Which Mac to buy? Which Mac to choose? What is better? All in one or separately? What is cheaper? These are questions many of us will be asking as Apple is launching its new gear with the Apple Silicon processor.
If you want to buy a desktop Mac, with the minimum budget, you can hesitate between buying a Mac Mini or an iMac. What difference would it make? If you already have a monitor, a keyboard, etc… it is clear that with the Mac Mini you will save money, but let's assume that we have nothing and we have to buy everything from scratch.
The all-in-one dilemma: the monitor
The iMac is an all-in-one computer, since with the exception of the keyboard and mouse, we have everything on the same device.
The main dilemma we have here is that the monitor is not reusable with other equipment. That is, if I want to change my Mac in a while, I definitely need to get a new monitor, while if I had a separate monitor, I could use it with my new computer.
Here we must bear in mind that monitors also become obsolete. If we have a monitor from a few years ago, it could be at most 1080 (well below 4k or Retina). So we may also want to change the monitor.
What do i need if i buy a Mac Mini?
Assuming we don't have any devices to exploit, we should buy:
- A monitor: to make a correct comparison this should be a 4.5k monitor.
- Some speakers (or that your monitor includes them)
- A microphone (or that the monitor includes it)
- A camera (or that the monitor includes it)
- A keyboard
- A mouse
The neatest thing would be to have a monitor with a lot of these features included so you don't have a lot of cables. While there are many models of all of these elements, we'll be looking for a few simple ones of everything Apple doesn't have. To make the comparison as homogeneous as possible, the keyboard and mouse will be those of Apple.
The reality is that it is very difficult to find a 4k monitor of around 24 ″ (which still has a lower resolution than the iMac).
| Mac Mini (the simplest) | €799 |
| Compact Magic Keyboard | 109€ |
| magic top | €85 |
| LG 24MD4KL-B 24 ″ monitor (refurbished) | €562 |
| Speakers (includes monitor) | €0 |
| Logitech C1080s professional 920p webcam | €90 |
| Total | €1.646 |
The comparable and simpler iMac would cost 1.449 euros (including VAT) but this configuration would have quite a few flaws.
We are talking about this team that has:
- A monitor with a worse resolution.
- Some speakers built into the monitor much worse than the iMac.
- Two stereo microphones, lower studio quality 3-microphone system with which Apple has already surprised us in equipment like the MacBook Pro.
- Requires 4 cables versus 1 iMac cable.
Another option would be to look for a larger 4K monitor, there are more options. The problem here is that we stray further away from image quality, resolution, the iMac and its Retina displays. For example, the Benq EL2870UE 28 ″ ha un price of €250 despite a resolution of 158 dots per inch, well below the 218 dpi of the Retina. In this case we would be on a budget of € 1.333, below the price of the iMac.
In favor of this configuration would be that we have the components separately and we can change them more easily if we want, as well as a larger screen (albeit with a lower resolution) if we choose the second configuration.
It's clear that the iMac's selling point, in particular, is its screen. As for your video and audio system, we are waiting for you for the first tests.
What do you prefer?
Note: I searched for non-Apple components in common stores like Amazon, MediaMarkt, and PC Components.
![[Solved] PC Crashes During Games or Using Programs -](/images/posts/20cedf244d854027e10020ea9bc3d5a6-0.jpg)
