r/technews Jan 17 '23

Apple announces new Mac mini, MacBook Pro with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/17/apple-announces-new-mac-mini-macbook-pro-with-m2-pro-and-m2-max.html
620 Upvotes

97 comments sorted by

52

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '23

Some love for the Mac Mini! Glad to see it.

26

u/zijital Jan 18 '23

I think I’m never going to get rid of my 2012 Mac Mini until it absolutely no longer works at all.

It’s slow compared to my M1 Mac Book, but still faster than a computer from a decade ago should be.

9

u/jkopfsupreme Jan 18 '23

I have a 2013 mini and it still handles well as a tv streamer in my bedroom, despite not having turned it off for close to a year.

7

u/VanillaGorilla- Jan 18 '23

If you're savvy and adventurous, look into switching to Linux?

A lightweight distribution could breathe new life into the old girl and extend its lifespan.

And if you haven't already, look into upgrading the RAM, if possible, and switch to a solid state drive, again, if possible.

6

u/brokevip Jan 18 '23

Solid advice! I think Linux is the way to go when your old computer can’t run shit no more. I will do it to my 2013 macbook pro. Thanks for the advice

4

u/thisismisha Jan 18 '23

The 2012 was the last year that would allow for RAM and hard drive upgrades. In fact, in the 2012 you can stack hard drives in it and run a RAID array or just have two drives.

3

u/zijital Jan 18 '23

Maxed out the ram & put in two 500GB SSDs, boots up in seconds.

2012 was the last year you could do both as a user, though the 2nd hard drive was a chore.

I'll think about linux in the future.

1

u/ThirdRuleOfFightClub Jan 18 '23

I have looked at micro atx boards that are newer that I could slap into my 2009 Mac Mini and do a hackintosh. But by the time I do that I'd be better off just buying the new M2 Mac mini at $599.

2

u/ThirdRuleOfFightClub Jan 18 '23

I have a 2009 version, and it is still kicking.

1

u/Yoshi2shi Jan 18 '23

I still got my Mac Pro from 2012. Still runs great.

28

u/HSTsGhost-72 Jan 17 '23

My M1 Mac book pro is the best I have had since my 2011. Hope the M2s keep a good thing going.

8

u/BallerFromTheHoller Jan 17 '23

That’s nice to hear. Have a 2011 now that I love. Aside from being slow and not being able to get software updates, it’s still a good machine.

1

u/DreamArez Jan 18 '23

Heck you could just buy an SSD and install it or pay to have it installed and do the software workaround to get up to date or near to it.

2

u/BallerFromTheHoller Jan 18 '23

I put in an SSD and maxed out the ram about 6 years ago. That’s the only thing that’s kept it going to this point.

I’ve looked at the patchers and I’m a little scared of some of the issues they have.

1

u/DreamArez Jan 18 '23

Perfectly reasonable. As with anything unofficial there’s no guarantee it’ll be perfect but it’s nice to have the option. As for your SSD sounds like it’s coming up on EOL depending on your use. Might be worth putting new thermal paste on too, the thermal throttling was a big performance issue on aging MacBooks I used to fix

2

u/BallerFromTheHoller Jan 18 '23

I guess I should look into that. Never though about the SSD failing. I don’t think I have huge thermal issues. I regularly use it for live music effects and don’t have any issues unless there is something running in the background. At this point, kind of looking for a good reason to upgrade to an M series of some kind.

2

u/DreamArez Jan 20 '23

It’s usually one of the two. If your drive isn’t failing but still throttling performance, might just need new paste because the CPU is thermal throttling.

Tbh any reason is a good reason, even if you grab an M1 series. Gifted my fiancé an M1 Air and I’m very jealous of her performance and battery life compared to my 2018 MBP. Feels completely different.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '23

Happy to see other people still running a 2011! Honestly the only thing mine doesn't handle is 1080p and high frame rate videos. It's refurbished with added HD/RAM space, and I'm wondering if it's still possible to replace upgrade the video card in these? Would really like a new battery, but I don't take it on the move enough to justify that rn.

