when i first laid eyes on the 2018 mac mini the first words out of my mouth
were does apple make it bigger and i actually wasn't the only one
so i got myself all pumped up to be like yo so it's not so many anymore is it you
know what we should just call it the mac
but but as it turns out they actually didn't make it bigger it's just been so
long since apple has updated the mac mini that either you think of this
or this or this
which is the original mac mini not this
i guess we've just been spoiled by the Intel nook and all the third-party
derivatives but so you know what i'm actually gonna stick with it this
product shouldn't be called the mac mini
it should be called the mac but
that might not be a bad thing
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so we stumbled upon the first reason that this is a mac
not a mac mini during the ordering process
unlike previous mac mini models the 2018
mac is not cheap it starts at 7.99 for
the quad core experience with a piddly 8 gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of storage
now obviously i'm no pleb so i poked around on the ordering page some more
and ended up ponying up for the second reason that this is a mac the desktop
class 6 core processor option
yes my friends starting at 1099 us you
can get the same performance as your diy pc building chump roommate in a device
this big the unboxing experience certainly was
pretty legendary but things were looking up from there and isn't it beautiful the
thing weighs only about three pounds and is completely clean aside from the
glossy apple logo on the top oh well
around back we've got this air vent that apple says doubles air flow over the
last gen and above the io which impressively is nearly identical to the
imac pro and includes four Thunderbolt 3
ports which have all kinds of uses display usb external docks whatever
we've got HDMI usb a and a headphone
jack hey is that where they've been keeping them
anyway what we've also got is the main event for me right here a 10 gigabit
networking port and this is not only available on the mac but even reasonably
priced at about 100 bucks for the upgrade so now we can finally edit ak
footage over the network without needing an imac pro or an expensive Thunderbolt
to 10 gigabit networking adapter so why don't we do it
ah macOS my old friend
macos not my favorite in no small part though due to my lack of familiarity
with it but to its credit it's actually remarkably smooth on this machine with
its mere eight gigs of RAM with that said the experience isn't all it could
be with a more reasonable amount of system memory and i've got some good
news with about half an hour and a handy dandy guide off of ifixit anyone with a
screwdriver should be able to perform a memory upgrade on the 2018 mac remember
that's what i'm calling it by themselves
so i called in a friend to help me out he knows all about disassembling apple
products it's actually easier than you might think to get inside this thing you just
need the right tools here are the steps the bottom lid just pops right off the
antenna plate is just a few screws make sure though that you mark where the
larger ones go for reassembly later you unscrew the wi-fi connector and
carefully pry it up then unscrew the fan pry its connector
up and remove it these two cables need to be carefully removed
then you can take out the two large tr-10 screws that keep the motherboard
fastened to the chassis give the rear i o plate a gentle push and it'll pop up
and then out there's a cage around the RAM to reduce emi but four t6 screws
later and we have regular old sodium
slots just repeat this process in reverse once the RAM is in and you're
done but i have some bad news too remember
how i mentioned that you should buy as much storage as you will need when you order
yeah about that so the uh let's call them rumors about
apple blocking third-party operating systems from the mac mini and other t2
chip enabled devices turns out to be false but only from a
literal standpoint thanks to the t2 chip Linux isn't
blocked from booting only from installing
so if you fire it up into recovery mode and disable secure boot
you can still boot Linux if you're into that even with the t2 chip but without
access to the internal storage so we're booted back up here let's go
into about this map boom there it is 32 gigs of ddr4 memory so at least the
RAM upgrade worked and this was just with random memory
that we had lying around in our warehouse so all that's left now then is to see
how the 2018 mac stacks up with the competition in terms of its performance
we're going to test it alongside the macbook pro 2018 the macbook air 2018 a
hades canyon nook and a similarly priced
desktop pc also while we aren't focusing on games
today we're going to throw a few in there just to round out our testing as
one might expect well relying on integrated graphics does the mac no
favors even at 720p medium details it
absolutely chugs in shadow of the tomb raider meaning that you're basically sol
for all but esports titles and even then
it's not a great experience until you plug in an external GPU via
Thunderbolt 3. just bear in mind though that only AMD graphics cards are
officially supported in macOS
anyway that's not why you're buying a mac and when it comes to productivity
thankfully the mac here occupies a niche much closer to the 2018 macbook pro than
the 2018 macbook air thanks to its hefty
CPU horsepower but while it does beat out our hades
canyon nook in CPU performance it sadly doesn't come close in GPU and loses out
entirely to our similarly priced stock
desktop except actually for one case where macOS's aggressive boost factors
in though this lack of performance compared to a
full-size desktop would be a much bigger problem in our eyes if it wasn't for the
max diminutive form factor speaking of which by the way it does
have a reasonable looking ventilation hole but it got really hot like
really hot while it was working hard like over 90 degrees hot
which comes a little too close to literally smoking the competition for
our liking i mean stock chips start to throttle around 85 degrees or so and
yeah the mac manages to keep it going above base clock with surprisingly
minimal noise so that's good but remember it's got that t2 chip that
we're all familiar with by now so if some component of your system dies a
heat death or the board flexes or something especially as dust accumulates
inside over the years remember apple might not upgrade this thing for four
years so even if you buy on every release cycle
at least the good news is that it sips power compared to our desktop i'm just
saying i would recommend setting up time machine just to be safe
which honestly is a pretty good way to sum up the whole experience one giant
asterisk yeah it's a small mac
but you're going to have to deal with no dedicated GPU when similarly priced kits
have them yes it's fast but it's thermal
solution while improved is not designed for sustained loads yes it's upgradable
and cleanable but only if you have the right tools and that upgradeable thing
it only applies to RAM not the internal storage that is held
ransom by the t2 chip like it really seems like apple designed this new
generation of mac with something like final cut or adobe premiere in mind
where the igp can accelerate some of the transcoding work and then the CPU cores
themselves can handle the much burstier timeline editing work that's even more
apparent with the inclusion of 10 gig Ethernet for connecting to a high speed
nas though we're not saying that's the only thing it could be used for because on
that subject you could actually use this thing as a high speed nas thanks to that
10 gig Ethernet though for the price and considering
that you'd need a separate Thunderbolt enclosure for true mass storage well
it's not a great value in spite of the compromises though
per apple tradition there's nothing in this form factor that quite matches the
capability and the connectivity of the
2018 mac and the price while
higher isn't entirely outlandish either
so if you need its unique blend of form and function
or if you just plain need a mac and don't feel like paying more to have a
screen pre-attached to it seriously actually this occurred to us only while
we were finalizing the script for this video this is the only thing that runs macOS
and doesn't include a screen that has been refreshed by apple in the last five
years anyway it's a pretty neat little machine
just make sure you keep regular backups of all of your files
though i mean that's pretty good advice across the board
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