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Comment by mpeg | Hacker News Reader

New Mac mini with the M2 Pro maxes out at 32GB memory, that's quite disappointing compared to the Macbook Pro's 96GB.

On the other hand, my M2 Macbook Air is one of the best purchases I've made in a long time, great fanless laptop.

The M2 MBA is probably closest to my perfect laptop. Thin, no moving parts (no fan), very fast, 24GB RAM, super long battery life. I love it.

Same for me, I bought it thinking I'd use my desktop more anyway so I wanted something very light, fanless and with long lasting battery – and I've ended up using it as my daily driver since the summer.

It's absolutely flawless, and very good value for the price (even with the overpriced RAM)

That makes me feel good. I ordered a M2 MacBook Air last week knowing that Apple might release new MacBook Pros at any time. I have family coming to visit and most Apple products are significantly cheaper from where they are vs where I live, so I was hesitant about what to do. Looking at the prices, I think I made the right choice. A 32GB MacBook Pro 14 w/ 1TB would be about $1500 USD more than the MacBook Air M2 with 24GB and 1TB, since I'd have to order it from here. Obviously the extra ports and RAM would be nice, but not that nice!

Agreed on form factor, but screen is quite a bit worse quality wise than the Pro.

Lower refresh rate, lower density backlighting etc. Would like the Air form factor with the premium screen

Yeah, that's a fair point and probably my only complaint. It's probably necessary (for now) to get the rest of the hardware to be what it is. Probably a high-res high-refresh display would require everything else.

It may be possible with their upcoming micro-led tech, though I'm not familiar with how that impacts form factor/power draw

My personal machine is a 2014 13" MBP. I haven't needed to replace it, but that time is coming relatively soon. I've been contemplating just going with an MBA instead of a MBP for my next machine. I don't do so much heavy lifting that I think I need it. It's a weird feeling because I think of myself as a "power user" and in the past that always meant getting the most computer you could afford. Now I'm not so sure...

Presumably they are trying to make a clear distinction between the mini and studio.

Yeah, I understand from a product perspective, but the studio feels like a bit of a weird product to me, I'd much rather either buy a mini form factor for the size, or just get a proper desktop machine (since the Mac Pro has been outdated for a while)

I just got a Studio (still in the box waiting to be set up), and I'm really curious to see how it does. I love the idea of it; it's specced more than I could get in a laptop, which is exactly what I want for my desktop work.

I never really got the appeal of the Mini, because it wasn't specced much better than a MacBook. The Studio seems to be a nice middle ground between a MacBook and a mac Pro, which I know I'll never need.

> I never really got the appeal of the Mini, because it wasn't specced much better than a MacBook.

The appeal is in the form factor: you buy Mini, so you can hang it behind your TV using VESA mount, and you use it to watch Netflix on 65" OLED screen. Or you put it in the corner of the room and use it as a home server. You do not use Mini as laptop replacement :) Although I have to say this: Intel NUCs a quarter of the size of Mini, so much better for both the purposes above.

Possibly, although the M2 Pro mini almost entirely cannibalizes the base Studio. For the same $2000 you can get the the mini with the same memory and storage, a significantly faster CPU (12 core M2 vs 10 core M1) and approximately equal GPU (19 core M2 vs 24 core M1). The Studio now only makes sense if you need the M1 Ultra or lots of memory.

Seems 96GB is only for the M2 Max model. M2 Pro just mentions 32GB.

If you were to go over 32GB of RAM you are probably better off switching to the very similar Mac Studio with the M1 Max which can go to 64GB. If you want an M2-based SOC, I suspect that the Mac Studio will get an upgrade later in the spring.

I really hope the next Macbook Air supports multiple external monitors, that's the only thing holding me back from it right now. I know there are DisplayLink solutions but not sure how well they would work.

At this point it's a purely a differentiation play in the lineup. Most large businesses I know that ordered Airs for years just purchase Pros.

It’s a bit tricky to make sure you have compatible hardware, but my experience of display link has been that it works well once set up.

I didn't even notice the mac mini bump. Got mine in aug 2021 - more ram would be nice. And with medium drive, that puts it at ~ $2k. At that price, I'm more tempted to go back to the laptop world.

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