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frontpageUndisclosed posted Jan 17, 2023 04:29 PM
frontpageUndisclosed posted Jan 17, 2023 04:29 PM

Apple Education Discount: Apple Mac Mini w/ M2 Chip Pre-Order: 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD

+ Free Shipping

$499

$599

16% off
Apple Store
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Deal Details
Apple via Apple Education Store is offering eligible Students/Educators: Apple Mac Mini Pre-Order w/ M2 Chip for $499. Shipping is free.

Thanks to community member Undisclosed for sharing this deal.

Note, this item will be available starting 1/24/23. You must qualify for the education discount (more information) to get this price.

Specs
  • Apple M2 Octa-Core Processor (4x high-performance + 4x high-efficiency)
  • 10-Core Integrated GPU
  • 8GB Unified Memory
  • 256GB Integrated NVMe PCIe Solid State Drive
  • 802.11ax WiFi 6E / Bluetooth 5.3
  • Ports:
    • 2x USB Type-A
    • 2x Thunderbolt 4
    • 1x HDMI
    • 1x Headphone Jack
    • 1x Gigabit Ethernet

Editor's Notes

Written by qwikwit | Staff
  • About this deal:
    • This offer is $100 lower (16.69% savings) than the $599 list price.
    • See forum thread for additional discussion.
  • About this product:
    • Mac mini with M2 supports up to two displays.
  • About this store:
    • You have 14 calendar days to return an item from the date you received it. See the return policy details here.

Original Post

Written by Undisclosed
Community Notes
About the Poster
Deal Details
Community Notes
About the Poster
Apple via Apple Education Store is offering eligible Students/Educators: Apple Mac Mini Pre-Order w/ M2 Chip for $499. Shipping is free.

Thanks to community member Undisclosed for sharing this deal.

Note, this item will be available starting 1/24/23. You must qualify for the education discount (more information) to get this price.

Specs
  • Apple M2 Octa-Core Processor (4x high-performance + 4x high-efficiency)
  • 10-Core Integrated GPU
  • 8GB Unified Memory
  • 256GB Integrated NVMe PCIe Solid State Drive
  • 802.11ax WiFi 6E / Bluetooth 5.3
  • Ports:
    • 2x USB Type-A
    • 2x Thunderbolt 4
    • 1x HDMI
    • 1x Headphone Jack
    • 1x Gigabit Ethernet

Editor's Notes

Written by qwikwit | Staff
  • About this deal:
    • This offer is $100 lower (16.69% savings) than the $599 list price.
    • See forum thread for additional discussion.
  • About this product:
    • Mac mini with M2 supports up to two displays.
  • About this store:
    • You have 14 calendar days to return an item from the date you received it. See the return policy details here.

Original Post

Written by Undisclosed

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Top Comments

Fortnite
282 Posts
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After reading all the discussions about ram amount, I'm just curious how many browser tabs people keep open at a time during a typical day.

POLL
How many browser tabs do you keep open?

"Like" for 10 or less
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StrongCaption2242
51 Posts
34 Reputation
I have a M1 Mac Mini with 16GB Ram, I'm a photographer and I've been running out of system Memory fairly often recently due to working between several applications. I'll have Adobe Bridge open with a session open, will open the a few raw files in Photoshop. I might be doing a head swap so there's 3 files open, in Photoshop, then I want to do a few face edits in Portrait Pro Studio Max, so I open that and I get an error that I've run out of application memory (RAM) oh and I have FIrefox open with 56 tabs open as well. So I usually either close Bridge until I'm done working in Portrait Pro, and then after I've saved the file I'll close Portrait Pro and re-open Bridge, and that works, but it's mostly just due to my messy multitasking workflow running multiple RAM intensive programs while shooting RAW files with a 50MP sensor.

So, as for me, I just ordered a Mac Mini M2 pro with the RAM upgraded to 32GB.

