Mac experts

eatapeach

I know nothing about Apple.  I need a Mac mini but don't know where to start.  I think the chips are M1, M2 and M4 but there might be more    If the latest software is Tahoe - what will it run on?  I think M2 will run Tahoe but came with Sequoia?

What about the older ones?  I need the thing to run headless and I think M4s will do that but older need an HDMI dongle?

stickyfiddle

The M series is Apple's own chips, after they switched away from Intel a few year ago. They're really good. Oldest is M1, then M2 etc, with a new spec each year. Pro and Max versions are faster versions of the base chip in each case.

I'm still on an M1 Pro MacBook and it's still super fast for almost everything. Usual caveats of "buy the best you can afford" apply as always, but I'd spend more on RAM with way higher priority than a new chip.

Newest Mac OS is Tahoe (OS 26) but honestly it's a bit of a mess - absolutely nothing wrong with Sequoia and a lot of us haven't upgraded.  I'm not sure what you want it for, but basically everything modern will run on either. 

Assuming music stuff, Logic is the most common Mac-specific software and it's awesome. I'd start there and just about anything else you can think of should play nice with it

eatapeach

good advice.  I'm thinking about OS maybe because I have just had to get rid of a perfectly good phone as banking apps deemed old versions (Android) unsafe.  I'm assuming that Sequoia hasn't started suffering this happening to apps yet?  

Will M2 chips run Tahoe if needed?  I can see lots of cheaper M2 based devices available - maybe those with 16gb of Ram will do the job.

stickyfiddle

eatapeach said:

good advice.  I'm thinking about OS maybe because I have just had to get rid of a perfectly good phone as banking apps deemed old versions (Android) unsafe.  I'm assuming that Sequoia hasn't started suffering this happening to apps yet?  

Will M2 chips run Tahoe if needed?  I can see lots of cheaper M2 based devices available - maybe those with 16gb of Ram will do the job.

Sequoia will be fine for years. Similarly M2 Macs will be supported for years to come - my M1 is now 5.5 years old and I expect at least another 2-3 from it, and they'll likely support it with security updates for at least 10 in total. 

Get 32GB RAM if you can... 

TheBigDipper

eatapeach said:

good advice.  I'm thinking about OS maybe because I have just had to get rid of a perfectly good phone as banking apps deemed old versions (Android) unsafe.  I'm assuming that Sequoia hasn't started suffering this happening to apps yet?  

Will M2 chips run Tahoe if needed?  I can see lots of cheaper M2 based devices available - maybe those with 16gb of Ram will do the job.

My Mac Mini M2 is running Tahoe without any obvious problems. 

distressed

Depends on your budget and workflow. You can get M4 Mini around the 1000 (more or less depending on RAM and storage) mark if you don't need mobile.

eatapeach

New M4 chip ones 16gb / 256 are £549
I'm looking at a 16gb M2 for £200 now.  

Habanero

They killed the tower sized Mac Pro yesterday, with no plans for future models. This suggests the Mini is good enough for most, and the Studio is for the power users.

marxski

Mac Mini M1 16gb RAM 1GB SSD here. Runs beautifully. 

JohnS37

marxski said:

Mac Mini M1 16gb RAM 1GB SSD here. Runs beautifully. 

Presumably you meant 1Tb SSD?

marxski

JohnS37 said:

marxski said:

Mac Mini M1 16gb RAM 1GB SSD here. Runs beautifully. 

Presumably you meant 1Tb SSD?

Yeah sorry 1TB SSD. 

Habanero

Basic Studio Macs now have a delivery date of late May. Upping the hard disk to 1Tb makes that late June, and some higher spec Mini configs have now become unavailable. Well done AI.

KrisGee

M1 mini 16gb 1TB user here. This little thing is stupid good. 

Wazmeister

stickyfiddle said:

The M series is Apple's own chips, after they switched away from Intel a few year ago. They're really good. Oldest is M1, then M2 etc, with a new spec each year. Pro and Max versions are faster versions of the base chip in each case.