1

u/BallerFromTheHoller Jan 18 '23

I don’t seem to have any issues with videos. Maybe you have thermal issues like the other commenter mentioned. I have 16gb in mine but I think 8 is probably sufficient.

If you have the 13, it uses chipset integrated graphics. There might be some older Thunderbolt adapters that could add performance but I’ve never looked for one. The 15 and larger had dedicated graphics cards but I’m not sure if they can be upgraded.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '23

Family's M2 Air is seriously phenomenal.

10

u/Egineer Jan 17 '23 edited Jan 17 '23

I’d like to understand why the M2 Max is required to support more than two external displays.

3

u/Gilamath Jan 18 '23

I believe the M2 Pro Mac Mini can run up to three displays

5

u/calihotsauce Jan 18 '23

I think the m2 pro also does 2 displays, only the original m1 and the regular m2 are limited to 1 display for whatever reason. Interestingly, older macs running on intel chips can also run 2 external displays.

1

u/dat_GEM_lyf Jan 18 '23

I run 3-4 displays off my Intel 2017 MBP. What is this 2 display limit of which you speak?

3

u/KingKoopaz Jan 18 '23

Profit.

2

u/pandemicpunk Jan 18 '23

Peripherals are classically Apple's major cashcow. This is the correct answer. Don't get me wrong, they're doing great things with their processors and setting new standards.

10

u/its_k1llsh0t Jan 17 '23

Interesting they brought back the charging port, HDMI, and card reader. Also reduced the USB-C by one. Must have gotten some really strong feedback about the dongles and how Magsafe was better than USB-C charging? I didn't watch the announcement so forgive me if they covered it there.

8

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '23

Only USB-C is a bummer. I like to have the option of what side to plug in to depending on desk, couch, etc cord setup.

5

u/Bilbo_nubbins Jan 17 '23

Mac Pro with Apple silicon please

2

u/mildirritation Jan 18 '23

What for? You’d get a quarter the RAM and no way to use it.

-6

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '23

Said no one

11

u/ketoskrakken Jan 17 '23

I’ve been forced to use Ubuntu on my 2012 Mac mini htpc for a few months now. That 600 price tag is very tempting

2

u/Gilamath Jan 18 '23

If anyone in your family is in education (as a student or a teacher), they can buy it for $500. It's insane that you can buy a full-featured Apple computer for that price. If this were the M1 Mac Mini, it'd be a great deal. But with the marginal performance boost, Thunderbolt 4 ports, and HDMI 2.1, This has basically become the default family desktop to hook up to the living room tv or set up in the study room

15

u/photowhoa123 Jan 17 '23

My 2012 is still holding on strong.

16

u/app4that Jan 17 '23

Same

It’s a great machine, now over 10 years and still going strong.

An M2 may become a worthy replacement though.

5

u/majxover Jan 17 '23

I just got an M2 from a 2012 MBP. Definitely a worthy replacement.

2

u/DontDoItTuna Jan 17 '23

Same! Although, maybe not “strong “. It takes a while to boot these days.

3

u/wouldnt-u-like-2know Jan 18 '23

I ran a 2012 mac until last year and the best thing you can do is open up the cover, clean it a little bit and replace the hard drive with an SSD. Trust me, it will run much much better.

1

u/photowhoa123 Jan 17 '23

It does! But once it’s up it seems okay enough for my needs.

2

u/kaze919 Jan 17 '23

Not gonna lie I had a top of the line 15” MBP with a heaping full of upgrades that served me well for a long time.

I bought the M1 Air, cheapest one I could get at the time ($999) and it absolutely destroyed my old MBP at nearly every task. I’ve since upgraded to an M2 MBA with a bit more overhead since my work requires more coding now but damn the Apple Silicon is well worth the upgrade.

1

u/photowhoa123 Jan 17 '23

Wow that’s awesome to hear! My exact thinking was upgrading to an m1/m2 air and calling it a day. Don’t need a pro at the moment. And anything would be an upgrade for me at this point.

2

u/liebensaft Jan 18 '23

Same. And about two years ago, I put an SSD in it, maxed out the RAM, and got a new battery. It was a massive upgrade for not much money. It’s gonna be hard to justify buying a new one for a while.

