so which one?

i thought i may have been able to get a Mac mini from work, we get a 15% discount for 5 days after pay day, and 10% any other time, but the only new Mac mini they are selling is the basic M2 one, so not really any good for me.
I can get 6% off via a scheme my employer have signed up to.

so the choice is a Mac mini M2 pro or the normal M2 with 16GB of ram and 512GB of storage

The pro looks nice, but costs a lot more and while it is more powerful, do I really need it? I want to do a bit of video editing when I get back into it, some photo editing and maybe a bit of 3D rendering with Blender, when I can work out how to use it.
My idea is to get a dock that fits under the Mac for extra ports, SD card slot and space for a SSD.


I have also found out via a Mac owner, that to use bluetooth on a Mac it has to be set up, so my keyboard will not connect right away, I will have to use the dongle, but bit of a pain.

Another thing is, my monitor has a built usb hub, 4 usb ports on it, now if I get a USB switch like this one, I presume I could connect the cable from the monitor to it and then i can switch the ports from the monitor between both computers. The ports are only used for dongles and my scanner,

A Mac that has no USB keyboard connected and no Bluetooth keyboard parried will automatically pair and connect to a Bluetooth keyboard (and mouse).

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

A Mac that has no USB keyboard connected and no Bluetooth keyboard parried will automatically pair and connect to a Bluetooth keyboard (and mouse).

oh right, that is good to hear, thanks, I heard that it will only pair to Apple's own keyboard and mouse.

It can be a bit temperamental with non-Apple kit at setup (fine thereafter). If you have a cheap wired mouse and keyboard you could use for the set up, then pair the MAK that would cover the bases.

Be aware that Logitech's software remains...er...quirky.

In reply to a post by ian_c:

It can be a bit temperamental with non-Apple kit at setup (fine thereafter). If you have a cheap wired mouse and keyboard you could use for the set up, then pair the MAK that would cover the bases.

Be aware that Logitech's software remains...er...quirky.

I notice Logitech can be quirky, most of the time it is in the back round, but when I do bring it to the foreground it can play up.

Still trying to work out which one to go for, I think I may go for the non-pro version, but with 16GB or ram and 512GB of storage, people on YouTube are using it for video editing on far larger projects that I will ever do and it manages. The money I save can then go for a dock and extra storage, it is still going to be better than this machine I am using now.

You won't need the pro one, the 16GB machine is very capable.

I've got a 32GB M1 Max and it is total overkill for just about anything I might do with it. My 8GB M1 can do almost as well for most people's workload.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

You won't need the pro one, the 16GB machine is very capable.

I've got a 32GB M1 Max and it is total overkill for just about anything I might do with it. My 8GB M1 can do almost as well for most people's workload.

But what do you do?

I would not go for 8GB, 16GB is the minimum, I got to do some more research

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

You won't need the pro one, the 16GB machine is very capable.

I've got a 32GB M1 Max and it is total overkill for just about anything I might do with it. My 8GB M1 can do almost as well for most people's workload.

But what do you do?

I would not go for 8GB, 16GB is the minimum, I got to do some more research

I tend to buy the highest spec. (within reason) and "sweat the asset' as the yanks would say. Has worked well for all my apple purchases the last 20 years or so.

[That's just my personal tendency though before I get piled on 😂 C'mon then...🤣]

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I tend to buy the highest spec. (within reason) and "sweat the asset' as the yanks would say. Has worked well for all my apple purchases the last 20 years or so.

[That's just my personal tendency though before I get piled on 😂 C'mon then...🤣]

LOL,

If I was going for the highest spec I would go for the studio, it seems a very powerful machine, but far more than what I need. I am still shocked how much better in benchmarks the M2 is to my Tower. I suppose technology moves on, my machine is over 4 years old now, maybe 5. I may have a look at benchmarks on different AMD processors. I know benchmarks are just that, benchmarks, but it would be interesting to see how the newer version of the R7 does against my machine and the Mac m2.

My other half said to me for god’s sake, get on with it. Get one now. But it is ok for her, she earns nearly 40 grand a year

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I would not go for 8GB, 16GB is the minimum, I got to do some more research

With Apple Silicon and the way macOS manages memory, you might find you can do in 8GB what you need 16 or 32 GB on Windows or Linux.

If you're working with super large files (RAW photos, or 4K/8K video) have a look at some of the disk performance metrics for the different SoC (System on Chip) as the way the storage is integrated with the CPU is similar to mobile phones rather than previous computer designs. (My 8GB RAM M1 Mac Mini is fast, its about the speed of my slower M.2 SSD in the windows laptop).