I’ve been working on an M1/8gb/256ssd Mac Mini for 6 years. Been _very_ happy with it. Recently, on heavier processing functions, it’s been running slow, out of memory errors. I use NAS for storage anyway, so the SSD limit doesn’t make much difference.
Ok, for a computer professional, 6 years is a reasonable life span.
Time to upgrade. Been looking at the M5 Mini. Supposed to be out months ago. Apple delayed it… again. Apple prices and shipping delays are going up across the board, due to memory shortages. Cheapest platform you can get an M5 processor in would be a Macbook Air. Apple raised their prices yesterday, base Air jumped from $999 to $1299. Ugh.
Looking round last night shows that Best Buy hasn’t raised their prices yet. M5/24g/512ssd Air, $949.
Feeling froggy. I jumped. Quick run to Springfield and back. Had it in under an hour.
Best Buy’s website this morning shows the base M5/16g/512ssd Air is $1299. They’re not showing the 24g/512ssd that I bought at all, the 24g/1T version is $1799.
So far, I’m impressed. Great laptop. Fast, compact, light. Wish it had more ports, but I’ve got port replicators, no big deal. Backlit kb, nice, if small, screen. Haven’t tested battery yet.
A thing I hadn’t thought about… Air has a fingerprint sensor. I spent some time this morning tying all my 2 factor logins to it. Need to log in? Finger on the sensor, done. No more texting numbers to my phone. Awesome.
