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

$499
$599.00
+ Free Shipping
+251 Deal Score
280,407 Views
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

Original Post

Written by
Edited January 17, 2023 at 11:19 AM by
Apple just released the new M2 Mac Mini for $599, however Education Users can get it for $499 which is $100 off the Regular price.

https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop...c/mac-mini
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Created 01-17-2023 at 08:29 AM by Undisclosed
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Deal
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Community Wiki

Last Edited by dclive February 20, 2023 at 03:08 PM
Anyone can purchase from the Apple Edu Store. One simply googles "Apple Edu Store", then purchases goods from the store and picks it up or has the goods shipped normally. There is no verification currently. Apple's stated qualifications are to be a teacher, a student in college, or a member of several other education-facing groups.

Apple's SSD "maximum" speeds on the new M2 Mini is as follows:

1500MB/s for 256GB mini; 3000MB/s for 512GB/1TB mini.
3000MB/s for 512GB mini Pro; 6000 MB/s for 1TB++ mini Pro.

And for the vast, vast majority, since random access speed is vastly more important than maximum transfer speeds, none of this matters at all; random access speeds are similar on all models, and are faster than the M1 models before these. If you have a day job where you copy data from the internal drive to an external Thunderbolt 4 high-speed SSD, and you do that 8x5 as part of a job, all day every day, look at the 1TB Pro models. Otherwise, ignore all of this; it simply doesn't matter.

Compared to the previous gen M1 mini, the M2 mini is perhaps 10-15% faster in single core operations and about the same in multicore operations. The graphics operations, for some things, can be up to 40% faster, a significant jump, which is useful in games and in some video and ML applications that use the GPU cores.

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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.

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How many browser tabs do you keep open?

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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. 😊
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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dclive
02-20-2023 at 03:08 PM.
02-20-2023 at 03:08 PM.
Quote from Jimmdean :
256GB mini pro?
Wiki fixed! Smilie
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starlights_
02-23-2023 at 08:01 AM.
02-23-2023 at 08:01 AM.
Thanks. Used Citi card via PayPal for additional 5%.
Checked to confirm that Citi CC warranties still apply.
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thekfc
02-23-2023 at 11:30 AM.
02-23-2023 at 11:30 AM.
Will ths be ok for our needs?

Went for the 16/256 for $679, I will do store pickup instead of shipping as I work about 2 blocks from an Apple store.

This will be our first Apple computer (we have iPad & iPhone)

The only thing 'heavy" stuff we will do on it is simple 4K video editing (maybe max 30 minutes in lenths) about once or twice a week.

We have Windoshare Filmora, Pinacle Studio Ultimate & DaVinci Resolve but they are all windows based.
We have external SSD drives at home (1TB/2TB Samsungs & 2TB Crucial) so we didn't go go for the extra storage.
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pfukjobydn
02-23-2023 at 03:21 PM.
02-23-2023 at 03:21 PM.
Quote from spec2 :
Limiting the speed...as compared to a spinning platter 5200 RPM hard drive that use to go in the base models only a few years ago? Haha. You guys will always find something to complain about. At $500-600 this is a heck of an entry level computer let alone Mac. No one is buying this model to edit 4K RAW video or a stack of 45mp photos in Lightroom.
I didnt realize mods had removed my post, but you're delusional if you think 5400rpm drives were in macbook a few years ago, I've always had SSDs in my macbooks, since 2009
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spec2
02-24-2023 at 02:31 PM.
02-24-2023 at 02:31 PM.
Quote from pfukjobydn :
I didnt realize mods had removed my post, but you're delusional if you think 5400rpm drives were in macbook a few years ago, I've always had SSDs in my macbooks, since 2009
You are the delusional one. I've been using Apple laptops since the early 1990s. But to prove you don't know what you are talking about here are the stock specs for a 2009 MacBook Pro - note the 5400 RPM HDD:

https://apple-history.com/mbp_15_mid_09
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hotaboy
03-02-2023 at 11:00 AM.
03-02-2023 at 11:00 AM.
Does apple tend to end these deals or they stay on for a long time?
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iota
03-02-2023 at 11:05 AM.
03-02-2023 at 11:05 AM.
Quote from hotaboy :
Does apple tend to end these deals or they stay on for a long time?
This isn't a limited-time deal - this is just the normal (educational discount) price. It's not going to change any time soon, most likely.
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Joined Apr 2018
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pfukjobydn
03-02-2023 at 11:09 AM.
03-02-2023 at 11:09 AM.
Quote from spec2 :
You are the delusional one. I've been using Apple laptops since the early 1990s. But to prove you don't know what you are talking about here are the stock specs for a 2009 MacBook Pro - note the 5400 RPM HDD:

https://apple-history.com/mbp_15_mid_09
I guess you're too simple to replace them with SSD's as every professional did.
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spec2
03-03-2023 at 04:45 AM.
03-03-2023 at 04:45 AM.
Quote from pfukjobydn :
I guess you're too simple to replace them with SSD's as every professional did.
Haha. Nice try to switch the subject. My original point was Apple shipped the stock models with 5400 RPM drives NOT that the user couldn't crack the case and add a faster drive or order a CTO model with one. No matter how much twisting you try here you are wrong. Let it go.

Also, side note, yes, back when you could crack the case I always ordered stock and upgraded the RAM and drive myself.
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dyrne
03-04-2023 at 03:48 PM.
03-04-2023 at 03:48 PM.
Man.. I'm coming from Linux and need ram for VMs and more cores and wanted to try apple out but it's cheaper just to buy multiple base models and stack them. This is silly
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drcrasierfrane
03-20-2023 at 08:27 AM.
03-20-2023 at 08:27 AM.
Upgraded to 16GB RAM and 512GB storage in the configurator. For under $1k this is going to be a beast.
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easybeart
04-11-2023 at 01:53 PM.
04-11-2023 at 01:53 PM.
Can this run Minecraft at 4k 144hz? My M1 Macbook Air can barely keep up at 4k ~90hz
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dclive
04-11-2023 at 02:56 PM.
04-11-2023 at 02:56 PM.
Quote from easybeart :
Can this run Minecraft at 4k 144hz? My M1 Macbook Air can barely keep up at 4k ~90hz
GPU said to be 40% faster than M1. Give it a shot, then let us know.
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MemorableWren1309
06-05-2023 at 04:00 PM.
06-05-2023 at 04:00 PM.
Now with $100 apple gift card for back to school
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dclive
06-05-2023 at 04:36 PM.
06-05-2023 at 04:36 PM.
Quote from MemorableWren1309 :
Now with $100 apple gift card for back to school
Where do you see that?
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