This Intel Mac might be better than Apple Silicon... 

_Disparagingly:_ *"When you shop for Macs around $300, you're gonna see the words 'Core', '2', and 'Duo' quite a bit..."* _Checks Macbook:_ "2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo" There, there. Don't listen to the nasty man. You're special in your own way....

Imagine being the person who realised they had a warranty

The Miani Magic is strong in this video.

With that sponsor, we finally know how he's able to afford buying all those Macs.....

I don't like sand. It's coarse, rough, irritating, and it gets everywhere

Is it possible to swap the internals of both Macs and make a Space Gray M1 Mac Mini ? 🤔

I just got a 2011 13 inch macbook pro for $75 CAD. It had no HD, the battery had expanded and supposedly rendered the trackpad non-functional. I had a 120GB SSD kicking around and some ram for it in my junk drawer so i gave it a shot. I expected the whole case to be shot but no, whoever had this took care of it. The machine posted, upgraded the ram, put the hard drive in, installed high sierra and it worked just fine. The trackpad is also completely functional. keyboard and monitor are in perfect shape. It felt good to finally pull a 'miani'.

Imagine being the person who sold this watching this video👁👄👁

Oooh this is the video you were talking about on Genius Bar! I can’t wait to see how you managed to get such a good deal

Using one of these for my work - as an iOS dev/build machine. For its time, it was a pretty nice upgrade from the 2014 model. All the I/O has been great.

Still using my i7 2018 Mini due to audio plugins not compatible with the M1 yet. As soon as all of them are updated, then I will get a new Mac Mini. For anyone in the same boat, the i7 version with 32GB still runs real good with Logic and tons of plugins.

Me chilling with my late 2014 Mac mini

This might be it, need a heater for the winter.

It is close. For most tasks it is very good. Also, you can dual boot into regular Windows or Linux. Good luck with those on the M1.

I always enjoy your videos, and since I am an everyday Mac user, also very informative. Thank you!

Back in like 2015 i brought my 2013 MBP into an apple store for a ribbon cable to be replaced and a install a new HDD. The tech pulled a cable from under the desk and plugged it in and I could choose any OS I wanted and I was blown away.

I meant to look you up before my most recent purchase of a 2018 Mac Mini with 64GB and a 1 TB ssd. So I already had an eGPU the Black Magic 580. So my first thought was Mac Studio. Specced it out and was like nah, still too much. Then specced out the M1 Mac Minis before I settled on the 2018. I didn’t realize this had a cult following. I can see that now with the Intel chipset. Thanks for the video. Glad you got what you wanted.

Such a good score for $300, when you checked for warranty and it was there my face was like😯 lol ... wish you put an egpu on it just show us how that would compare, that would be a good video to see some comparisons.

Picked up a MM vesa mount for the back of my monitor. It’s. fantastic accessory.

Great video, Miani!

Good assessment and conclusion, I fully agree. In Europe the warranty is two years, which gives a longer window to find a “sick” Mac mini deal as you did.

A couple years back similar thing happened. I bought a Surface Pro for parts, being in IT thought I could fix it. Was gonna give up and then thought why not, put the serial number in and had warranty still. Microsoft replaced it for free, refurb Surface Pro with type cover and charger all for less than $200AUD.

I dispute the M1 mini's "champ" status as stated in the beginning. I think the M1 MacBook Air has that title personally

Love your videos!!

I actually just got one of these on eBay. Same exact specs as yours, listed for only $289 with free shipping. I was shocked when it arrived in original box… and was still wrapped in the original plastic. The damn thing was brand new. I couldn’t believe it. But more than anything, I couldn’t believe it lasted for 72 hours without anyone else taking advantage. The seller was not at all a tech person. Their other items were not tech related at all. They obviously had no clue what they had. But its been about 3 months now and I LOVE this thing

Thanks for your tutorial

Luke you could make it worth it by drilling some holes in the top for airflow

I just bought a 2012 mac mini I5 with 8gb RAM for £100 to use as a DAS / NAS setup and honestly they are great for weird use cases! I'm running it headless with remote management using external HDDs and Carbon Copy Cloner to manage backups and it already seems more reliable than my old WD NAS. I've just this evening ordered a dummy HDMI adapter for it to boost GPU performance and it needs an SSD but what a great platform!

