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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?

"Like" for 10 or less
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"Helpful" for 21 and above
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 08:03 PM
15,496 Posts
Joined Feb 2005
thund3rcatJan 17, 2023 08:03 PM
15,496 Posts
Quote from eko427 :
In layman's terms, what's the issue?
It doesn't matter much, unless you're a professional video editor. People like to exaggerate any type of issues.
2
Jan 17, 2023 08:03 PM
256 Posts
Joined Aug 2015
slvrscoobieJan 17, 2023 08:03 PM
256 Posts
Quote :
Quote from AmusedMoon6137 :
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)
Slower? its still like 3000MB/s its not like its SATA vs NVME - its still blazing fast for 99.8% of applications
1
Jan 17, 2023 08:04 PM
3,532 Posts
Joined Jan 2015
kevinaaaJan 17, 2023 08:04 PM
3,532 Posts
Quote from santy83 :
Apple waited until well after the holidays to clear out inventory before releasing this.

Incredible value for what you get.
No, it will sell much more if released during holiday season
3
Jan 17, 2023 08:05 PM
3,532 Posts
Joined Jan 2015
kevinaaaJan 17, 2023 08:05 PM
3,532 Posts
Quote from phatparents :
Trying to figure out a "cashback" deal…. Discover and Chase credit cards both offer 5% back at grocery stores right now… Could you buy an Apple gift card at the grocery store, get 5% back, and use it to buy the Mac mini? Not sure if gift cards get the 5% back…
Why not get an amazon card?
1
Jan 17, 2023 08:05 PM
256 Posts
Joined Aug 2015
slvrscoobieJan 17, 2023 08:05 PM
256 Posts
Quote from nevillejohn :
i have an m1 mac mini and find it almost unusable with 8gb of ram, switching to the 24gb m2 with this deal
almost unusable? for WHAT? Rendering Pixar movies? I can throw 50MB Canon Raw files at it in PS all day with 8gb and it has no issues even while running docker, safari, maps and weather open
2
1
Jan 17, 2023 08:07 PM
41 Posts
Joined Mar 2019
stanjuneJan 17, 2023 08:07 PM
41 Posts
Also, $539 on Apple's Veterans and Military store. Must have I.D. me.

Price match on ShopMyExchange to save the tax. Roughly $499. 😉
Last edited by stanjune January 17, 2023 at 01:10 PM.
Jan 17, 2023 08:08 PM
49 Posts
Joined Oct 2018
TalentedBelieve493Jan 17, 2023 08:08 PM
49 Posts
Quote from kevzz01 :
Not a mac user, is this a good alternative for plex server?

it depends on your Plex workload (e.g. # of streams, direct vs. transcode, etc.) but i think this will be an overkill. the price and form factor might be attractive but if price is important, any SFF i5/i7 on ebay that is off lease for under $200 might make more economical sense. plex doesnt use alot of ram so 8gb should be sufficient but i would getting something that is quad-core to support multi-transcoding workloads.

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Jan 17, 2023 08:09 PM
2,371 Posts
Joined Jul 2007
eko427Jan 17, 2023 08:09 PM
2,371 Posts
Quote from StefanoM3235 :
Reading and writing speed are much slower (about half) than it used to be on the M1 base model
Well, damn...that ain't good.
3
Jan 17, 2023 08:09 PM
1,476 Posts
Joined Apr 2016
StefanoM3235Jan 17, 2023 08:09 PM
1,476 Posts
Quote from thund3rcat :
It doesn't matter much, unless you're a professional video editor. People like to exaggerate any type of issues.
Not a video editor here and I definitely noticed the difference, but hey to each their own
Jan 17, 2023 08:09 PM
316 Posts
Joined Aug 2011

This comment has been rated as unhelpful by Slickdeals users.

Jan 17, 2023 08:09 PM
3,751 Posts
Joined May 2005

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Jan 17, 2023 08:10 PM
801 Posts
Joined Jun 2013
Bouncy_FurbalJan 17, 2023 08:10 PM
801 Posts
If they fixed wifi/bluetooth stutter on the mini, theres just about no reason to buy any other device near its price range. Performance is going to be (and was on M1) for that price.

If it had minecraft bedrock on it, It'd probably be my only 'desktop'
Jan 17, 2023 08:11 PM
301 Posts
Joined Oct 2018
WeekendVampireJan 17, 2023 08:11 PM
301 Posts
Can you add memory yourself later or only when initial purchasing
1
2
Jan 17, 2023 08:11 PM
1,476 Posts
Joined Apr 2016
StefanoM3235Jan 17, 2023 08:11 PM
1,476 Posts
Quote from slvrscoobie :
Slower? its still like 3000MB/s its not like its SATA vs NVME - its still blazing fast for 99.8% of applications
They're actually about half of that

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Jan 17, 2023 08:12 PM
692 Posts
Joined Jun 2022
KorgGamer69Jan 17, 2023 08:12 PM
692 Posts
Quote from phatparents :
Trying to figure out a "cashback" deal…. Discover and Chase credit cards both offer 5% back at grocery stores right now… Could you buy an Apple gift card at the grocery store, get 5% back, and use it to buy the Mac mini? Not sure if gift cards get the 5% back…
If you did the Eneba deal a while back + a 5% CB, you could've gotten this from its MSRP of $699 to $408.50– a MASSIVE $290.50 (42%) off!

Alternatively, if you paid for the Eneba deals with the Visa $200 for $185.95 deal, as well as had a 5% CB, you could've gotten this from its MSRP of $699 to $379.80– a MASSIVE $319.20 (46%) off!
Last edited by KorgGamer69 January 17, 2023 at 01:16 PM.

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