Before Christmas I ordered and took delivery of a 21.5" 4K iMac. I was very disappointed with the screen - it had a slightly blue cast near the top and a yellow cast towards the bottom. I'm sure most users wouldn't have noticed or been bothered by it, but given the display is what that machine is all about it had to go back. I took a refund.
I decided to buy a Dell Intel i7 all-in-one instead, given I do like Windows 10 and see Windows 10 and OS X as pretty well matched. Oh dear, the Dell was nice but had a fan which drove me to distraction - it was like a high-pitched wasp, the frequency was perfect for getting into your head and creating nasty resonances. Then, under slight load the pitch would increase and decrease in waves. The Dell had to go back too.
Then I thought about the Mac Mini, given that the choice of monitor was in my hands. I decided to go second user and bought a refurbished 2012 Mac Mini 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 from eBay. I upgraded the memory to 8GB and installed a Samsung EVO 850 250GB SSD drive and El Capitan. I bought a Dell U2414H 24" monitor and the last generation Apple Wireless keyboard and mouse. All my media files live on a Synology NAS and I run a Plex server on the Mac. The whole lot was just over half what the the iMac cost me.
I am loving my setup! The little beast flies, it's rock solid, fast and silent. Don't overlook older generation Macs guys, pop in an SSD and you have an amazing machine. I'm not convinced an older i5, for example, is really that different in day to day usage than a newer version.
I decided to buy a Dell Intel i7 all-in-one instead, given I do like Windows 10 and see Windows 10 and OS X as pretty well matched. Oh dear, the Dell was nice but had a fan which drove me to distraction - it was like a high-pitched wasp, the frequency was perfect for getting into your head and creating nasty resonances. Then, under slight load the pitch would increase and decrease in waves. The Dell had to go back too.
Then I thought about the Mac Mini, given that the choice of monitor was in my hands. I decided to go second user and bought a refurbished 2012 Mac Mini 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 from eBay. I upgraded the memory to 8GB and installed a Samsung EVO 850 250GB SSD drive and El Capitan. I bought a Dell U2414H 24" monitor and the last generation Apple Wireless keyboard and mouse. All my media files live on a Synology NAS and I run a Plex server on the Mac. The whole lot was just over half what the the iMac cost me.
I am loving my setup! The little beast flies, it's rock solid, fast and silent. Don't overlook older generation Macs guys, pop in an SSD and you have an amazing machine. I'm not convinced an older i5, for example, is really that different in day to day usage than a newer version.