If you can pick up a 10gig networking for a cheap price and you need an Xcode build box or some kind of file ingestion node, these things are definitely worth it!

I like how this story played out. I was sitting at the beginning of this video thinking, "GG, Luke, You're f***ed..." But it's good to see that you can resell it and get your money back, and maybe turn a bit of a profit. You did, in fact, get lucky.

I still use my Mac Mini 2012 Core i7 quad core with 16gb ram and 1tb ssd. I use it all the time as my base home desktop PC. I use it for AutoCAD and other work programs like MS Office and it is as fast as my 2020 Laptop from work, faster in fact in Office it never hangs. And this is in bootcamp. Boot camp for work applications, MAC OS for home stuff. Still awesome.

I recently scored a maxxxed out early 2013 15inch retina MacBook pro for just 360usd!! Absolutely amazing the only issues is it needs a new battery but everything else is in pristine condition

This should have been a 'Fancy Luke' ad spot!😂

Got the same machine for code dev for £450 uk. Was in perfect condition and the seller had even put the black plastic peel off over the ports back on. Upgraded the ram to 32gb and it's perfect for my use case. GPU sucks, but meh. I don't do video production or game on it. Slotted it in to a visa mount with the exhaust pointing up and it stays pretty cool....for an intel ;)

You have helped me immensely…. Ty… just subbed

This is an excellent video! Whenever, I try to work on one of my vintage Apple computes there are always issues. Also, you never know, just where your journey will take you. As far myself, I still prefer several Apple computer models with Intel processors. If buying today, I would pick-up a discontinued used space gray 8-core iMac Pro (smile...smile).

What if you put the m1 mac mini insides into the space gray mac mini? since they’re the same size and you’ll have the first m1 space gray mac mini

I’m surprised that they didn’t call you out on the missing part…. Claiming you (or someone) opened it and therefore wasn’t supported under warranty.

Happy with my 2019” 16-inch MBP with the upgraded i9 ✌🏻

Got me with that "good joke" moment. Excellent

When a computer is sent for repair, normal procedure is to install the latest version of the macOS that was previously on that machine, e.g. the latest Catalina or the latest Big Sur. Luke may have been given a choice because he would have had no clue which OS the computer had been running.

Luke: This seems like a really good machine! Also Luke: Uh-oh

Hi Luke. Love the content. A question for you about your monitor. Are you happy with it and how different is it compared to the iMac and such? The PPI is not that high. Interesting to hear if you notice a big difference...

I got an eBay 7th gen iPad deal where it was $100 and had no digitizer. Turns out it had AppleCare plus and was also 128gb so I got it replaced. This was when the 7th gen iPad was the latest budget iPad.

Me, remembering this was the video that Luke was talking about on last week's Genius Bar: so we see how the story unfolds

It's not close, performance-wise, but for $300, that's a great deal!

Field trip!

Great video as always! What portable monitor do you use? Do you recommend it or any other?

I think you got a great deal. You summed it up and got lucky with it in warranty. We still like these type or else we would not be watching! Keep it up.

I love this video! How long do you think till we will be able to buy old used Apple silicon computers eBay?

Did the same thing with a broken evga 2070 (broken 300 bucks on eBay), and got a 2070 super back.

It's been usually warm for us in the UK recently, my Mac Mini (2020/2018 i7, 8gb) running VMware and a few other things running untouchably hot. Had to use fan control (on Max) and an handheld fan to drop the temps. With regards to the video, it was a bargain to be honest. The 2018/20 gen may have a bit more longer term value for those that still use Windows virtualisation - well, I hope it does anyway ;)

Oh nice. I just finished this weeks Dark Mode a little earlier.