So if you run programs like I do, and you have Illustrator, InDesign, and Premiere or Final Cut Pro all running simultaneously with chrome or firefox and perhaps a music streaming service open too, then you might want to go for the 32GB option. If however, you work in a only 2 or maybe 3 programs simultaneously you should be fine, the most bang for your buck is gonna be the M2 with the 16GB RAM option, and just close the extra programs you're not working if you should ever run out of RAM. The Video programs can be kind of RAM heavy so if you or your church has the budget I'd go with the M2 pro with the 32GB of RAM, but you could probably do what you want to with the M2 with 16GB so long as you only work in Premiere and and After Effects and don't have Photoshop and InDesign also running, because I think each of those programs requires about 4GB of RAM when you have a project open in them.

Okay so I just checked my activity monitory and with Photoshop minimized and running in the background with no open projects it's using 1.35GB of RAM. I opened one 13MB (yes megabyte) JPEG file and the RAM use for Photoshop jumped to 4.24GB. I've closed that 13MB file and Photoshop is still using 4.14GB of RAM. I also have a session open in Bridge, and just looking through the photos in the session it's using up 3.45GB of RAM. Now I like to open a Raw image in Camera Raw before opening it in Photoshop. So if I open up one of my RAW files in Camera RAW (which is still a subprogram of Bridge) Bridge's RAM jumps to 6GB, if I pull a few sliders and do a single subject selection Adobe Bridge then takes up 8.94GB of RAM So you see where I can quickly run out of RAM.

My guess is you'll want the 32GB option, but you could make do with 16GB if you have to.

I hope this long winded comment can help you (and other creatives) in your decision making process. 😊
santy83
2389 Posts
572 Reputation
FYI..Base model M2 still supports only 2 monitors , which still should be good enough for most users .Also HDMI 2.1 not supported on base M2.

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Jan 17, 2023 05:58 PM
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santy83Jan 17, 2023 05:58 PM
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FYI..Base model M2 still supports only 2 monitors , which still should be good enough for most users .Also HDMI 2.1 not supported on base M2.
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Jan 17, 2023 06:00 PM
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ehong33234Jan 17, 2023 06:00 PM
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I don't think 8gb ram is not going to cut it for professional use and gaming.
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Jan 17, 2023 06:02 PM
114 Posts
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Garrettb214Jan 17, 2023 06:02 PM
114 Posts

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Quote from AquafinaNuggets :
Add in an extra 8gbs of Ram and you got a beast of a little machine that'll easily last you 5+ years for $680.

Genuinely shocked by this to be honest, I thought after the whole M2 Air situation that they're gonna go back to being stingy but nah this is an amazing deal and it's going to be a huge seller for Apple.
I don't think you can upgrade RAM on any Apple Silicon products. It's all integrated on to the CPU so there's no sticks to even change.
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Jan 17, 2023 06:03 PM
334 Posts
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ChlamberJan 17, 2023 06:03 PM
334 Posts
What a great machine for the price.
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Jan 17, 2023 06:03 PM
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TVM925Jan 17, 2023 06:03 PM
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Quote from AquafinaNuggets :
Add in an extra 8gbs of Ram and you got a beast of a little machine that'll easily last you 5+ years for $680.

