A Non-Review of the 2018 Mac Mini

This absolutely doesn't rise to the standard of a review—I'm not remotely competent to write one. On the other hand, I've used Macs since 1984, pretty much from the day they were introduced. I've lost track now, but I believe I've owned or regularly used 17 of them since that first one, either at school, at the office, or at home.

But I did want to mention that my new (2018) Mac Mini has had an almost transformative effect on my workdays, and I'm delighted with it.

The specs on mine are:

• 3.0 GHz Core i5 (six core)/ Gigabit ethernet
• 16GB RAM
• 512GB SSD drive

I had Apple install the extra RAM, even though we know they overcharge for it. List price on my Mini is $1,499.

The decision was really between the 3.6 GHz quad-core i3 and the 3.0 GHz six-core i5. I don't really have any way of knowing the practical differences the choice would make for me, but since I seem to always have a lot going on on the desktop, I went with the six cores over the higher clock speed. And it seems to have worked out.

Nothing in the middle
A while back, I was grousing about the lack of a mid-range model in the Apple lineup, a non-iMac, display-less model between the cheap intro-level Mini for "switchers" and the graphic-arts-studio-level (but now seriously outdated and kind of a bollix from the start) Mac Pro.

[Aside for non-Apple people: Apple really expects desktop buyers to buy iMacs, which are the proper heirs of the original all-in-one Macintoshes. And they're lovely machines—I've owned them right from the first "Blueberry" iMac of early 1999 to my current upstairs computer that I use for book writing, a lovely 21.5-inch Retina iMac with an SSD. Mine is a 2017 I bought as a factory refurb.]

Well, here's my point: the 2018 Mac Mini is that Goldilocks computer I wanted. It just happens to be in the old Mini box, is all.

I'm astonished by what a difference it makes. Everything is zippier, even the work I do online in the TypePad compositor where I spend most of every day. It never makes noise, never gets hot, never crashes or hangs, and is highly responsive to everything I want to do with it.

I suspect that my previous Mini—a 2012 model I picked up because it was higher spec'd than the pre-2018 Mini—got worked hard and put away wet by its previous owner(s). It might be the second-worst Mac I've ever owned, after a klunky John Scully era desktop that coincided with the nadir of Apple in the mid-to-late '90s. The 2012 Mini is the only Mac I've ever had that crashed (my '93 Quadra 605 of sainted memory crashed once in six years, when the little battery on the motherboard that kickstarted the display ran out of juice). Before I sell the 2012 Mini I'm going to get it cleaned, get a new fan for it (the old one is broken now), take out the second hard drive (I suspect it makes it harder to cool) and maybe even get a new main drive put in if it's not too expensive.

Whee!
Given that I input hundreds or most likely thousands of little commands a day, from scrolling a folder to resizing an image for the Web to flicking between windows in Firefox, the aggregate improvement in the speed I can work is, as I said, transforming. It saves me loads of time over the course of a day and imparts a sense of ease and freedom I had been missing. I didn't even realize how much my creaky old 2012 was slowing me down and frustrating me, until all that slowness and frustration vanished.

Downsides? Just one—the disappearance of the card slot. Yeah, yeah, I know all the arguments, but I've always appreciated the elegance of the built-in SD card slot and I'm sorry to see it go. The current killer Thunderbolt3 hubs are the $299 OWC Dock and, even better because it reads UHS-II cards natively, the hugely flexible American-made $310 CalDigit TS3 Plus. I'd love one of those, but I'm a beer budget guy. I use a Lention USB-C 3-port hub I bought for $20 on eBay.

Conclusion
Would I recommend the 2018 Mini? Heartily, if it happens to be what you need. Me, I like to be able to unhook the computer and stash it in a safe location when I'm away, and I like to be able to use my 27" NEC monitor.

But really, if you're currently not locked in by past choices and just need a super-slick, beautiful computer and want to be able to do anything on it, including working with photos, my first recommendation would be one of the still-new 2019 21.5" Retina iMacs. They're light and easy to move around, very pretty, and right-sized. The display is lovely (and you don't stop thinking so—I still appreciate mine whenever I use it) and let's face it, they'll do most anything most of us ever want to do. There are 27" models too of course. I've owned three 27" iMacs and I work on a 27-inch monitor right now, but I could live with the 21.5" size. Those start at $1,249, which means you're paying no "Apple tax" in any sense. They're just plain worth that.

...In my opinion. Your biases may vary.  :-)

So all is well in TOP-land. I imagine I'll be writing about Mac no. 18 at some point on down the line.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Everything must fade away

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Mark Cotter: "'Non-reviews' are often the most helpful. I think of myself as knowledgeable enough about specs to decide what could suit me, real world reviews are the most useful. And this is especially useful as I am thinking of replacing my seven year old 27" iMac (the last with a DVD drive built in), and a Mini similar to your configuration is on my list."

