Hello! I am a college student trying to stay in the price range of 1300 dollars or below for a desktop, and I was Wondering, should I buy an M3 iMac, a m3 Mac mini when it comes out, or a m2 pro Mac mini? I have never bought an apple desktop before and I was just wondering. I am not a coder or will do anything necessitating hardcore usage.
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Buy M3 iMac or m3 Mac mini/m2 Mac Studio
- Thread starter Korfi1
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I used to be a fan of the iMac, and still have a lot of them. My favorite Apple design ever is the iMac G4.
But, I probably will not be getting another one. The exception, maybe if Apple releases a "Pro" one with a larger display (at least 27", but 32" would be better).
My main beef with the iMac is that they no longer have Target Display Mode. You get a beautiful display, but no way to use it once the HW is no longer meeting your needs.
Also, if you want to have a matching display with your iMac, you cannot.
With the iMacs, a big selling point is the display, but the current M3 iMac has too small of a display for me. It is underpowered for me as well.
Last year, I got a M2 Pro Mac Mini, with 19c GPU to replace my aging Late 2012 iMac. It retrospect, if had I known the M2 Max Studio was coming out a few months later, I would have waited.
If you don't need the extra power of the Mac Studio, then I would get the Mac Mini. Just be careful with the Mac mini upgrades, at a certain point, it no longer be much cheaper than the Mac Studio, you might as well just get the Studio.
But, I probably will not be getting another one. The exception, maybe if Apple releases a "Pro" one with a larger display (at least 27", but 32" would be better).
My main beef with the iMac is that they no longer have Target Display Mode. You get a beautiful display, but no way to use it once the HW is no longer meeting your needs.
Also, if you want to have a matching display with your iMac, you cannot.
With the iMacs, a big selling point is the display, but the current M3 iMac has too small of a display for me. It is underpowered for me as well.
Last year, I got a M2 Pro Mac Mini, with 19c GPU to replace my aging Late 2012 iMac. It retrospect, if had I known the M2 Max Studio was coming out a few months later, I would have waited.
If you don't need the extra power of the Mac Studio, then I would get the Mac Mini. Just be careful with the Mac mini upgrades, at a certain point, it no longer be much cheaper than the Mac Studio, you might as well just get the Studio.
What do you plan on doing with it?
Your thread title currently says "M2 Studio".
Regardless of Studio or Mini, you will need to be a monitor if you don't already have one. Have you checked out the monitor threads? There are some long-running ones in the Accessories forum.
However, if you are going to get a laptop when you graduate, then if that is going to be a MacBook then it too can drive external displays, the number of displays depends upon the MacBook model.
So is there a need to have a desktop box now, before you get the laptop?
If so, then I'd worry more about getting a display that will work well not only with a desktop box but also for a dock with your laptop.
