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• 5 reasons I'm not sorry I bought my Mac Mini and didn't wait for the new Mac Pro | ZDNet.

My reader mail email box was overflowing last week with comments and somewhat constructive suggestions about the new Mac Pro. Here are a few of the more reprintable comments I got:. I left out the random ad-hominem comments hey, I happen to like my beard , the few technical comments that were accurate and constructive one of which inspired me to make a correction to my last article , three or four comments accusing me of being either too liberal or too conservative I'm neither , and the angry comments that insist I'm on the payroll for Apple not since the s or Microsoft sadly, no.

Life as a tech columnist after an Apple announcement is never boring. And, the fact is, I love getting comments from readers and having the opportunity to connect with you folks. One theme emerged from many of the emails and tweets I got: a real question about whether I regretted my choice last year to upgrade to the Mac Mini as my main desktop machine, rather than waiting for Mac Pro.

That's what I'm going to answer in this article. I actually have a lot more than one machine in use, including a bunch of older Macs, some Windows laptops, a cluster of Linux machines driving the 3D printers , and some servers. But over the years, I've often talked about what I call my "main machine. You can't run MacOS on a Windows machine. These programs help me get my job done faster and save time, so I rely on them.

That dictates that the Mac be my daily driver. I made a similar choice in Instead of buying the trash can Mac Pro, I bought a very well-equipped iMac. Over the years, my choice of the iMac bore out completely , as it became evident that the trash can was a problematic machine.

But I never expected to go five years before another upgrade. I wanted an ultrawide monitor, not the iMac form factor. The iMac didn't support screens that wide. I thought about upgrading to the iMac Pro and using its built-in screen as a second screen. But it was costly, and by the time I also bought the ultrawide monitor I wanted, it would have been really costly.

Instead, I waited to see what Apple would announce. I decided that I would either buy a Mac Mini if it met my needs or build a Hackintosh. The rest is history. It even came in Space Gray. So I bought one. Wow, that new Mac Pro is expensive. That seemed like a lot. For individual professionals like me, that's a big lift.

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That's a big difference, especially when I bought it just a few months after buying a house. Keeping on a budget is important and the new Mac Pro isn't that compelling for what I need to do. Conversely, the new Mac Mini is. The new Mac Mini is a cost-effective machine with a lot of power and it's a very good choice for many extreme pro users.

It’s tough to choose the best Apple laptop to buy right now

It might seem like there's a vast size difference between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro, and if you just compare the basic machines, there is. The Mac Pro is a full tower, while the Mac Mini is about the size of one of those old fashioned paper books. But my Mac Mini takes up more space than a book. I also added a big box of hard drives in the form of a Thunderbolt 3-equipped Drobo 8D. Combined, all of these take up space, but they do fit on the top of my desk. They're still about half the size of the Mac Pro. It's the middle of June here in Oregon and it's a sunny 76 degrees outside.

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My office is upstairs, which is always about five degrees warmer than downstairs. I do have a big air conditioning duct going into that room controlled by Alexa , natch! I'm pretty impressed with the heat management of the Mac Mini. In the seven or so months I've been using it, I've never experienced any heat-related problems and it just keeps working.

When I put my hand behind the Mac Mini and the eGPU, there isn't a lot of heat being dumped out into the room, either. So this is the newest regular MacBook you can buy. The screen and compact dimensions on the MacBook are the same as the edition. The main improvement though with the latest versions are the inclusion of the 7th-gen Kaby Lake processors in either m3, i5 or i7 configurations.

Stock of the version is increasingly difficult to find nowadays too. The internal specifications on the inch MacBook might be lagging behind the most recent version nowadays, but if you're not planning on pushing the device too hard with demanding tasks then it could be a great money-saving option for you.

While some of the cheapest prices might be reserved for refurbs the MacBook is still a fantastic device and it's one of the most portable options in Apple's laptop lineup. The newest inch Apple MacBook Pro is strictly-speaking just the model stuffed with even more powerful spec. All the processors are 9th-gen now with i7 6-core or i9 8-core options available too. So yes, this is easily the most powerful MacBook Pro Apple has ever released, but unless you've got some seriously demanding professional-level kit that requires that much grunt, you're probably better off checking out some of the older, cheaper MacBook Pros models below instead and saving yourself some serious cash.

There are also rumours of a inch MacBook Pro coming soon, so you might want to hedge your bets until then. The version of the inch Apple MacBook Pro is the best yet, comes with the Touch Bar as standard on most models and features a range of improvements. The screen resolution may be the same with the excellent Retina display, but now there's True Tone technology inside that senses ambient lighting in the room or outdoors to adjust the brightness of the screen for the best possible picture.

The keyboard is quieter and less 'clicky' too. You're getting the brand new 8th-gen Coffee Lake core processor and the quad-core CPUs have doubled the performance of the models. With more options for larger RAM too, options really open up for creatives and professionals with the MacBook Pro The larger inch version of the MacBook Pro with the Touch Bar is generally going to cost a fair bit more than the inch model, but that's not just because of the larger screen. This model packs a lot more under the hood too, with Apple providing multiple options with increased RAM, extra processing power with a six core Coffee Lake processor and larger SSD storage options.

Naturally, you're getting the same improvements over the version too like the True Tone screen technology and quieter keyboard. This really is a powerhouse laptop for designers and industry creatives. If you don't need all the power though, we'd consider the cheaper inch model, or maybe even one of the older versions found below if the prices are right for you. The older inch MacBook Pros are amongst the cheaper options if you want to go Pro.

These versions don't come with a Touch Bar which is something to factor in when comparing how much you'll save versus the added functionality the new tech could add to your work and computing life in general. These are incredibly light for MacBook Pros, but they still pack an incredible punch with 2. The trackpads are larger than older MacBook Pros too and you're getting fantastic Retina displays which still look stunning today. Why not upgrade your storage with a cheap hard drive or SSD?

See the best hard drive and SSD deals. Back to School