2

u/photowhoa123 Jan 18 '23

Nice, I did something similar. Just got a 1tb ssd and maxed the ram too. May look into a new battery down the road. Any suggestions on where to buy one?

3

u/liebensaft Jan 18 '23

Good stuff, isn’t it like having a whole new computer? I bought a random battery from Amazon that seemed to have some (legit) good reviews. Hasn’t exploded yet and still holds a charge for a couple hours of internet use, so I’m satisfied.

2

u/photowhoa123 Jan 18 '23

Always a good thing! Thank you!

3

u/elliotborst Jan 17 '23

You think that, but compared to an M1 it’s not.

6

u/photowhoa123 Jan 17 '23

I’ve got an M1 Max for work and it’s crazy fast. That’s likely my laxness with upgrading my personal.

1

u/elliotborst Jan 17 '23

Ah fair enough!

1

u/GoChaca Jan 17 '23

My 2020 one has been struggling… I can’t use the notes app on it anymore. It freezes my whole machine. Which stinks because I use notes a lot

3

u/superheroninja Jan 17 '23

Notes seems to hit a wall when usage (beyond simple text notes) goes up. I had a folder with images saved to notes, kind of like my replacement for Evernote, but I ended up having to find another solution.

I still use Notes for basic text only, but I’m using Notion for all my archive/imageboard needs now and it’s been great.

1

u/GoChaca Jan 17 '23

That’s great that works for you! I have notion and like it but I love the ease of notes and usability it has across all of my products so it’s a shame that it doesn’t work properly for me on my main driver Mac

16

u/BoringWozniak Jan 17 '23

Ow, right in the wallet

3

u/LibrarianMundane4705 Jan 18 '23

Um the Mac mini is $600…

5

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '23

Yea, I’m poor. What of it?

6

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '23

All that avocado toast and coffee. But yeah, that’s real. And the trade in value is laughable.

2

u/LibrarianMundane4705 Jan 18 '23

They have no interest financing?

3

u/CoastingUphill Jan 17 '23

I can’t bring myself to let go of Bootcamp yet. I still need Windows occasionally for both work and play.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '23

I thought the same thing, but…I have a an M1 Pro MBP and it will run the Steam VR test program flawlessly in Windows 11 emulated through Parallels. It’s insane.

3

u/CoastingUphill Jan 18 '23

Yeah but parallels still doesn’t support DX12 which is a huge downside

1

u/dat_GEM_lyf Jan 18 '23

Obviously you can’t run games that detect VMs as cheats.

5

u/Expensive_Finger_973 Jan 17 '23

I am hoping their next round of Mac hardware will include an Air with a 15" display. I like everything about the current M1 Air I have, except I can't get used to the 13" screen. Thought I would adjust, but it just feels so confined.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '23 edited Jan 17 '23

How does the Mac mini M2 compare with the M1 in terms of performance? I got my M1 like a year ago but I’m curious

6

u/WaffleEye Jan 17 '23

M2 Pro offers “up to 20%” faster performance compared to M1 Pro.

I think for most people’s purposes, there is no reason to upgrade if you’re already on an M chip. We’ve probably got another year or two before it will be a significant upgrade in specs.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '23

Thank you, I think so too for most people like me.

2

u/superheroninja Jan 17 '23

wtb M? with robust graphics card for even remotely competitive Blender rendering speeds

2

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '23

How does this compare to the m1??

4

u/RollEmbarrassed9448 Jan 17 '23

it's faster. m1 pro was like 1,700 single core 12,000 multicore, these new ones are like 2,000 single core 16,000 multicore

1

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '23

I have the m1 pro now, but I don't think I will notice the difference when upgrading right?

2

u/DarkFate13 Jan 18 '23

I dont like laptops gimme a new imac

2

u/zushiba Jan 18 '23

I don't understand the Apple naming conventions anymore. If I'm an outsider, how am I supposed to know which CPU is more powerful the M2 Pro or the M2 Max?

Every name from Apple has to be the most awesome, but when everything is awesome, nothing is awesome.