I have one with 64 GB RAM and an eGPU (Razer Core X with a Vega 64, 8 GB memory), I didn't get it as cheap as you did but I think it was a good buy. I use my Macbook Air with M1 for everyday tasks and use my Mac Mini 2018 for video editing, layout, and photo editing on a 32" 4K display. Check the section compute in Benchmark, it outperforms M1 with ease and it even outperforms the iMac Pro. But yes, it stands no chance against the M1 when it comes to CPU. I already had the eGPU when I bought it, graphic cards are crazy expensive at this moment.

This has happened enough that I always check warranty before disassemble anything. Scored a few lucky ipad air 3 that way.

Purchased a two 2016 MacBook Pro 13" for $400 each with the common display issue. Seller did not realize Apple covers the repair for those. Sent them in were repaired and sent back in under a week.

Hey Luke, I just purchased a refurbished 2020 Intel Core i5 MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD for 50% off original price!

That’s pretty cool that the 2018 Mac mini has upgradeable Ram. I thought my 2014 model was the last model to do it.

Luke, good afternoon. I am looking for some general advice. The last time I have actually used a Mac for work was about 15 years ago. I have been getting tired of Windows and decided it was time for a change. About 2 weeks ago I purchased a used MacBook Pro - 2011, 17" laptop, 16GB ram, 1TB HD, i7 processor. After receiving the laptop I learned that the most current macOS I can use is High Siera. I mostly use the laptop for the internet, email, word, excel, etc. I think for general work, I should be ok. How much working/use should I still expect out this laptop. Thanks in advance for your feedback.

I just got a gold deal on a late 2015 imac. Advertised as “for parts” at like $250 plus a fair shipping rate with a dead logic board. I get it and turn it on, and it flashes the file icon, implying it isn’t reading the hard drive. But definitely not dead. I had gotten the thing for an experiment (late 2015 iMac display on a late 2014 imac) So crack the thing open, and they never plugged the hard drive in. (2TB) The data cable was plugged in but not the power connector. I plug that in and Super weird config and I am guessing they harvested the actual Ram because high capacity ddr3 is so expensive now. I7-6770k and an m395x (4GB) graphics, but only 8gb ram. Thankfully it will work with 1600mhz ram so I come out ahead if cannabalize my Late 2014 iMac and then then it into a second display. $250 for what was at the very least about as good a display as you will find, and it turns out to be a top spec late 2015 iMac.

I bought a 2011 MacBook Air, guy said it worked but what he didn't mention is that the battery wouldn't charge. I already got it for 100$ so I just got a battery off of amazon, works great, just need to figure out how to rebend the display back into shape and the rubber bezel is slightly damaged

So, the failure was the CPU tray? I’m curious about WHAT made that fail.

Thanks

Was a very good video

Can you put the Apple Silicon guts in the space gray case to get the first space gray m1 Mac mini?

1st sponsor ad I actually watched.

Remember the m1 gpu has as much horsepower as a gtx 1050 compare to inshit hd graphics

Hi Luke, just curious which monitor you were using in this video?

Bought the base model M1 mac mini for 500euros. Came with scratches and no box. Still worth it imo.

Will we ever get an Apple silicon space gray Mac mini? Is it possible to put the internals of an M1 in an older space gray case? I wonder.

Hello just a question. Apple did not have a problem fixing a competer that had a missing part (the PS pin) under warranty?

If y'all consider M1's GPU underpowered, remember that in CrossOver it gives 50-55 FPS in GTA V on 1080p and medium graphics in the MacBook Pro with fans ramped up full. Throw in a laptop cooling pad and I got 60-65 FPS with rare stutters and temps not going up 80°C.

The "Miani Luck" is not dead.