Genuinely shocked by this to be honest, I thought after the whole M2 Air situation that they're gonna go back to being stingy but nah this is an amazing deal and it's going to be a huge seller for Apple.
Is adding 8 more ram for 180 worh it?
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Jan 17, 2023 06:05 PM
630 Posts
Joined Mar 2016
darkxssJan 17, 2023 06:05 PM
630 Posts
I'm hoping the M1 mini will drop in price. I have one already but know others that would benefit from it. The M1 is a powerful processor for the everyday person and good enough for video editing and some gaming (Mac gaming that is). M2 is very nice but in my personal opinion an M1 is more than enough.
1
Jan 17, 2023 06:06 PM
51 Posts
Joined Nov 2015
mdoggieJan 17, 2023 06:06 PM
51 Posts
Quote from TVM925 :
Is adding 8 more ram for 180 worh it?
Depends on what you are going to do with it. Probably just browsing internet, its fine. It will rely on the hard drive more for swap files, thereby possibly making the hard drive more likely to die in the future if you keep doing a lot of intense computing. So, If you are doing music stuff or photo editing, sure, get the extra RAM.
Last edited by mdoggie January 17, 2023 at 11:12 AM.
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Pro
Jan 17, 2023 06:12 PM
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AmusedMoon6137
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Jan 17, 2023 06:12 PM
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Quote from gen2 :
It uses 1 x 256gb ssd instead of 2 x128gb ssds
Yes this is my concern as well. Wondering if it has the same prob as the M2 MacBook Air. Slower SSD speeds than M1 due to there being only a single 256 GB SSD vs it being split across two channels (Dual 128 GB)
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Jan 17, 2023 06:12 PM
2,389 Posts
Joined Sep 2011
santy83Jan 17, 2023 06:12 PM
2,389 Posts
Quote from Garrettb214 :
I don't think you can upgrade RAM on any Apple Silicon products. It's all integrated on to the CPU so there's no sticks to even change.
Pretty sure he mentioned upgrade via apple (not DIY) for 16GB RAM for extra 180, which is still a good value.
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Jan 17, 2023 06:27 PM
121 Posts
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VasiliusJan 17, 2023 06:27 PM
121 Posts
Do you know if there is also such a discount on the new Macbook Pro M2s?
1
Jan 17, 2023 06:35 PM
2,554 Posts
Joined Mar 2013
giantbruinJan 17, 2023 06:35 PM
2,554 Posts
$270 trade in value for M1 Mac Mini. $230+tax worth it to upgrade?
Jan 17, 2023 06:38 PM
6,325 Posts
Joined Jun 2015
TVM925Jan 17, 2023 06:38 PM
6,325 Posts
Quote from mdoggie :
Depends on what you are going to do with it. Probably just browsing internet, its fine. It will rely on the hard drive more for swap files, thereby possibly making the hard drive more likely to die in the future if you keep doing a lot of intense computing. So, If you are doing music stuff or photo editing, sure, get the extra RAM.
Just web surfing that it do i need 8gb more?
3
Jan 17, 2023 06:41 PM
75 Posts
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ProfessorFragJan 17, 2023 06:41 PM
75 Posts

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Quote from TVM925 :
Is adding 8 more ram for 180 worh it?
Apple uses unified memory, so you're upgrading both CPU and GPU memory. If you can afford it, absolutely worth it.

That being said, the Mac mini is a surprising beast of a machine regardless. I have an 8GB M1 mini (so it doesn't even have the hardware encoder that the M2 mini has) that I got just for playing around. It encodes almost as fast (same in real world terms) as my Intel 9900K + Nvidia RTX 2070. Crazy!
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Jan 17, 2023 06:46 PM
6,325 Posts
Joined Jun 2015
TVM925Jan 17, 2023 06:46 PM
6,325 Posts
Quote from ProfessorFrag :
Apple uses unified memory, so you're upgrading both CPU and GPU memory. If you can afford it, absolutely worth it.

That being said, the Mac mini is a surprising beast of a machine regardless. I have an 8GB M1 mini (so it doesn't even have the hardware encoder that the M2 mini has) that I got just for playing around. It encodes almost as fast (same in real world terms) as my Intel 9900K + Nvidia RTX 2070. Crazy!
So your saying the ram can't be upgrade once you buy it?
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Jan 17, 2023 06:54 PM
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PriapisXJan 17, 2023 06:54 PM
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Quote from TVM925 :
So your saying the ram can't be upgrade once you buy it?
Correct; what you get is what you're stuck with. Can't upgrade the SSD or RAM.
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