2023 MacBook Pro and Mac mini (1 Viewer)

[dpippel]

Well, my mini shipped yesterday - from Shenzen, China. Estimated delivery date is Wednesday the 8th.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Well, my mini shipped yesterday - from Shenzen, China. Estimated delivery date is Wednesday the 8th.

Congrats, Doug. Looking forward to your initial impressions.

 

[Sam Posten]

Apple execs on M2 chips, winning gamers and when to buy a Mac

Apple’s M series chips were incredibly well telegraphed when they arrived in late 2021. Apple had been designing its own silicon since the A4 appeared in the iPhone 4 just over a decade earlier. The appearance of Apple’s in-house efforts in the Mac was really just a question of when, not if...

techcrunch.com

 

[dpippel]

My mini has arrived. Now I just have to remain patient while Migration Assistant moves all of my files over from the laptop. Current estimate - 5 hours.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

My mini has arrived. Now I just have to patient while Migration Assistant moves all of my files over from the laptop. Current estimate - 5 hours.

Great news, Doug! Nothing quite like loading up a new computer!

 

[dpippel]

Great news, Doug! Nothing quite like loading up a new computer!

I have the mini up and running, and despite a few glitches (no Tasks showing in O365 Outlook and no texts sent after the data transfer from my MacBook showing in Messages) I'm loving this thing so far. It is F-F-Fast! It's also larger than I expected, more a Mac-midi than Mac-mini.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I have the mini up and running, and despite a few glitches (no Tasks showing in O365 Outlook and no texts sent after the data transfer from my MacBook showing in Messages) I'm loving this thing so far. It is F-F-Fast! It's also larger than I expected, more a Mac-midi than Mac-mini.

Doug, I tried to backtrack a little to find out what spec Mini you bought. I don't know if you mentioned it or not so right now I am going to assume you got the base 8GB model but I am hoping you went with at least 16GB?

Over an i7 you should experience a noticeable speed bump. Glad you are seeing it.

Have fun with your new baby.

 

[dpippel]

Doug, I tried to backtrack a little to find out what spec Mini you bought. I don't know if you mentioned it or not so right now I am going to assume you got the base 8GB model but I am hoping you went with at least 16GB?

Over an i7 you should experience a noticeable speed bump. Glad you are seeing it.

Have fun with your new baby.

Thanks Ron! I went with the M2 Pro and 16GB with a 1TB SSD and yes, there's a noticeable improvement in performance over my 3.1 GHz i7 with 16GB. So far I'm very happy with my decision.

 

[Citizen87645]

Got my cash money from Decluttr for my i7 Mini, so I can recommend them for trading in, even though shipping off something like that anywhere always gives me some mild anxiety.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Got my cash money from Decluttr for my i7 Mini, so I can recommend them for trading in, even though shipping off something like that anywhere always gives me some mild anxiety.

Cameron, great news. That is always scary sending your valuable computer to someone you know little about.

However, good to hear you got paid. I will keep them in mind for my next trade-in.

 

[JohnRice]

Something worth pointing out regarding the M2 Mini vs. Studio. The RAM bus on the Studio is 4x the speed of the Mini M2 and 2x the speed of the Mini M2 Pro. Also, apparently the SSD speed of the Studio is roughly 4x the speed of the M2 Mini. Then there's better cooling in the Studio.

The M2 Mini is an awesome computer, and I'll get one for my work office, but there are more differences than maybe get attention.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Something worth pointing out regarding the M2 Mini vs. Studio. The RAM bus on the Studio is 4x the speed of the Mini M2 and 2x the speed of the Mini M2 Pro. Also, apparently the SSD speed of the Studio is roughly 4x the speed of the M2 Mini. Then there's better cooling in the Studio.

The M2 Mini is an awesome computer, and I'll get one for my work office, but there are more differences than maybe get attention.

Well, that's encouraging to hear as I kind of had an "oh shit!" moment when the new Minis were announced two weeks after I bought a studio. It didn't seem like there was much of a gap between the high-end Mini and the machines we own.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I was aware of the RAM bandwidth diff, but not the cooling -- no idea how much diff that latter bit makes for these M series processors though...

IF we're talking Intel or even AMD processors, the cooling diff might indeed make very real/significant diff, but no idea about these Apple M series...

_Man_

 

[JohnRice]

I was aware of the RAM bandwidth diff, but not the cooling -- no idea how much diff that latter bit makes for these M series processors though...

IF we're talking Intel or even AMD processors, the cooling diff might indeed make very real/significant diff, but no idea about these Apple M series...

_Man_

Apparently if you’re really slamming it like video processing it does need it.

 

[DaveF]

I know none of you use this particular professional tool, but I'm excited to see that MATHWORKS' Matlab is (finally) working on an Apple Silicon-native version. I don't use Matlab much, but I own the home version to dabble in when I've got the itch. I didn't need this to buy a new Mac, but I will buy the new version immediately when I buy a new Mac.

(that said, I hope to not need to buy a new Mac in 2023. I'm buying other spendy toys to get this year.)

MATLAB on Apple Silicon Macs

Find out to how to run MATLAB on Apple Silicon Macs.

www.mathworks.com

The MATLAB® R2022b native Apple® silicon platform open beta is an early build of MATLAB for Apple silicon Mac® users to evaluate the execution of existing code and apps, and to test third-party integrations and add-ons. This beta will be available until June 30, 2023.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

MatLab is still a thing?

I remember it being used by engineering students in college computer labs on 286(?) PCs back in the late-80's -- yeah, I had a parttime/student job at some of those labs. I've never actually used it myself despite being a Comp Sci major (and having also taken a bunch of EE courses) -- I had to take a (more abstract) math track alongside the Math majors instead, not the engineering students.

_Man_

 

[DaveF]

MatLab is still a thing?

I remember it being used by engineering students in college computer labs on 286(?) PCs back in the late-80's -- yeah, I had a parttime/student job at some of those labs. I've never actually used it myself despite being a Comp Sci major (and having also taken a bunch of EE courses) -- I had to take a (more abstract) math track alongside the Math majors instead, not the engineering students.

_Man_

That's like asking "Photoshop is still a thing?"

 

[dpippel]

MatLab is still a thing?

Still widely used in higher education.

 

[DaveF]

Still widely used in higher education.

Still widely used in science and engineering.

 

[dpippel]

Well y'all, I wasn't getting any interest in my MacBook Pro as a private sale, so I decided to give https://goroostr.com/ a try. They have great ratings and offered a premium price on the laptop, so we'll see where it goes. They're in PA and I'm in AZ, so it'll take the computer 4-5 business days to reach them. I'll post here after I've received payment and share what my experience was like. Fingers crossed!