I decided that, after 26 years of Windows based computers, I would try a Mac. The Minis are pretty inexpensive when it comes to a Mac, though still somewhat pricey overall. Back when they came out with the iMac in the late 90s I wanted one, but it was far outside my budget. When they changed to using Intel processors they lost their appeal, at least for me, as what set them apart was no longer there. When Apple announced the transition to using their own CPUs, it sparked that interest again. And I like mini PCs, so this is a perfect fit. It's not quite as mini as my other mini PCs, but it runs circles around them.
So far, it's been great. It's quite a bit of learning, that's for sure, as some things are done very differently on a Mac, but as time goes on I'm getting a better hang of it and I'm learning to do new things more quickly. I just got a new 2TB Western Digital Elements drive today, connected it, selected it for Time Machine, and in around six minutes it had written a nearly 12GB backup. Six minutes. And this is with a mechanical drive! Just unreal. I have it in the USB-C port with an adapter, but still.
My next try is downloading Steam and trying one or two of the few games I have through them (Half-Life series, Half-Life 2 series, Portal and Portal 2). I don't know how well they'll work with this new type of CPU, as I believe it will have to use Rosetta 2 to translate it, but we'll see.
The responsiveness of this thing is amazing. You click and whatever you're trying to open or do is practically instant. It makes my Ryzen 5 3400G desktop seem ancient, even though I just built that early last year. I'm so glad I got this. I got the 16GB/1TB model. I know they may be coming out with models that have the M2 processor later this year, and likely more RAM, but they'll be a good bit more expensive, I'm sure. I'm happy with this.
Has anyone else out there gotten one of these recently?
