Mini PC's, Mac or Geekom?

[DE1975]

Well, I've admitted it's finally time to replace my ancient (mid 2011) iMac, which has served me well but is on its last legs and not updated past High Sierra OS.

So I'm pretty much decided on getting a mini PC (already got laptop and tablet covered), so this would be for home browsing and general MS office work, nothing too taxing. I'm deciding between the Mac Mini M4 (available for £529, currently) although this would only be in 256GB form so would require a dock with SSD enclosure with a compatible 1 TB SSD. With the current costs of memory, this would add about £200 to the cost (the 1TB SSD'S I looked at which were around £100 at the weekend are £120ish today). The alternative is a Geekom windows mini PC which would have all the ports and storage I need, with nothing else required. This one is about the same price as the Mac Mini and seems a good spec, so would save me about £200 overall.

https://amzn.eu/d/05V0osE5


The AMD Ryzen 7 8745HS should give similar performance to the M4 if benchmarks are accurate.

Anyone got experience of these Geekom mini PC's and if they're any good.

I guess most will recommend the Mac Mini, but the £200 saving is useful to me right now.

[SP_]

Windows is pretty good. Just save the £200. Nothing in your use case indicates you need Mac OS.

[Dave Hedgehog]

the mac mini's for £500 are serious performance / value

I just bought a barebone GMKTec K12 for £175 on ali express, delivered with no import duties (UK shipped) (near identical SoC)

https://www.gmktec.com/products/gmktec-k12-amd-ryz...

I had a 2tb lexar M.2 that i never fitted to my PS5, SO DIMM DDR5 5600 prices are insane atm and only going to get worse 16gb around £100 and 32gb around £180 on ebay and a lot more retail (both 2 sticks for the dual channel boost)

I had to flash the BIOS which was interesting but damn does the thing fly, Im getting 130fps on medium settings on Hytale (minecraft 2) at 1080p, amazing performance for money (i bought a windows key for £2)


and it has 3 M.2 slots and supports an eGPU

Edited by Dave Hedgehog on Tuesday 3rd February 11:24

[bangerhoarder]

8GB of RAM and Open Core Legacy Patcher? It'll work with MacOS 15 from experience, but you may find it a bit ponderous.

To compare, I'm using a Late 2011 Macbook Pro with 8GB and an SSD as my occasional laptop at work, running 15.7.3. It's not bad! Won't run anything that requires Metal GPU features, like Garageband etc but meh. Does run Teams, Safari, Office 2024.

[DE1975]

bangerhoarder said:

8GB of RAM and Open Core Legacy Patcher? It'll work with MacOS 15 from experience, but you may find it a bit ponderous.

To compare, I'm using a Late 2011 Macbook Pro with 8GB and an SSD as my occasional laptop at work, running 15.7.3. It's not bad! Won't run anything that requires Metal GPU features, like Garageband etc but meh. Does run Teams, Safari, Office 2024.

Thanks, but iMac has earned its retirement now. I've had my monies worth :-)

I upped the RAM from the stock 4GB to 12GB a few years ago and looked at replacing the HDD with an SSD but didn't. It's obsolete now and due an upgrade, it still functions for basic stuff but takes for ever to boot up (so never gets shut down).

[danb79]

M4 Mac Mini - 16GB RAM/256GB (or bigger of you need it) - can't see what more would be needed - Amazon have them at a good price currently too

Or get a used M1 or M2 Mac Mini if you don't want to spend too much

[AbbeyNormal]

SP_ said:

Windows is pretty good. Just save the £200. Nothing in your use case indicates you need Mac OS.

Time to start a windows vs mac war!!

If you have been using a Mac then it seems sensible to keep with a Mac. I have an M1 Laptop and and LG Monitors (the official apple ones) and it works really well. The monitor was about £400 second hand on fleabay. I really wish I had gone with an Mac Mini as the laptop never moves.

[GoodDoc]

DE1975 said:

Well, I've admitted it's finally time to replace my ancient (mid 2011) iMac, which has served me well but is on its last legs and not updated past High Sierra OS.

