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Comment by cordite | Hacker News Reader

I got mine this week, I'm surprised it doesn't even blow hot air while building node from source.

However, I am greatly disappointed in the fact that I cannot use both usb-c for displays, only one of them. I did not know of this limitation until I discovered things were not working as expected.

Everything is super responsive, it's far better than the 2014 mac mini (4GB of ram) with 2020 SSD.

Rosetta 2 seems to work without any hitches so far.

I tried running some iOS apps, but it seems the ones available don't run all that well. From the ones I could install, it is nice to receive app notifications!

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I’m so frustrated by what apple has done with externals in the last few iterations, especially displays. I am an outlier in that I use three external displays, and my current MacBook can just barely support it if I make sure to spread my devices over separate usb-c dongles. If I try to put keyboard, mouse, power, and monitor on a single advertised as supporting multiple USB and power and HDMI, the keyboard and especially mouse stop working correctly, even with “just” two external monitors. I thought things were moving in a direction where I’d have one hub/dock I plug all my peripherals into, leaving one cord to plug into the laptop, but now I have a maze of dongles I have to load balance!

I don’t mind what they did on phones with the headphone jack, because they provided an excellent alternative. On MacBooks, they just take away ports without a solid replacement.

Have you looked at the larger Thunderbolt hubs, rather than one of the cheaper and more ubiquitous USB-C dongles?

I use a 15" MacBook Pro and a Caldigit TS3+ – more expensive, but I have a single cable supplying power, a bunch of USB ports, Ethernet, audio, an SD reader and 2x4k monitors. It pretty much feels like magic and has been completely flawless. It won't run three screens though – I do sometimes use a third myself, but that needs an additional direct HDMI -> USB-C cable.

I usually use 3 external monitors and I just ordered the new M1 Mac Mini last week. I am having trepidations about buying a port expander which is almost half as expensive as the machine itself.

I own that magic box, mine runs 3 x 4K screens, via two USB-C and one DisplayPort. I have it plugged to right rear port because of the charging heat rumors.

Rumor source: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/363337/how-to-find...

EDIT: Not HDMI, DisplayPort.

Same here - using OWC (MacSales.com) TB3 hub on Mini 2018 for 4K and 1K display, supports up to 2x4K. Haven’t seen any that support 3 screens. Has USB A and C connectors, wired Ethernet, etc. They also have smaller versions, for example without Ethernet. Works from boot with MacOS and Windows. Only issue is with Windows safe mode (!).

Even that wouldn't support three monitors, right? I think I read somewhere that the 2019+ macbooks only support two monitors per side of the laptop, so not three through one USB-C port.

Nope - as I mentioned above, it won’t work with three screens. You’ve got a minimum of two cables for three screens, unfortunately!

Dual monitor (1hdmi + 1usbc) and small performance improvement (from benchmarks on youtube) is why I went with Mac Mini 8GB (Because 16GB ram didn't make a difference)

The macbook does have dual displays, it's just that one of them is included.

> it's far better than the 2014 mac mini (4GB of ram) with 2020 SSD

Can you explain this a little better? I have a MAc Mini 2014 lying around that never got to put to good use (I inherited it when my father died) and one of my daughters tried to use for video editing but deciding against because of the memory limitations.

Would you say even thought with the little RAM it is still good?

So, I could dabble around in codepen on it, but if I try running Spotify, discord, a couple more tabs on the side, it becomes less responsive as memory pressure ramps up. It’s nearly impractical to use the chrome inspector.

To get around that I’ve tried using both Spotify and discord in browser, and occasionally Spotify will cut out for a few seconds.

At one point I resorted to using xquartz to run a few things remotely. It was.. okay but frankly vnc performed better.

Not for video editing, and unfortunately the 2014 Mac mini doesn't allow upgrading the ram

You could maybe add an eGPU or add faster and bigger drive(s) for virtual memory.

Also some info about 2014 Mac Mini memory at: https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/mac-mini-aluminu... and https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205041#two

2014 Mini is nearly useless. It's a mobile dual core cpu.

Beyond two monitors, definitely noticing less consistent external display connectivity. Often have to cycle between closing and opening the lid to finally get it to connect. Unsure if that's just a Big Sur regression, however.

I remember seeing a tweet from an Apple engineer saying how monitors sometimes break specs in all kinds of ways and how much they had to work around.

Windows and Linux do fine :)

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