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Comment by japhyr | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone have any recommendations if I want to keep using macOS, but I'm not tied to a MacBook?

I realized I hadn't taken my main MacBook off the dock in 9 months. When I go out, I have an older one that I'm happy to use away from my desk. Since it's acting like a desktop now, I though maybe I'd replace it with a higher-spec mac desktop. But a high end mac mini isn't much different than a high-end MacBook.

It seems if you want a high-performance mac but don't want to spend 6k+ on a mac pro, a specced-out 16" MacBook is the best choice. Is that correct?

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I've got a 2018 i7 mac mini that I upgraded the ram to 32GB myself and it's a very capable little machine (got it when I needed to do Unity Mobile Game development, but it keeps up with pretty much everything).

I do wish I would have gotten a bigger internal SSD (I bought it with 256GB, but have now moved most of my files to an external SSD and it's a constant struggle).

I've also now purchased an external GPU to drive my 2 4k monitors at home (it can do 2 4k monitors of text editing itself without struggling _too_ much, but it does run about 15C cooler with the eGPU), so it's hard to say if an iMac wouldn't have been a better purchase, but the nice thing about the mac mini is I can easily throw it in a backpack when I need to travel every couple of months.

Do they still make iMacs? My main computer is a 2015 5K iMac, maxed out for that class, and it is way faster than all the much-newer MacBook Pros (that I also use, at other desks/when traveling/etc)

That's interesting, I had never considered an iMac because I always thought they were designed as lower-spec family workstations. These look like the middle ground I was hoping to find. I'm still not sure I like the form factor, but I'll certainly consider this when it's time to replace my current system. Thanks!

I used to think the same thing - my previous workhorse was a Mac Pro, but I switched to the iMac to get "Retina" back in 2015 (hard/annoying on Mac Pro at the time), and it totally impressed me.

The high end iMacs are quite nice, as long as you don't mind their all-in-one nature (including the monitor obviously). Back in the day I might have suggested Hackintosh, although that's always seemed like quite a hassle to me, and certainly less appealing now Apple are moving over to ARM.

If I buy another Apple laptop it'll probably be a 16" Macbook Pro. In fairness to Apple I usually get at least 5 years out of one of their laptops so can generally live with the premium.

You'll still get a good five years out of a Hackintosh box. If you build it from the right components and use OpenCore https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/ its really not too hard. After Apple drops Intel support you can always switch it over to Linux or Windows.

I'm also wondering about this: I'd be very interested in building a desktop computer atm if I could run a reliable/up-to-date copy of macOS on it. A brief search on this didn't turn up anything promising though...

I went to the apple website and they have new iMacs for <$2000

Just get an i7 Mac mini? Or since you already have a mac as a backup you could build and configure a hackintosh.

The iMac pro is pretty well spec’d

Hackintosh?

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