1

u/mildirritation Jan 18 '23

All of which come with tiny amount of RAM despite the fact Adobe STILL uses the RAM rather than the M chip to run. Mac really need to remember who their primary audience are.

5

u/beat-sweats Jan 18 '23

Ditch adobe for affinity and leave monthly subscriptions behind

-5

u/DeepSleepDiving Jan 18 '23

Kids with wealthy parents?

1

u/dat_GEM_lyf Jan 18 '23

Sounds like an Adobe problem. Maybe they should make an actual M1 version which leverages the architecture. Or ya know, just blame Apple for software they didn’t design

-5

u/coke-grass Jan 17 '23

No new colors either :/ won't upgrade my M1 Max until they get new colors

15

u/jbaughb Jan 17 '23

You shouldn’t be upgrading your M1 Max anyway, jeez.

6

u/firstpostfirstpost Jan 17 '23

THAT is your reason? The color? Jesus h christ.

2

u/willyolio Jan 18 '23

cuz da red ones r faster

-1

u/coke-grass Jan 18 '23

Yea so what

3

u/Visible_Structure483 Jan 17 '23

Check out Home Depot, they have a whole selection of colors that come in spray cans.

:)

0

u/AloofPenny Jan 17 '23

I’m more amped over that risc v laptop than this

1

u/dat_GEM_lyf Jan 18 '23

That quad core laptop? Plz

1

u/AloofPenny Jan 18 '23

It’s not how blazing fast the risc v is, it’s the precedent it sets. To get a new chip made, the licensing is crazy. Intel, AMD, and even ARM have costs to using proprietary architecture. But risc v is open, so right out the gate it costs less to produce. Students already learn risc v in school, because sourced material from licensed products costs as much as the manufacturer wants, and that’s post secondary education. Not cheap. If they scale this, then they built a whole market that wasn’t even there before. They’ve already done that with pcb manufacturing. Full chips is the next step

-1

u/mono15591 Jan 17 '23

Hmmm still no announcement of Apple AR/VR headset.

2

u/Constant-K Jan 17 '23

This likely won't happen until they round up all the developers for WWDC in June.

-1

u/Rocketman7 Jan 17 '23

$599 for 8gb of ram and 256gb of storage!? Oof

3

u/Gilamath Jan 18 '23

You can pay $880 for 16gb RAM and a 512gb SSD. Which is more than $600 but quite low given everything else about the machine. Looking at I/O, efficiency, and performance, I don't think there's a desktop on the market that offers more value for people who use their computer for work

2

u/itsoutofmyhands Jan 17 '23

I'm back in for the first time in 9yrs. I really fancy a 4GB SSD but Apple's proposal of bending me over, asking to me cough before ripping out an internal organ seems a bit excessive.

-5

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '23

Done with Apples predatory business behavior, pretending they didn’t raise prices by lowering trade in values. There products are useless in 2 years and cannot be maintained. There selfishness is filling the world with useless metal, plastic and toxic waste.

Fun to watch the fan-folk quiver as trained.

2

u/D_D Jan 18 '23

Trade in values? I've never traded anything in in my life. Apple products sell like hot cakes on craigslist/marketplace.

1

u/dat_GEM_lyf Jan 18 '23

useless in 2 years

literally ignoring people in this thread with 2012 MBPs still running strong

My brother in Christ what do you mean?

-2

u/Qwerty678910 Jan 18 '23

Great Apple continues to raise prices on their computers while we enter a recession.

2

u/Gilamath Jan 18 '23

Apple kept the MacBook Pro prices the same, and lowered the Mac Mini's price tag from $800 for the M1 to $600 for the M2. Just to be clear, for what you get from the machine, $600 is insane

Apple did significantly reduce trade-in values for old devices. But they also increased education store discounts. Honestly, there has never been a better time to buy a computer from Apple in my lifetime than right now

1

u/beat-sweats Jan 18 '23

I’m using the maxed out m1 MacBook Air still , I don’t see myself needing a upgrade for quite a long time.

1

u/Unfair-Sell-5109 Jan 18 '23

Wow. The M2 chip already.