I'm still on an M1 Pro MacBook and it's still super fast for almost everything. Usual caveats of "buy the best you can afford" apply as always, but I'd spend more on RAM with way higher priority than a new chip.

Newest Mac OS is Tahoe (OS 26) but honestly it's a bit of a mess - absolutely nothing wrong with Sequoia and a lot of us haven't upgraded.  I'm not sure what you want it for, but basically everything modern will run on either. 

Assuming music stuff, Logic is the most common Mac-specific software and it's awesome. I'd start there and just about anything else you can think of should play nice with it

Wisdom.

distressed

I don't know if it's more optimized for machines it's shipped with originally, but Tahoe is more than solid on my M5 MBP. The same is on my mate's M4 Pro MBP, no issues at all. I guess it's just echo chamber as always, of course there are bugs with every major OS overhaul, it was the same with transition from Classic To OS X (Cheetah) and from PPC to Intel (Leopard).

Heartfeltdawn

In the last year, I've had two Windows 11 update failures on my desktop which was previously rock solid for five years. No issues on my cheap secondhand Lenovo Ideapads.

Reinstalling W11 on a desktop: stupid.

Having to tether my phone to it because of the crappy installation process that can't even recognise a WiFI adapter driver on a USB stick: stupid. 

Automatic updates as I'm reinstalling stuff that mean several power downs and no actual certainty if the sodding thing is booting up again: stupid. 

Mozilla Thunderbird's shitty Account Hub that you now can't disengage, thus meaning half of my email accounts can't be used on Thunderbird: stupid. 

Search menu white, slow, non-populated despite running all troubleshooters and search indexer things on a less than 24 hours old installation: stupid. 

I'm thinking basic Mac Mini M4 and use it until the pips squeak. Don't upgrade anything at all until it's ejecting steam from its various ports. 

earwighoney

Heartfeltdawn said:

In the last year, I've had two Windows 11 update failures on my desktop which was previously rock solid for five years. No issues on my cheap secondhand Lenovo Ideapads. 

I had a lot of gripes with using W11 too, my solution to them was to shift to using Linux Mint on my old PC and 5 year old laptop.  It takes a bit of time to get used to but it might be an alternative if you want to keep using the desktop. 

Cirrus

After a lifetime of windows machines for recording, W11 gave me enough driver issues, latency problems and general annoyance that I got an M4 mini 5 months ago. Since then, flawless performance. Not a single dropout or glitch, session that didn't open correctly, incorrectly reported latency... it's just, so far at least, magic.

Heartfeltdawn

earwighoney said:

I had a lot of gripes with using W11 too, my solution to them was to shift to using Linux Mint on my old PC and 5 year old laptop.  It takes a bit of time to get used to but it might be an alternative if you want to keep using the desktop. 

The mind has been made up. Mac Mini will be here on Saturday. Gonna pull the desktop apart. Memory, motherboard, and CPU will cover half of the cost of the Mac. I'll keep one laptop on W11 as I've had no problems on there and the older Pentium-equipped laptop will go Linux at some point. 

Cirrus said:

After a lifetime of windows machines for recording, W11 gave me enough driver issues, latency problems and general annoyance that I got an M4 mini 5 months ago. Since then, flawless performance. Not a single dropout or glitch, session that didn't open correctly, incorrectly reported latency... it's just, so far at least, magic.

That's exactly what I need

Yorkie

One thing I have noticed since Apple switched to ARM CPUs is that their older M1 computers don't feel as out of date compared to the newest models. Yeah, more battery life, better screens, etc. but they're not a whole world apart. I work with Macs for my day job and I'll happily reach for any of their ARM machines, whichever's closest when I need a computer. They're all wonderful. 

Danny1969

Still running Protools on a 2007 iMac and Logic on a 2011 iMac here  ... both are absolutely fine. 
I do have a M1 machine but I don't see any difference really as the recording I do is mainly real audio, not software sounds and any old machine can easily handle 30 odd tracks of audio. 

Regarding drivers, software issues etc I never supply any Windows based recording machines, they need too much support.