practical appearance as before;
• 4 x USB Type C Thunderbolt 3;
• High build reliability.

• Integrated graphics card;
• Raising the starting cost.

How much is?

In the United States of America, the average price of a new item starts at 53,000 rubles for an ordinary modification with an eighth generation 4-core Core i3 chip from Intel, clocked at 3.6 GHz. The device is equipped with the UHD Graphics 630 graphics accelerator from Intel and is equipped with 8 GB of RAM and a 128 GB SSD.

If there is a desire, then the gadget can be improved in depth, of course, for an additional fee. Thus, a much more efficient 6-core Intel Core i7 chip will cost 20,000 rubles. 16 GB of RAM increases the order price by 13,000 RUB, 32 GB - by 39,500, and 64 GB - by 92,500, respectively. If a 128 GB SSD is not suitable for the user, then a 256 GB block will add 13,000 rubles to the cost of the device, 512 GB - 26,000, a 1 TB solution - 53,000 RUB, and a 2 TB solution - 106,000.

The average price of the progressive version with a 6-core Intel Core i5 chip, clocked at 4.1 GHz, will cost 72,500 rubles. The device has 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD.

In the Russian Federation, the novelty should appear very soon at a cost of 69,000 rubles - for the usual, and 94,000 - for the progressive version in accordance with.

Useful information!

A couple of new mini poppies can be connected into an integral network. Practical, with excellent performance and many slots, the network will be an excellent solution for professional activities.

Opinions of top foreign reviewers

Since some of the top bloggers have already got their hands on the novelty, it makes sense to consider their point of view and first impressions.

Tom`s guide

This is the best mini poppy ever released. If the user is thinking about upgrading any of the early models in the series, then the choice is clear.

The device will be an excellent choice for both fans of watching videos and users working in the audio and video field. Naturally, the ability to connect several devices into one server plays a significant role. This will make it possible to significantly increase the performance of a practical PC.

It will not be superfluous to highlight that, despite all the primacy of mini-macs, there are a large number of PCs on the market with much spectacular graphics performance. The issue of games is not considered at all.

During tests, a device with a Core i3-8100B chip does an excellent job with 15 tabs open in the Safari browser, music playing and a running video. No lags. It takes only a couple of seconds to copy almost 5 GB of data.

The novelty is definitely faster than many PCs in its own category, up to rivals from the HP Z2 Mini g4 or Lenovo ThinkCenter M710q Tiny.

AppleInsider

Compared with the previous model, the price of the improved poppy increased by 20,000 rubles. This is if we talk about an ordinary modification. And such a cost, unfortunately, will alienate a large number of potential consumers of the gadget.

But it's worth noting that this is a practical PC with good performance indeed. And it is still the most affordable Mac available from Apple today, aside from the retired old model with the old chip.

The joy is that the user can choose the usual modification and then personally add RAM. At the same time, such an improvement does not exclude its guarantee, unless, of course, it breaks anything during the update process.

A good recommendation for the future: the factory trims must be saved without fail, or when contacting an authorized service center, the user will be denied repair.

Testing an ordinary modification of the device (for 69,000 rubles at the domestic Apple Store) in CineBench R15 we got an indicator of 40 frames / sec on OpenGL and approximately 220 points during the chip test. Ok, as for the smallest setting based on Intel's Core i3.

As a bonus, which is not noticeable at first glance, it is necessary to highlight the presence of the T2 microcircuit. From now on, the user's Mac is much better protected when compared to previous models: secure boot and regular disk encryption are all "from the factory."

Six Colors

In recent years, Intel has promoted the idea of ​​highly practical miniature computers. This is unusual, but it leads most users to assume that the future generation of poppies will become even more practical.

This did not happen with this upgrade. Apple made the decision to stick with its proven design over many years. A significant external difference is only in color. From now on, the poppy mini has become darker.

TechCrunch

Probably the most key transformation in the gadget is the emergence of 4 Thunderbolt 3 slots at once. This is the number of them in the iMac Pro, and 2 times more when compared with the usual iMac of the previous year.

It is this feature that opens up significant opportunities for the future use of the device. Of course, the possibility of connecting a 4K display is also encouraging.

Mac world

53,000 rubles will cost a standard Mac mini this year with a 128 GB SSD. If such parameters are few, then Apple provides a solution up to 2 TB. Of course, if the user is willing to pay for it.

Yes, the new product has PCI-e SSD standards. Simply put, the user will not be able to individually upgrade them. This must be taken into account before buying a device.

As for the RAM, everything is nicer here. Typical 8 GB DDR4 RAM, which is clocked at 2.6 GHz, can be increased up to 64 GB. Apple still recommends that these procedures be followed by licensed service centers.

Output

Most users have been waiting for the company to present an improved modification of the popular nettop model over the years, and fans were shocked that the Cupertino corporation finally released the new version this year. One way or another, this is not only a late iteration or a smart, but "dirty" upgrade, which is designed to save the interest of fans, it is not.

Instead, users have a redesigned Mac mini that incomprehensibly goes beyond what fans have been waiting for. This is a very cleverly designed miniature PC, combining chic innovative options and elements for performance that will shame most other nettops.

The Apple company acknowledged that the computing market has changed since the last Mac mini was released. And as long as the novelty is created with creative users in mind, it guarantees to be a fairly budget PC to win over Windows fans.

With the rise of notebook computers and the availability of the entry-level MacBook, the company is delivering a new gadget with a focus on qualified users.

The solution may seem out of the ordinary, but it works.It's an incredible miniature machine on its own, but when combined with an eGPU (or even auxiliary multiple Macs), it provides a powerful PC for heavy-duty workflows. A miniature PC with an extensive set of features that allows customers to use their display and peripherals is a very flexible gadget.

The competitive price is also significant when compared to other small form factor PCs that offer similar performance levels. Users have been expecting an upgrade for a long time and, from the point of view of most experts, it was definitely worth waiting for.