So this is a story about an M4 Mac Mini, but it starts out with the same machine your have at the moment.

I used an iMac (27", Mid 2011) as my main PC at home for almost 10 years. I was itching to replace it at the end but in 2020 there were rumours of a big update, and in November 2020 I bought the then new M1 Mac Mini. I upgraded the Ram from 8GB to 16GB, and the the drive from 256GB to 1TB, which turned a £700 base PC into a £1300 PC, but that 2020 Mac Mini is still in everyday use and even after 5+ years I still see no need to replace. I do have an older ThinkPad laptop I picked up second hand for Windows stuff, but it's the Mac Mini I use every day.

In late 2024 I needed another PC for another purpose, and given just how great value the M4 Mac Mini was at the time I bought one. That value disappears pretty fast if you start upgrading it so for £600 I got the base 16GB and 256GB. That machine has been in flawless service ever since.

Even 5 years later my original M1 Mac Mini is still providing sterling service as my main PC, and while there is no need to replace it, if I had to it would definitely be with a M4 Mac Mini (although given how well my M1 has lasted, I might be tempted to spend the crazy £200 for the upgrade to 24GB just to future proof it). Your other option might save you £200 but if you're already a happy Mac user I'd be tempted to stay with the Mac.

---

Edit; Just to reiterate how crazy Mac Mini upgrade prices are, an M4 Mac Mini upgraded to 32GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage is £1,199.
Two base spec M4 Mac Minis, which together have 32GB of Ram, and 512GB of storage is £1,198.
You basically get an entire PC thrown in for free (but granted, not necessarily a great option for most people.

Edited by GoodDoc on Tuesday 3rd February 20:23

[mikef]

Or go somewhere in the middle and look at an M2 Mac Mini Pro off eBay with more storage

I use one every day and am amazed at how capable it is

If you need more storage, just plug in an external NVMe 4 enclosure and drive

[Magnum 475]

Or visit the Apple Certified Refurbished UK store, and get one with full Apple warranty & support for less dosh than a new one.

[jesusbuiltmycar]

SP_ said:

Windows is pretty good. Just save the £200. Nothing in your use case indicates you need Mac OS.

Pretty good???



The January update bricked many PCs and even managed to brake Notepad and the"Start" button.




Towards the end of the video he suggests Linux distros to use (even for hardcore gamers).

[Steve_H80]

To be fair if all the OP is running is Office stuff and Web browsing an abacus would most likely do the trick, although an up to date OS without too many security holes is always a good idea.

[Dave Hedgehog]

GoodDoc said:

---

Edit; Just to reiterate how crazy Mac Mini upgrade prices are, an M4 Mac Mini upgraded to 32GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage is £1,199.
Two base spec M4 Mac Minis, which together have 32GB of Ram, and 512GB of storage is £1,198.
You basically get an entire PC thrown in for free (but granted, not necessarily a great option for most people.

Edited by GoodDoc on Tuesday 3rd February 20:23

bearing in mind the ram appocpalpse and the 32GB of ram in my current PC is now £400 on amazon (and scan), and apple use more advanced lpddr5x with apple tax there prices are not so agregious

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/32gb-2x16gb-corsai...

and for most people the default 16gb of ram will be fine and as you can now set the app folder to be on a super fast external M.2 caddy the default storage is also fine

you can even get a fancy dock and a super fast M.2 (or 2 drives in the mate mini)

https://www.bee-link.com/products/beelink-mate-min...

Edited by Dave Hedgehog on Wednesday 4th February 16:26

[GoodDoc]

Dave Hedgehog said:

bearing in mind the ram apocalypse and the 32GB of ram in my current PC is now £400 on amazon (and scan), and apple use more advanced lpddr5x with apple tax there prices are not so egregious

It's a good point, but it feels like the non-Apple market inadvertently caught up with Apple's prices, and at some point Apple may decide to increase their upgrade prices to match that market.
But it certainly makes it a bit easier to justify Mac Mini upgrades, and given how long Macs are lasting for me the extra RAM will probably pay dividends for me in the long run.

