This video is awesome. To hear influencers online, you’d think we all need a M3 Max powered machine with maximum RAM. I’ve watched so many base model videos that I’m convinced my photo editing and office workflow will be fine on an M2 Mac Mini and a MacBook Air, either M1 or M2 in base configuration. I can buy external storage and don’t think my work will push the machine much, so I’m going base models on both. My 2015 iMac is awful to use for photo editing, but my wife’s M1 MacBook Air does it easily on my brief trial with it. I’m gaining confidence I can just go buy the machines and ignore the “sky is falling if you don’t get 16GB minimum” claims. Edit: and I love your desk setup, your tone throughout the video, the videography, etc. Very well done video!!
I had an M1 Studio and I just didn't use it enough to justify it. The plan was tons of tracks and spending a lot of time recording but due to work and other things, it just didn't happen. I sold it last year to help upgrade my MBP and was just docking that in the studio when I needed it but recently decided to get a base Mini and so far it's done everything I need and was about 1/4 the price of the studio a few years back.
I also have the base model with 16gb ram and 256gb but bought a sata 2.5 evo 870 500gb SSD and have sandisk 500gb ssd as well. I wanted to get the 2nd mac mini m2 but just focus on the ram and save money. seems pretty good as of the moment.
thanks for this, i was really tired to all the time when I check base model M2 stuff, reviews just dont give any information about base model + 16GB upgrade, and doing tests like running 50 tracks with vst's which is not real world, than in some cases you can have 60 tracks but not all of them with heavy stuff duplicated, this video is just a call down for the brain, I know yours is 8GB but just thanks for the real world perspective on it :)
Thank you for this -- I've been saving for months for this base model. It's annoying watching 'influencers' tell everyone they need thousands on a computer. Really appreciate this video.
I just bought the base macbook air M2 (8gb, 256SSD, 8GPU Cores instead of 10 with base mac mini). I do graphics in Affinity Photo (4k resolution) and Blender 3D (smaller scenes for Game Development). It works fine! I am very impressed and can do the same as on my Windows PC. Blender 3D is slower in the "better" view with effects but i am only using the normal view for building objects and it runs fine here (but this is the shitty MacOS Scaling in native 4k it is tiny but smooth but in HiDPi 1440p where i can read the text, it is slower). But i only see it in Blender in the Material Preview Viewport (it is a good benchmark, not only rendering a scene as most of the influencers..., the most time i spend on working on a project not on rendering ;) ). So i can just support John... the Base Models are great!
totally agree with you. It's honestly so much more rewarding when you can create just as fast and well on this base model, vs blowing thousands on a higher spec machine with horsepower that will never get used.
@@thomasclausbzThanks for your post. I have been agonizing over my next laptop and desktop. My old 2015 iMac with spinning HDD is excruciating to use for anything besides web browsing and watching videos. Photo editing is painful. I don’t want to spend a fortune just to satisfy the influencers’ idea of “need”. I’m happy to hear you have found great success with the base M2 Mac Mini. I can get a refurbished one for $438, 499 new (military discount). I will use it for basic office stuff, Remote Desktop into work (not virtual machine), and photo editing for personal use. I don’t think I’ll push the machine much at all and 8GB will get me past the next few years with it, or so I think. I am planning an M2 base Mac Mini, an M1 or M2 MBA base model, and to just use it till it gets “slow” doing my normal workload. I’m not all about buying more than I need. I see you aren’t either. Thanks again for your post and the extra confidence for me that I’m making the right call.
You can also now store all of the 26 gb of Logic extra stuff on an external drive. So a $75 thunderbolt enclosure with a $60 dollar 1 TB NVME SSD will be perfect for all your sessions and sample libraries and extra little things. Get a Thunderbolt enclosure you can swap the SSD out when its full or you want to add more to it.
Thank you for this video! I too went with the base model. At first I was a little bit apprehensive considering it only had 8 gigs of RAM and 256gb of storage. But, just like you said in this video I installed Logic Pro and all of its libraries without issues. I've even created a Logic Pro session called "stress test" where I put 60 tracks into 1 session and right around 250 active plugins. Activity monitor said it was using less than 6 gigs of RAM. I do NOT see a scenario where I'll need more than that.
Great video as always Johnny! Love the look of the Mac Studio under the metal monitor stand with the LED bars. Speaking on musical equipment, how do you like the Arturia for song production?
Based on the videos im seeing, this base model is enough for a lot of things, other videos out there saying it's not are doing it to get clicks and push a higher cost machine. This seems to be good enough for a lot of general purpose users.
I was looking at buying a M2 mini, but with at least a 16/512 (€1179) or 24/512 (€1409] configuration, just to be a bit more futureproof. But ended up buying a used base model M1 Max Mac Studio (32/512 for €1300] More CPU/GPU processors and more internal memory.😎
Unfortunately not. You have to spec out an M2 Pro Mac Mini to get HDMI 2.1. It’s not a huge issue if you’re just using it for productivity where 60hz displays suffice.
Mac and ipad are for grandma's to check emails and Facebook. Not for real computer users who want a good experience and to be productive without running out of ram
This video is awesome. To hear influencers online, you’d think we all need a M3 Max powered machine with maximum RAM. I’ve watched so many base model videos that I’m convinced my photo editing and office workflow will be fine on an M2 Mac Mini and a MacBook Air, either M1 or M2 in base configuration. I can buy external storage and don’t think my work will push the machine much, so I’m going base models on both. My 2015 iMac is awful to use for photo editing, but my wife’s M1 MacBook Air does it easily on my brief trial with it. I’m gaining confidence I can just go buy the machines and ignore the “sky is falling if you don’t get 16GB minimum” claims.