Comments

[Bill Morgan]

I was ready to toss my 2012 Mini in the trash, so as a last resort I replaced the HD with an SSD, and the result was amazing. I believe the old Mini is now faster than my 27" iMac. I purchased the SSD with the tools needed to do the swap from OWC for around $100. One of the best purchases I've ever made. If you want to breathe some new life into your old 2012 Mini, I'd highly recommend replacing the HD with an SSD.

[Michael Perini]

Very nice, I'm pleased for you.
I always think it is a false economy to buy less computer than you need.
I don't mean everyone needs top of the line but one configured to easily support the work you do with a little room for growth.
In the 'sealed' systems I always recommend getting twice the memory you think you need.
Re the Dock, I swear by them and my second one is the OWC Travel dock--a tiny little thing, with 2 USB 3.1 Ports (A type connector so it eliminates 2 dongles), an SD Card reader (UHS II), HDMI 2.0, 4k resolution. You can use it bus powered or use a USB-C terminated power supply and it powers your computer and all the ports.
They have the 'Rose Gold' one on sale for $30 bucks
You might even be able to use a second display which is another productivity booster.
OWC uses good chip sets and you get USB 3.1, not all hubs & docks do.

[Speed]

Our grandson got glasses at age six. When he first put them on he exclaimed, "Everything's so clear!"

Mike's new computer is also "so clear". Clearly better.

[jonno]

I also have a new Mini 2018 and discovered a problem that is widely discussed “on the forums” but not acknowledged by Apple at all which is that the bluetooth connectivity for Apple wireless peripherals (keyboard, magic mouse and trackpad etc) is a disaster compared to eg a 2015 MacBook Pro. The range is about 18 inches after which the connections drop repeatedly to the point of being useless. Same peripehrals paired to MBPro will work across the room and never drop. Another issue is apparent sensitivity to mains and RF interference especially from the cables directly plugged in to the box itself. I have found it necessary to replace and upgrade almost every device/item/cable to USB-c to get reliable operation. Other than that Mrs Lincoln, its great.

[The only bluetooth devices I use are mouses. I just tested an original Magic Mouse (the kind that uses the 2 AA batteries) and a Magic Mouse 2, and both worked fine from the other side of my porch office, which is about 12 feet away from the computer.

Sounds like you might have other RFI problems in your environment. --Mike]

[Franklin Berryman]

One problem with the 2018 Mac Mini for some photographers is that it does not have dedicated graphics and so the new LR Enhance Details feature, for example, is likely to run very slowly. The iMacs have dedicated graphics options and may be a better choice.

[MikeR]

You said "book." So, how is that project going? No updates in quite a while.

[I'm chipping away. --Mike]

[Phil Stiles]

Bill Morgan's story is my own, although I spent more money ($350) to upgrade to a 1T SSD in my 2012(late) Mini. It was beginning to choke on Lightroom. Slow loading, slow processing, even with 16G of RAM. I was bracing for a total upgrade. I did the same kit from OWC, and watched a few Youtube videos on the installation. It went very well, and I'm back to a fast-loading, snappy Lightroom. And I love that SD port! The Mini is flanked by a dock from OWC, and an external dual hard drive enclosure (a "toaster"). I used to run RAID 1 on the two hard drives, but it became a hassle keep them from degrading. Now I just clone the A drive to the B drive at the end of a session.

[Øyvind Hansen]

It seems 5k displays never caught on outside of the Apple ecosystem. There is the LG one that Apple sells, which is good, but not a great industrial design. Other options seem to be of weird aspect ratios. So if one wants a mac with a nice 27 inch 5k display there are few options outside of the iMac.

There is also user unfriendliness to the LG display in that is needs to be connected to the Mac with a Thunderbolt cable that looks identical to a USB-c cable but can only be 0.8m long. Confusingly the new iPad Pro supports 5k over USB-c, but it wont work on the display that Apple sells in their store.

[Richard Parkin]

Mike, this is off-topic except that you have posted a lot about computers recently and maybe I should have emailed you, but I thought others may have the same experience.
For at least the past several weeks the comments in TOP have not been refreshing normally. If I refresh the page (or go to another post and back again) then some of the later posts are missing but reappear on later refreshes.
A current example is in the post “The Very Very Very Best Backup...” where sometimes Hugh Crawford's post at 01 April 0813 PM is the last post and at other times Isaac’s at 02 April 0810 PM is the last!
This is mostly on Safari on my iPad Pro iOS 12.3 (but happened on 12.2 too) but also I have checked on that post on Safari on my Mac Mini MacOS Mojave.
I know that sometime we get odd results if we log in when you are updating the blog but that does not seem to be the case here. Have you changed something about the commenting recently?

[KeithB]

You need to have a computer you can lock up. With all the traveling to Hungary and all. 8^)

I am saving my pennies for one of the new iMacs.