Finally dipping myself into the Mac Ecosystem! I put a pre-order in for the Mac Mini M2, base model with 8G RAM/256G SSD I was reading Slickdeals and came across this one on the front page, clicked the link and wow, so many pages/posts already! Deal started today a few hours ago, hopefully for those looking to 'get in on the deal', you can now pre-order... Note: I'm not a mac power user, the only items I have close to a mac is the old Iphone SE and an Ipad Mini 2... US: Apple Education Discount: Apple Mac Mini w/ M2 Chip Pre-Order: 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD $499 Direct Link: https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini Canada: Apple Education Discount: Apple Mac Mini w/ M2 Chip Pre-Order: 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD $669 Direct link: https://www.apple.com/ca_edu_93120/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini
I bought a MacBook Air a few yers ago and it's my primary machine. To be honest I'm nowhere near as impressed with Apple as Apple is with Apple. It's not bad, or anything, it's just often different for the sake of being different, in ways I occasionally still find inconvenient to this day. Bottom line is that my next machine will be something else.
My son had his first Mac Mini for 10+ years. He got super work out of the machine and Apple were good to him when there was a problem. It was very old and a bit cranky by then, somewhat like his father and he replaced it with a new Mac Mini. But this time, he's not using the Apple OS. He's using Zorin Linux (based on Ubuntu, which I use) - absolutely blow-away graphics and Ubuntu reliability. I'm switching to Zorin myself in the coming weeks. Never seen anything I've liked better. I've never owned an Apple product, personally. I'm thinking of breaking my taboo with an IPad Pro. Lots I can do with it for photo-editing etc. but the big thing (for me) is ProCreate - a fashion drawing / painting program for the IPad. Holly Nichols, my go-to lady for fashion drawing uses it - and her work is brilliant. I wanna draw like Holly!
I use PC/Windows for work and still love my MacBooks for home. I haven't had to buy a desktop in years because I just keep recycling my MacBook Pros to desktops; wife's "desktop" is a 2013 MacBook Pro with a broken screen (she stepped on it), my 2015 MacBook Pro is just now having battery issues so it will probably become my desktop. I have been eyeing a new MacBook Pro 16 with M2, almost pulled the trigger tonight, but darn it is a lot of money for a computer. If I get 7 - 10 years out of it still seems like a good deal.
Many thanks for this suggestion! I just checked out the site and it looks really good. I'll stick it on a flash drive and see whether it plays nice with my MacBook Air, and if it does then it might be the one!
I absolutely hate Ubuntu, personally, but I checked out Zorin because I hadn't heard of it before. I fell down a rabbit hole. This recommendation may have just fixed two computer issues I've been wondering how to deal with. Thanks!
I had the first iteration of the Mac Mini. It was ok, and I didn't use it much. After many issues with Windows 8, I switched to a MacBook Pro. That thing is a beast! It still works exactly as it did when I got it about 5-6 years ago. My non-Apple laptops never lasted more than a year. It takes some getting used to, and I absolutely have to use a 3rd party mouse because I need that scrolling wheel. There are still things that I prefer to do with Windows when it comes to work. But for personal use, I do like my MacBook Pro.