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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

Community Voting

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Top Comments

Fortnite
282 Posts
66 Reputation
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?

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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.

875 Comments

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Jan 17, 2023 07:54 PM
10,812 Posts
Joined Nov 2010
youra6Jan 17, 2023 07:54 PM
10,812 Posts
Quote from wolverine88 :
crazy, 16GB with 512GB SSD will cost $1200?

Hope they base it like 16GB RAM for $700....
No way. How Apple does it, the next "tier" up is higher disk space like 512GB. The Mini with the extra RAM doesn't come in until at least 2 tiers up from the base model.
2
Jan 17, 2023 07:55 PM
3,264 Posts
Joined Jun 2015
TheNarratorrJan 17, 2023 07:55 PM
3,264 Posts
Quote from mrstangblb :
I'm a Graphic and Video Designer for our church, and I will need a new Mac this year. Would a 16GB M2 run Premiere, Photoshop, After Effects and InDesign well enough, or should I gear up for 32GB of RAM in their higher end computers?
16GB would be more than enough but if you're worried get 32GB for peace of mind
Jan 17, 2023 07:55 PM
1,542 Posts
Joined Oct 2004
hunter44102Jan 17, 2023 07:55 PM
1,542 Posts
Does it have a VM layer or way to run X86 code/games?
Jan 17, 2023 07:56 PM
704 Posts
Joined Nov 2013
kevzz01Jan 17, 2023 07:56 PM
704 Posts
Not a mac user, is this a good alternative for plex server?
1
Jan 17, 2023 07:56 PM
10,812 Posts
Joined Nov 2010
youra6Jan 17, 2023 07:56 PM
10,812 Posts
Quote from mrstangblb :
I'm a Graphic and Video Designer for our church, and I will need a new Mac this year. Would a 16GB M2 run Premiere, Photoshop, After Effects and InDesign well enough, or should I gear up for 32GB of RAM in their higher end computers?
16GB will be fine for all those apps you mentioned. You could probably get away with 8GB on the M1/M2.
3
Jan 17, 2023 07:57 PM
127 Posts
Joined Jul 2016
BruceW30Jan 17, 2023 07:57 PM
127 Posts
This is an insane deal for the performance you get.
1
Jan 17, 2023 07:57 PM
1,476 Posts
Joined Apr 2016
StefanoM3235Jan 17, 2023 07:57 PM
1,476 Posts
Quote from eko427 :
In layman's terms, what's the issue?
Reading and writing speed are much slower (about half) than it used to be on the M1 base model

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Jan 17, 2023 07:57 PM
408 Posts
Joined Sep 2011
coldfusionJan 17, 2023 07:57 PM
408 Posts
Quote from santy83 :
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.
Just use DisplayLink
5
Jan 17, 2023 07:58 PM
1,476 Posts
Joined Apr 2016
StefanoM3235Jan 17, 2023 07:58 PM
1,476 Posts
Quote from youra6 :
No way. How Apple does it, the next "tier" up is higher disk space like 512GB. The Mini with the extra RAM doesn't come in until at least 2 tiers up from the base model.
the $1200 has a different processor (m2 pro)
Jan 17, 2023 07:58 PM
2,371 Posts
Joined Jul 2007
eko427Jan 17, 2023 07:58 PM
2,371 Posts
What's the real world difference between the M2 and M2 Pro?
Jan 17, 2023 08:00 PM
874 Posts
Joined Feb 2011
youngbillyJan 17, 2023 08:00 PM
874 Posts
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.
How do you get that?
Jan 17, 2023 08:01 PM
75 Posts
Joined Sep 2018
ProfessorFragJan 17, 2023 08:01 PM
75 Posts
Quote from wolverine88 :
crazy, 16GB with 512GB SSD will cost $1200?

Hope they base it like 16GB RAM for $700....
That's for the M2 Pro chip and also includes two additional TB4 ports and HDMI 2.1. Big upgrade and a heck of a machine for people who need the power and ports.

Meanwhile, M2 base for $499 is probably the best computer for the money deal in tech right now.
Jan 17, 2023 08:01 PM
640 Posts
Joined Sep 2014
acbharath14Jan 17, 2023 08:01 PM
640 Posts
Quote from kenkaniff :
is everyone commenting have access to apple education? or is there some kind of trick?
went through guest checkout and it didn't prompt for verification anywhere until review page.
Jan 17, 2023 08:02 PM
1,889 Posts
Joined Jun 2014
gorillatechmanJan 17, 2023 08:02 PM
1,889 Posts
Quote from eko427 :
What's the real world difference between the M2 and M2 Pro?
It depends what somebody is doing in the real world.

If somebody is sitting around using their machine to stream netflix, check their email and visit facebook, then it wont matter much to them.

If somebody is sitting around and actually using their machine for doing intensive tasks, such as video encoding and other intensive stuff, then the more powerful chip will complete the tasks a bit quicker.​

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Jan 17, 2023 08:03 PM
10 Posts
Joined May 2020

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