Slickdeals is community-supported.  We may get paid by brands for deals, including promoted items.
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
874 Comments 294,895 Views
Get Deal at Apple Store
Good Deal
Save
Share
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

Deal Score
+252
Good Deal
Get Deal at Apple Store

Leave a Comment

Unregistered (You)

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
"Funny" for 11 to 20
"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

Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.

Pro
Jan 17, 2023 08:13 PM
1,774 Posts
Joined Oct 2008
kenkaniff
Pro
Jan 17, 2023 08:13 PM
1,774 Posts
Quote from acbharath14 :
went through guest checkout and it didn't prompt for verification anywhere until review page.
right, so isn't this YMMV?
Jan 17, 2023 08:16 PM
1,889 Posts
Joined Jun 2014
gorillatechmanJan 17, 2023 08:16 PM
1,889 Posts

Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank gorillatechman

Quote from abner5 :
Can you add memory yourself later or only when initial purchasing
Can not add later. You need to set it up the way you want it when purchasing.
2
1
Jan 17, 2023 08:16 PM
96 Posts
Joined Jul 2013
clydesdalJan 17, 2023 08:16 PM
96 Posts
Quote from nba2k18 :
can MacOS split 4 open windows into quadrants like Windows 11?

or is that a 2029 year slated release?
A lot of utilities for doing that --most of the time you want to tweak what the OS will give you anyway, so pick the one that works for you best.
1
Jan 17, 2023 08:19 PM
74 Posts
Joined Jul 2017
404userJan 17, 2023 08:19 PM
74 Posts
Quote from r0wdy :
Per Apple, it supports 2 monitors:

Simultaneously supports up to two displays:

One display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one display with up to 5K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt or 4K resolution at 60Hz over HDMI

https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/specs/
Good point. Maybe I'm thinking of the laptop variant (in which the built in screen is considered one). I'll correct my post.
1
Jan 17, 2023 08:19 PM
27 Posts
Joined Sep 2021
LivelyMusic500Jan 17, 2023 08:19 PM
27 Posts
Isn't it the new regular price for students?
Jan 17, 2023 08:20 PM
1,889 Posts
Joined Jun 2014
gorillatechmanJan 17, 2023 08:20 PM
1,889 Posts
Quote from nba2k18 :
can MacOS split 4 open windows into quadrants like Windows 11?

or is that a 2029 year slated release?
I've been splitting my windows on Mac OS long before Windows 11 ever existed.

There are numerous third party apps, that lets a user organize their windows however they want.
2
Jan 17, 2023 08:23 PM
96 Posts
Joined Jul 2013
clydesdalJan 17, 2023 08:23 PM
96 Posts
Quote from abner5 :
Can you add memory yourself later or only when initial purchasing
Time of purchase decision --SSD and system RAM are soldered on board. None of the apple silicon products have been post purchase upgradable so far.
1

Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.

Jan 17, 2023 08:24 PM
9,992 Posts
Joined Aug 2004
JaTaNJan 17, 2023 08:24 PM
9,992 Posts
Quote from abner5 :
Can you add memory yourself later or only when initial purchasing
Nope -- RAM and storage are built-in (no slots so you can't replace/upgrade yourself)

Better off upgrading the RAM to what you want (like 16gb to future proof yourself) -- you can always buy external SSD for more storage
1
Jan 17, 2023 08:25 PM
640 Posts
Joined Sep 2014
acbharath14Jan 17, 2023 08:25 PM
640 Posts
is it worth buying additional 8g ram paying $180?
1
Jan 17, 2023 08:25 PM
9 Posts
Joined Dec 2014
rohan13Jan 17, 2023 08:25 PM
9 Posts

Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank rohan13

Quote from gorillatechman :
I've been splitting my windows on Mac OS long before Windows 11 ever existed.

There are numerous third party apps, that lets a user organize their windows however they want.
I agree. I have used shiftit for years…. Now switched to rectangle. These are lot better than what you get on windows.
2
Jan 17, 2023 08:28 PM
181 Posts
Joined Jun 2017
dslick408Jan 17, 2023 08:28 PM
181 Posts
Quote from clydesdal :
Time of purchase decision --SSD and system RAM are soldered on board. None of the apple silicon products have been post purchase upgradable so far.
Stop answering these weirdos. Cluttering up the thread with answers they should know by doing research themselves.
8
Jan 17, 2023 08:30 PM
460 Posts
Joined Feb 2009
bill875Jan 17, 2023 08:30 PM
460 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
What is it that you do with your Mac Mini that you find 8GB of RAM is not enough? I have a MBA 8GB and MBP 16GB and find myself only ever using the MacBook Air because 8GB is plenty with Photoshop and Adobe Premiere (basic video editing). I also use Topaz Photo AI and Video AI regularly and they just don't need that much RAM to function.
Jan 17, 2023 08:32 PM
15,496 Posts
Joined Feb 2005
thund3rcatJan 17, 2023 08:32 PM
15,496 Posts
Quote from gorillatechman :
As far as the RAM game goes, Apple has always been like that, even going back decades, so I don't expect that to ever change.
They gotten worse when it comes to playing the RAM game, solder on and limiting retailers selling 16GB ram version outside Apple.
Jan 17, 2023 08:32 PM
288 Posts
Joined Sep 2011
seaniepantsJan 17, 2023 08:32 PM
288 Posts
I've spent 30 minutes trying to figure out which Mini models will have HDMI 2.1. Anyone know?

Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.

Jan 17, 2023 08:32 PM
640 Posts
Joined Sep 2014
acbharath14Jan 17, 2023 08:32 PM
640 Posts
Quote from kenkaniff :
right, so isn't this YMMV?
its not ymmv because everyone can do guest checkout without issues

Leave a Comment

Unregistered (You)

Popular Deals

Trending Deals