Edit: and I love your desk setup, your tone throughout the video, the videography, etc. Very well done video!!
I had an M1 Studio and I just didn't use it enough to justify it. The plan was tons of tracks and spending a lot of time recording but due to work and other things, it just didn't happen. I sold it last year to help upgrade my MBP and was just docking that in the studio when I needed it but recently decided to get a base Mini and so far it's done everything I need and was about 1/4 the price of the studio a few years back.
I also have the base model with 16gb ram and 256gb but bought a sata 2.5 evo 870 500gb SSD and have sandisk 500gb ssd as well. I wanted to get the 2nd mac mini m2 but just focus on the ram and save money. seems pretty good as of the moment.
thanks for this, i was really tired to all the time when I check base model M2 stuff, reviews just dont give any information about base model + 16GB upgrade, and doing tests like running 50 tracks with vst's which is not real world, than in some cases you can have 60 tracks but not all of them with heavy stuff duplicated, this video is just a call down for the brain, I know yours is 8GB but just thanks for the real world perspective on it :)
When you say it slowed down with lots of plugins, could you elaborate a bit? How many and what kind?
Thank you for this -- I've been saving for months for this base model. It's annoying watching 'influencers' tell everyone they need thousands on a computer. Really appreciate this video.
I just bought the base macbook air M2 (8gb, 256SSD, 8GPU Cores instead of 10 with base mac mini). I do graphics in Affinity Photo (4k resolution) and Blender 3D (smaller scenes for Game Development). It works fine! I am very impressed and can do the same as on my Windows PC. Blender 3D is slower in the "better" view with effects but i am only using the normal view for building objects and it runs fine here (but this is the shitty MacOS Scaling in native 4k it is tiny but smooth but in HiDPi 1440p where i can read the text, it is slower). But i only see it in Blender in the Material Preview Viewport (it is a good benchmark, not only rendering a scene as most of the influencers..., the most time i spend on working on a project not on rendering ;) ). So i can just support John... the Base Models are great!
Thanks so much for your comment! Glad the base model is working well for you!!@@thomasclausbz
totally agree with you. It's honestly so much more rewarding when you can create just as fast and well on this base model, vs blowing thousands on a higher spec machine with horsepower that will never get used.
@@thomasclausbzThanks for your post. I have been agonizing over my next laptop and desktop. My old 2015 iMac with spinning HDD is excruciating to use for anything besides web browsing and watching videos. Photo editing is painful. I don’t want to spend a fortune just to satisfy the influencers’ idea of “need”. I’m happy to hear you have found great success with the base M2 Mac Mini. I can get a refurbished one for $438, 499 new (military discount). I will use it for basic office stuff, Remote Desktop into work (not virtual machine), and photo editing for personal use. I don’t think I’ll push the machine much at all and 8GB will get me past the next few years with it, or so I think. I am planning an M2 base Mac Mini, an M1 or M2 MBA base model, and to just use it till it gets “slow” doing my normal workload.
I’m not all about buying more than I need. I see you aren’t either. Thanks again for your post and the extra confidence for me that I’m making the right call.
Excellent video! Thanks!
Just got m2 mac mini on sale for 499 at Best Buy. Pretty great deal for the value the Mac Mini provides.
Totally agree! It's a steal for what you can do with it.
You can also now store all of the 26 gb of Logic extra stuff on an external drive. So a $75 thunderbolt enclosure with a $60 dollar 1 TB NVME SSD will be perfect for all your sessions and sample libraries and extra little things. Get a Thunderbolt enclosure you can swap the SSD out when its full or you want to add more to it.
Thank you for this video! I too went with the base model. At first I was a little bit apprehensive considering it only had 8 gigs of RAM and 256gb of storage. But, just like you said in this video I installed Logic Pro and all of its libraries without issues. I've even created a Logic Pro session called "stress test" where I put 60 tracks into 1 session and right around 250 active plugins. Activity monitor said it was using less than 6 gigs of RAM. I do NOT see a scenario where I'll need more than that.
So glad I found your comment, I’m looking to upgrade from my iMac 27 late 2015, I only use Logic Pro in my home studio but can’t update Logic.
Great video...thanks
Great video as always Johnny! Love the look of the Mac Studio under the metal monitor stand with the LED bars. Speaking on musical equipment, how do you like the Arturia for song production?
Thanks! Love Arturia, they have the most amazing midi sound libraries!
Based on the videos im seeing, this base model is enough for a lot of things, other videos out there saying it's not are doing it to get clicks and push a higher cost machine. This seems to be good enough for a lot of general purpose users.
I was looking at buying a M2 mini, but with at least a 16/512 (€1179) or 24/512 (€1409] configuration, just to be a bit more futureproof.
But ended up buying a used base model M1 Max Mac Studio (32/512 for €1300]
More CPU/GPU processors and more internal memory.😎
base have 2.1 hdmi?
Unfortunately not. You have to spec out an M2 Pro Mac Mini to get HDMI 2.1. It’s not a huge issue if you’re just using it for productivity where 60hz displays suffice.
great video .. cheers ... i swear by my Mini's still rocking a 2014 mini soon to swapped out for a M2Mini
good one on the mac display
that will be an amazing upgrade!
did u get the m2?
i also still use the 2014 mac mini with the intel core i5 and it's no fun to use it with ableton 12 and i want to switch very soon
Slow Dock slow mini.. burn the money don't do that. Minimal Configuration is Bullshit
Mac and ipad are for grandma's to check emails and Facebook. Not for real computer users who want a good experience and to be productive without running out of ram
Back to bed, boy.