Unless you absolutely need a Mac mini for your home, school, or business, we recommend waiting until 2018. The Mac mini is Apple's least expensive desktop computer — an aging Mac's guts stuffed into a 7.7-inch box. It was last updated in October 2014, over three years ago; it's far from being a competitor in the desktop landscape, but it still provides a lot of flexibility for those looking for a low-cost Mac box. • That's right, box: Unlike the iMac, the mini needs to be connected to an external display, keyboard, and mouse in order to work.
On the plus side, you can customize pretty much every aspect, in part because — in addition to its four old-school USB 3 ports — you can daisy-chain up to six peripherals to a single Thunderbolt 2 port (and there are two of them). It also has an HDMI port, and believe it or not, a built-in SDXC card slot. So, your display, speaker, keyboard, mouse, and hard drive options are practically unlimited. The Mac mini starts at just $499 for the baseline low-end model; the midrange model hits $699, while the high-end, fastest processor starts at $999. All three models are configurable with more memory and storage, and the mid- and high-end models are configurable with faster processors. Minecraft christmas mod for mac.
The dual-core processor starts at 1.4GHz and can be upgraded to as much as a 3.0GHz Intel Core i7 processor. You can start small with 300GB of hard drive storage, or shoot for the moon with as much as a 2TB Fusion drive. The low-end model sports 4GB of memory, but the high-end model expands to as much as 16GB. The graphics range from HD 5000 for the low-end and Iris for the rest. You won't get an advanced gaming machine or a dedicated movie and music editor out of the Mac mini, but it's still a serviceable desktop computer for a reasonable price.
It's a great machine for anyone switching from PC who already has a display, keyboard, and mouse that they love; it's also ideal for use as a home media server, or a basic computing device for small businesses looking for an in-house server. If you don't mind owning a machine with aging internals and already have all of the accessories you need to get to work, the Mac mini is a great low-cost investment. If you need something with more power, or you need a computer with a display and peripherals, you should instead take a look at the iMac, iMac Pro, or Mac Pro line.
The most recent update to the iMac line brings Kaby Lake, faster SSD options, and Thunderbolt 3 to the lineup. The iMac is Apple's all-in-one computer — literally. The iMac's processor, GPU, and other internals are hidden behind its display, giving it a remarkably thin (5mm at its edge) appearance for having so much tucked inside. It also comes with a Bluetooth-connected Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse 2 (though you can swap to the Magic Trackpad 2 if you choose) to let you start working right out of the box.
Nov 16, 2018 - The 2018 Mac Mini is the first new compact computer we've seen from Apple in four years. With an eighth-generation Intel processor.
• The iMac comes in two sizes and three models: • the 21.5-inch with 1920 x 1080 sRGB display (primarily for education) • the 21.5-inch with 4096 x 2304 Retina 4K P3 color display • the 27-inch with 5120 x 2880 Retina 5K P3 display All sizes and resolutions support millions of colors; additionally, the 5K Retina display supports an even billion colors, and both the 4K and 5K displays a 500-nit brightness rating. Pricing starts at just $1099 for the base model, though costs can exceed $5200 if you go for a fully-loaded 27-inch 5K model. Each model of iMac differs slightly in processor power, memory, and speed: • The standard resolution iMac sports a 2.3GHz dual-core i5 processor, with 8GB (upgradeable to 16) of memory and a 1TB hard drive (upgradeable to a 1TB Fusion Drive or 256SSD). • The 21.5-inch 4K model starts at a 3.1Ghz quad-core i5 (upgradeable to a 3.6Ghz i7), with 8GB (upgradeable to 32) of memory and a 1TB Fusion Drive (upgradeable to a 256GB-1TB SSD). • The 27-inch 5K model starts at a 3.4Ghz quad-core i5 (upgradeable to a 4.2Ghz quad-core i7), with 8GB (up to 64GB) of memory and a 1TB Fusion Drive (upgradeable to a 2 or 3TB Fusion drive, or up to a 2TB SSD). Additionally, their graphics cards differ: • The base model ships with an integrated Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 card.