It was time to die.
My iMac from 2014, equipped with a 3TB drive and maxed out RAM, was a dream machine. For years I started it up and got to work, transcoding video, recording podcasts and writing books. It was almost too much machine. It had one huge, beautiful screen – one of the first Retina models, if I remember correctly – great speed and amazing performance. And it took almost seven years, a record given my habit of upgrading with every major Apple update.
After I installed macOS Big Sur, however, went downhill. I opened multiple tabs in Safari and got a spinning beach ball that crashed so hard that I was ashamed of the CEO of Apple Tim is cooking. Everything would freeze and spin for two minutes before the gray screen of death appeared. I would have to reboot almost daily. Apple had reduced my once capable machine to rubble.
What should I do? I could use a laptop at home, but they were brought by my children and their outside school. I could keep working on this iMac and reboot constantly. I could use an iPad and cry myself to sleep every night.
Reader, I bought a Mac Mini.
The Mac Mini is a computer that is dear to me. I had a first generation model in 2005, and it was my first real introduction to Apple products. Remember, you were doing all your real work on a Windows machine back then, unless you were a die-hard. They were cheaper, more ubiquitous, and, apart from a few art, music, and design apps, more capable. We can argue these points if you like, but for the average computer user, you got a Dell.
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The original Mini was a revelation. It worked great, the UI was great (I wasn’t a Mac head, so I probably hadn’t used it since the PowerPC days), and I was able to add whatever peripherals I wanted. I used an old monitor, a nice keyboard, and a Logitech mouse. Everything worked perfectly.
After After the death of my iMac, I wanted something similar in power with a great screen, something that I loved about the huge, bright Retina display my old one had. I also wanted to try the M1 chip. I traded in the iMac and installed the Mini. This is what I have learned.
Buy a great monitor
I went for the $ 700 LG 24-inch UltraFine 4K UHD IPS monitor, offering much of the clarity and clarity of the original iMac. I noticed a slight difference in color and brightness and the screen was slightly smaller than the 27 inches I was used to and in hindsight I probably should have grabbed a bigger one as this is my daily driver. That said, the difference between the laptop, the iMac, and this screen is minimal.
You can go cheaper – around $ 300 for the BenQ PD2700Q – or go wild with the LG 38WN95C-W for $ 1,600. But what you’re looking for is a USB-C compatible monitor with a few expansion ports. Since the Mini only has two USB-C and two USB-A ports, you’ll want the expansion.
Buy an external drive
The Mac Mini maxes out at 512 GB, which I found filling up almost immediately. As mentioned, my old iMac had 3 TB on board, and that was more than enough. This was too little. I bought an external hard drive and turned it into a “junk” drawer for downloads and the like.
You’ll want a good one too powered USB dock. I have an Anker model with eight ports and I can swap different devices while leaving my external sound system (the Scarlett 2i2) and Logitech MX Master 2S mouse connected.
Replace your webcam
You want a video capture device like the $ 110 Elgato Cam Link 4K. You can also connect a GoPro camera to your M1, but I’ve had problems getting it to work with the new M1 chips. I am currently connecting a Sony DSLR to the Elgato via HDMI as the USB streaming function is not working. That’s the biggest job in this entire system, and I definitely miss the built-in webcam – though the older iMac’s was revolting (the 2020 modelit’s much better).
All told, I spent about $ 800 on accessories to make the Mac Mini work just like my iMac, not including the cost of the Mini itself. Since iMacs don’t have M1 chips yet and the Mini was so reasonable, I think this is a perfect opportunity to try hardware that I haven’t touched in years and upgrade my Mac in the meantime.