M1 Mac mini Review

4/18/2021Posted inGeneralNo Comments

After much thought and a generous sale price I purchased a new M1 Mac mini. It’s the step up version (8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage). I’ve used it for a couple of weeks now and I’m enjoying it.

Without getting too deep in the weeds, here are the pros and cons:

Pros:

  • Compatible with every app I use (your mileage may vary).
  • Hardware works as expected. 
  • Runs cool no matter what I’m doing. 

Cons:

  • I can no longer use my mini as a space heater. 
  • Can only use two monitors (that’s not really a con for me). 
  • Bluetooth issues at times. 

Needless to say I am delighted. The Developer Transition Kits (DTK) were not known to be bastions of reliability as they were barely alpha quality hardware. The M1 mini is a different story. It has been, apart from a few bluetooth issues, very reliable, from set up to everyday usage.

My Intel mini can get very warm at times running tasks you wouldn’t think would tax the machine. For example, at set up Spotlight starts indexing the hard drive. When I did this on the Intel mini it got very warm and the fans kicked in quickly. The M1 mini didn’t even get warm during this process, and finished the task much quicker than the Intel mini. I was astonished to see how easily the computer handled this task.

If I had to pick one thing that excites me the most it is Rosetta 2. All of the software I used on the Intel mini I brought over to the M1 mini using Migration Assistant worked without issues. I would say that the most impressive feature on these new breed of Macs is Rosetta 2. 

The downside for me is the bluetooth is flakey at times. The keyboard and mouse lose connection for a bit, and it comes back just as quickly. It’s better now that Apple has addressed it, but it’s something to watch. 

Overall, I’d give 5 thumbs up to this new M1 mini.

Have you made the leap to the new Apple Silicon? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear from you. 

Intel Anti-Mac Ads Are Odd

3/28/2021Posted inGeneral1 Comment

Over the last week or so there has been quite a bit of talk about this new series of Intel ads. If you haven’t seen them, they feature Justin Long, the actor who was in the famous “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” commercials, pointing out the differences between the M1 Macs and PCs using Intel chips in the new commercials.

The ads bash the M1 chips found in the MacBook Air and Pro. No surprise, as most benchmarks and real world performance show the M1 chipset is faster and more power efficient than most Intel chips. While the ads are effective at pointing out there is more choice on the PC side, they fail to show anything that is exclusive to Intel chips. The things they highlight can be done with AMD chips too. Oh, and there is a gratuitous “walled garden” mention on the Intel GoPC page. 

My question is who is the intended target of these ads? The general public? I doubt it. If they wanted to reach the computer buying public they would give Microsoft ad money to produce these commercials. Also, why isn’t Microsoft running these ads? This is something Microsoft should be doing, not Intel. 

If I had to guess who they were for, I would say Intel employees. Those employees have spent years hearing how they have repeatedly failed while Apple, the company the new Intel CEO referred to as “… a lifestyle company”, has become an innovator in the consumer chip sector. 

If that is true, I get what they were going for with these ads, but I also think they are misguided and desperate. If it isn’t true, then Intel needs to put their heads down and get to work. The performance and power management gap is going to get wider, and no attack ads are going to change that narrative.