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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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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 09:02 PM
449 Posts
Joined Mar 2017
NSN07Jan 17, 2023 09:02 PM
449 Posts
+$200 for 16gb memory ; +$200 for 512 ssd and $100 for 10gig ethernet… is this worth $900 ?
Jan 17, 2023 09:03 PM
823 Posts
Joined Jul 2021
YouDontNeedItJan 17, 2023 09:03 PM
823 Posts
Quote from Undisclosed :
I might end up getting a base one with 8gb ram for the office as I just built a new computer with i7-13700k thinking that this wouldn't come out for a while but it did, too late to return all the parts or else I would have gotten the M2 Pro one with 32GB ram…

Too many options to choose from, i'm getting hung up mostly about 8gb vs upgrading the ram…

Time to revive the 8gb ram discussion..
Go for the Mac Mini with M2 Pro and with 32GB RAM which totally does exist now.
Last edited by YouDontNeedIt January 17, 2023 at 02:13 PM.
2
Jan 17, 2023 09:03 PM
309 Posts
Joined Sep 2016

This comment has been rated as unhelpful by Slickdeals users.

Jan 17, 2023 09:06 PM
268 Posts
Joined Dec 2010
cutwheelJan 17, 2023 09:06 PM
268 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.
So the html port on m2 base mini is still only 2.0. What a bummer!
Jan 17, 2023 09:06 PM
408 Posts
Joined Sep 2011
coldfusionJan 17, 2023 09:06 PM
408 Posts

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

Quote from YouDontNeedIt :
There is no Mac Mini with M2 Pro nor with 32GB RAM.
They literally announced an M2 Pro Mac mini today and you can get 32GB RAM
3
Jan 17, 2023 09:08 PM
823 Posts
Joined Jul 2021
YouDontNeedItJan 17, 2023 09:08 PM
823 Posts
Quote from phatparents :
To those who are adding more RAM… is it also worth it to increase the size of the SSD to 512 Gb? Or is RAM the only upgrade worth getting?
Nobody can tell you how much data you need to store on your Mini.

It is possible, though maybe not ideal, to add additional storage after purchase in the form of USB drives or network storage. It is not possible to add more RAM after purchase.
Jan 17, 2023 09:11 PM
823 Posts
Joined Jul 2021
YouDontNeedItJan 17, 2023 09:11 PM
823 Posts
Quote from coldfusion :
They literally announced an M2 Pro Mac mini today and you can get 32GB RAM
Holy shit, they really did!
3

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Jan 17, 2023 09:12 PM
38 Posts
Joined Nov 2014
TINGLIU87Jan 17, 2023 09:12 PM
38 Posts
M2 Pro is tempting. But price is a little expensive. $1,000 would be perfect. You may want to wait for $1,500 M2 Max Mac studio.
Jan 17, 2023 09:14 PM
2,051 Posts
Joined Mar 2004
F-ZeroJan 17, 2023 09:14 PM
2,051 Posts
I read 8gb and will hit the back button. Thx.
6
Jan 17, 2023 09:15 PM
397 Posts
Joined Nov 2005
OutlawdevilJan 17, 2023 09:15 PM
397 Posts
Omg, Apple is doing this to us as well? It was Tesla and now this! Those who jumped on the Costco 8gb deal!
1
2
Jan 17, 2023 09:15 PM
9,188 Posts
Joined Jul 2006
NattefrostJan 17, 2023 09:15 PM
9,188 Posts
How much does it cost them to add 8gb stick..unreal
2
Jan 17, 2023 09:16 PM
408 Posts
Joined Sep 2011
coldfusionJan 17, 2023 09:16 PM
408 Posts
Quote from Nattefrost :
How much does it cost them to add 8gb stick..unreal
There are no "sticks". Its built into the chip.
Jan 17, 2023 09:16 PM
444 Posts
Joined Dec 2009
Apk07Jan 17, 2023 09:16 PM
444 Posts
Quote from giantbruin :
$270 trade in value for M1 Mac Mini. $230+tax worth it to upgrade?
You can easily sell an M1 Mini for 2x that on eBay or Swappa
1
2
Jan 17, 2023 09:17 PM
512 Posts
Joined Sep 2007
drachen9d8Jan 17, 2023 09:17 PM
512 Posts
Quote from NSN07 :
+$200 for 16gb memory ; +$200 for 512 ssd and $100 for 10gig ethernet… is this worth $900 ?
The ram and ssd upgrades would be essential for me. However $899 vs $499 to start makes it a lot less attractive, IMO.

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Jan 17, 2023 09:17 PM
19,859 Posts
Joined Feb 2006
tenderidolJan 17, 2023 09:17 PM
19,859 Posts
Quote from phatparents :
How did u apply the Apple gift cards to your purchase? Add them to your Apple wallet and use Apple Pay on checkout?
You can either add them to your account and apply the balance, or you can add individual gift cards, during checkout. The limit for adding gift cards to your account is $2,000. The limit of individual gift cards that you can apply during checkout (regardless of the value of the gift cards) is 6 I believe.

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