Correct, that’s a 7th gen CPU. Missed it by that much.
I may hit you up for some guidance on this, if you are so inclined to lend your expertise.
Happy to help, but the link I posted earlier outlines everything pretty well. Read the “Which option should you choose?” section, confirm TPM status and UEFI startup, and proceed to option 1 if that all checks out.
You’ve apparently already done your homework on the TPM. Since your computer is not ancient it probably came with UEFI out of the box. If you are in BIOS/legacy mode instead of UEFI, though, this gets a bit harder because 1) it involves making permanent changes to your system partition, and 2) these changes run the risk of making Windows unbootable. It requires booting into the Windows recovery environment (command line), running a couple of commands, and then changing some settings in your BIOS/firmware. I had to do this with that older computer and it worked fine, but I’m also pretty comfortable doing stuff like that.
Whatever the case, run a backup first, YMMV, not responsible for data loss, etc.
Apropos of nothing, ever since getting an iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard a couple years ago, my M1 MacBook Air has just sat plugged in at my desk. I just swapped it out for an M4 Mac Mini and should be able to sell the MBA for $450-500, which is most of the cost of the Mini.
I was also hankering for something to replace my quad monitor setup. I considered going ultrawide x 2 but ultimately landed on a 48” 4K LG OLED TV and I am in love. Same total screen area and pixel density as my four 24” 1080p screens but more flexible with window placement (especially since macOS doesn’t let a window straddle two screens), the OLED’s color/sharpness/uniformity destroy the monitors I had, and it was about 1/3-1/4 the cost of two ultrawides. Highly recommend if you’re looking for a lot of screen real estate and your vision doesn’t suck.
1 Like
How is the M4 mini? What specs did you get?
My monitor setup isn’t as sweet as that, but I do like my curved 32" monitor.
It’s my main one, there’s also a flat 27" and the laptop.
All connected to the dell thunderbolt hub. Won’t make any gamers jealous but it’s nice for my work.
My only quibble is monitors seem to wake up separately and the system defaults to a weird 2 screen setup with the 3rd screen showing the background but it isn’t active.
I just unplug the cable from the laptop and plug it back in and everything works.
My hub is weird, and the system claims that its fan doesn’t work, although it runs frequently. Who knows.
But since I’m apparently going to replace my laptop anyway, and since I never take it anywhere anymore anyway, I wonder if I should replace it with the Windows equivalent of a Mac Mini and one of these large monitors. Or should I get a Mac Mini and a Windows emulation solution? I’ve got some things (Quicken, mostly, with decades of data) that don’t have an acceptable Mac counterpart, so I don’t think going Mac-only is a viable strategy.
It’s stuff like this that made me want to switch to a single huge monitor. My M1 Air only natively supported one external screen. I had to use DisplayLink adapters for the others, which requires using the DisplayLink software which kinda sucks sometimes. First world problems, I know.
1 Like
Short answer: Windows on Mac isn’t a great option these days unless you really need both. Stick with a Windows PC, or keep the Windows PC around just for Quicken and get a Mac for everything else.
Long answer:
Windows on Mac is possible but requires Parallels. This introduces some tradeoffs: the cost of Parallels itself ($200+ purchase or $80+/year subscription); the cost of a Windows license (~$140 if you are a law-abiding citizen, or as low as $0 if your conscience can handle a violated EULA); worse performance while Windows is running (virtual machines hog resources); using a relatively new breed of Windows (Windows on ARM) which might have some lingering app compatibility issues.
On its own the $599 base M4 Mac Mini is one of the most compelling sub-$1000 desktops available today. Throwing Windows on it makes the price/value less compelling, and that’s before we even start tacking on the absurd costs of Apple’s RAM/storage upgrades if you need them. It’s not worth it for fucking Quicken.
I went 16GB/512GB, $699 with education pricing (I’m higher ed staff so I can legitimately claim it). Love the front USB-C and headphone ports which make it convenient to switch between the Mac Mini and my work MacBook Pro. Other than that, it’s an Apple Silicon Mac: fast, quiet, cool. I wasn’t unhappy with the M1’s performance but this M4 is noticeably faster.
My solution is always buy the Mac I want and then the cheapest Windows laptop I can get away with to do whatever I need done.