Quote:
Originally Posted by Cootey
I always buy the bottom of the line Mac when it's time to upgrade. I get 5-7 years out of my Macs in the past (though the move to Mojave has killed my Mac mini 2014. So slow…  ) After 5-7 years, the bottom end Mac is often multiples of times faster, better, etc. than the Mac I replace. I have no complaints. |
Me too because they are the only ones I can afford. But the issue with that in the recent years is that they are not easy to modify. The latest Mac mini can be modified with a RAM upgrade, but it isn't nearly as easy as my old mini 2012 was. When you can buy the least expensive Macs and easily modify them with RAM upgrades and drive upgrades/replacements, then that it great. But let us face facts, Apple tries to prevent that these days. You can still get Windows desktops that are easy to upgrade and easy to replace parts in. If you buy a Mac these days, that usually means having to pay Apple a king's ransom for an update to 16MP or more of RAM which if it were possible to do the upgrade yourself would cost a fraction of what Apple charges.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kyteflyer
I started having "issues" with it on my 2012 Mini, so yesterday I bit the bullet and did a clean install of High Sierra. Its a lot happier now.
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I'm still running my Mac mini late 2012 with High Sierra. It has the 2.5GHz i5, 16GB RAM, a 500MB HDD, and the Intel Graphcs 4000. It certainly is no speed demon, but it can still do a lot of work. However, I use it as a back up and mostly run it with Windows 10 via Bootcamp so I can run apps that are not available for Mac OS X. And yes I know it would be faster with an SSD upgrade, but that is out of my comfort zone now to do myself.
My main computer is my MacBook Pro 15" Retina mid 2014 with 2.2 GHZ i7, 16GB RAM, 256MB SSD, and the Intel Iris Pro. It runs Mojave, and I doubt I'll upgrade the OS this year as I don't want to lose the ability to run older 32-bit apps. I mostly need to have the power to do some heavy duty image/video processing for my astrophotography hobby. I'm not talking about run of the mill post processing with Photoshop like most people do for their smartphone photos and such, this is post processing that requires a lot of horsepower (so to speak). My MBP still gets the job done as old as it is. The mini probably would too, but it would be really slow. I do use the mini with Win 10 though to do some of the post processing with apps that are not available for Mac OS X.
Both of my Macs have 16GB RAM. The difference was that I bought the mini with only 4GB, flipped it over, opened the trap door, swapped out the 4GB with 16GB that cost me only $100 for the upgrade, much less than Apple wanted. The MacBook Pro was not modifiable, at least by me, so I had to pay Apple a ridiculous price to get it put in. I'm retired, on a fairly limited budget, and I no longer have the luxury of shelling out money like there was no tomorrow. I haven't bought a new WinBox desktop in 20 years, so maybe they no longer are easy to modify. But back when I used to buy them they were really easy to modify as far as RAM, HDD, graphics card, and most of the internal parts, unless you bought a Compaq which used proprietary stuff, but even the Compaqs were RAM and HDD upgradeable. The great thing about them was the ability to not only upgrade them easily, but to replace parts that failed, like power supplies, various add-on drives, and other cards you inserted. Again, maybe that is no longer an option with newer desktops, but I bet it is.
ETA: Here is a
small sampling of my astrophotos. I'm just a self taught amateur and hobbiest, and I'm working with budget conscious equipment, so it is what it is. But it is fun and keeps me occupied!