Dave Hedgehog said:

and for most people the default 16gb of ram will be fine and as you can now set the app folder to be on a super fast external M.2 caddy the default storage is also fine

That was my rational when I when I bought my M4 Mini, 16 GB should be enough, and the upgrade to 24 GB was an extra third of the price of the whole machine.
As for the 256 GB of storage, I did just what you suggested, bought a 4 TB SSD, connected via USB 3, and configured the Mac to use the large external drive. It's been great for 18 months, and hopefully for years to come.

Dave Hedgehog said:

you can even get a fancy dock and a super fast M.2 (or 2 drives in the mate mini)

Wasn't aware of that product. Certainly makes the decision about which upgrade to go for easier. Add RAM to the Mac Mini, buy something like a Beelink Mate for expanded storage. When I come to replace my daily M1 Mini I may have to go down this route.

[buggalugs]

We buy 5-10 Beelink's a month they're great little boxes. Also depending which one you get they're generally upgradeable, unlike Mac Minis.

[SP_]

jesusbuiltmycar said:

SP_ said:

Windows is pretty good. Just save the £200. Nothing in your use case indicates you need Mac OS.

Pretty good???



The January update bricked many PCs and even managed to brake Notepad and the"Start" button.




Towards the end of the video he suggests Linux distros to use (even for hardcore gamers).

Nice clickbait title with only 10 or so computers affected in reality

[DE1975]

Just to follow up on this. I went with the Mac Mini option in the end. I also got a UGreen dock the Mac Mini sits on top of with a 1 TB SSD. I also got a Xiaomi A27UI 4k monitor which seemed decent value at £200, with USBC with 90w power delivery so can connect up my work laptop to that easily. That'll sit alongside an existing 27 inch HP monitor so will have a set up I'm happy with which suits my needs for about £950 all in, which is £50 less than I paid for my 21.5 inch iMac 15 years ago.

Edited by DE1975 on Saturday 7th February 11:01

[DE1975]

Will get it set up later today. I'm thinking it's not worth migrating across from the old Mac and just start anew with the Mac Mini, downloading MS Office 24 from a Groupon offer for £15. The apps I had on the iMac will be 32 bit and won't work so no point copying any of them. I've got all my files (photos,vids, music library, word/excel docs etc) backed up to an external HDD so can just copy them to the SSD.

[GoodDoc]

DE1975 said:

I also got a Xiaomi 27UI 4k monitor which seemed decent value at £200, with USBC with 90w power delivery so can connect up my work laptop to that easily

As much as I like my Apple hardware, I struggle to understand why anyone buys their monitors. I get the convenience factor of the controls that 'just work' but by effectively sticking the guts of an iPhone into the monitor to make all those impressively integrated features work I can't help wonder if those monitors 'just won't work' in the future because of software issues.

The Apple Studio Display at £1500 is now a 4 year old monitor that hasn't kept up with modern monitors specs. The Pro Display XDR is £4600 and isn't much better than a Dell costing less half the price (and the Dell doesn't require you to spend another £200 on an VESA mount adapter or £1000 on a stand).

As much as I liked my 27" iMac, and was disappointed when it was discontinued, I quickly found that an Apple silicon Mac Mini and a standard PC monitor was actually much more flexible.

Congrats on the purchase!

[GoodDoc]

DE1975 said:

Will get it set up later today. I'm thinking it's not worth migrating across from the old Mac and just start anew with the Mac Mini, downloading MS Office 24 from a Groupon offer for £15. The apps I had on the iMac will be 32 bit and won't work so no point copying any of them. I've got all my files (photos,vids, music library, word/excel docs etc) backed up to an external HDD so can just copy them to the SSD.

I migrate my iPhone from old to new, but each Mac gets set up from scratch. Over time software installs on MacOS can leave unneeded/unwanted components behind. Even after I stopped using Cisco's VPN software for work and I thought I had uninstalled it there was still a network component left behind that had a very slow memory leak, but because my Mac Mini is on 24x7 that leak would force a reboot after a few weeks. Not a showstopper, but that was just one app that I noticed.