Best deal i have gotten was a 2015 12 inch macbook for $400 back in 2017. Used it up until a year ago

This is a very good and lucky deal when your use case needs x86 rather than arm, say some specific programming or gaming

luke, i have a doubt i'd like to know, which one is worth more: a macbook 12" from 2016, or my mbp from 2012. Im considering the upgrade, but i dont know...

luke miani did it again 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

I wonder if the reason you were asked which version of macOS you wanted was because it was covered by AppleCare that came from a business purchase. Whenever I put in for a repair on business machine in my work, they ask what OS I want, regardless of its its a laptop or desktop. Did they ask if there was a known admin account? that might be another clue.

eBay is a risk but when it pays off it pays off! I just got a 2011 27" iMac 🖥 for $130 off Facebook market place. It's my first Mac and just wanted something to play around with. Mostly just using for work and light browsing & RU-vid so it's working just fine. Spent another $20 for 8g of ram and will upgrade the HDD. Anyone have suggestions on what's cheap but good for upping the GPU?

I have an i7 1TB 8meg RAM mac mini sealed in it's box sitting in a drawer as i didn't think my mac pro 2012 would still be usable by now. That mac mini is likely to sit in my drawer a lot longer as my mac pro cheese-grater looks like it wants to get to 2030.

If I were you, I would put the M1 board into the Space Grey shell. Should fit right?

Just bought one of these for Boot Camp use! It's a shame the Apple Silicon Macs don't support Windows natively anymore. Yes you can run W11 Arm but it's not the same and some apps just don't work.

Personally I would go with a refurb 2018 mac mini and a cheap egpu simply because you can run boot camp.

Sweet deal! I’d hook it up to an egpu and then it should be able to play some games.

I own an 2019 i9 imac, with a vega48 and 128GB of ram (upgrade was done by myself for cheap) and it is an excellent machine for video editing. Soooo I Thought when you can get one like that cheap on Ebay I would recommend it, but... They are still expensive. Around 3000 Euro, and you need to upgrade the RAM too. So its nice to know that this over 2 year old Mac still has a lot of value I am not going to replace it any time soon, it does what I want it to do fast, and Final Cut does 4K perfectly and very fast. Think by the time I replace this, it is 6-8 years easy. Oh And I think Luke is very cute, pitty he's in Florida

A lot has changed with used prices in only a few years. I’ve seen i5 models with 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD for under £300 and branded 32GB RAM kits for £50. That puts it in the same price range as used 6 or 8 core 2013 Mac Pros with the same RAM and SSD size in 2024.

If you are on a tight budget, you get the best you can. The one you got, even at,$400, is good for a lot.

Cinebench was closer than I thought it would be considering that i5s aren’t hyperthreading

watching this from my 2018 i7 hexacore intel.. no complaints in 2024 other than RU-vid 4K playback.. and it gets hot AF when running Docker workloads.. doesn't beat my ryzen desktop setup

Just the video i needed from my favorite apple tech youtuber. I'm in the process on switching from PC to mac, found an apple cinema 27" for 150$! Now i just need to decide between the M1, 2012 or 2018 Mac mini BTW. M1 Mac mini in Sweden is 980us $

Honestly, I’d get one of these, and one of those Black Magic pro 580 e-gpus.

Hi Luke, big fan here. I have a question about what. seems like a bug on my new M1 MacBook Pro I bought after watching your reviews. While I love it, I have come across a couple of concerns. The first concern I have is that it will occasionally just pop into the sign in screen while I am working online or in pages. At first I thought it was just me accidentally hitting my "hot corners" and knocking myself out, so I shut off that feature, but to no avail. Second, The sound will just go out for no reason. Don't get me wrong, I love the device, but am I doing something wrong, or is it a problem with the device?

Hey Luke, is it possible to swap the chassis of the M1/M2 Mac mini and the 2018 Space Gray Mac mini?

luke do you still main the m1 imac, or are you back on imac pro? im still sticking to mac pro myself...

i know apple silicon is new and exiting but these intel mac videos are still interesting and entertaining.

One thing you never do. Is run a EGPU on those why not ? I mean it has thunderbolt. give it a shot it might be good or fun . Video to watch .

Lets compare both maxed out Mac Minis. (16gb Silicone vs i7 Mac Mini) cause the price points are similar with both.

Another great video but I don’t agree with you on this one. I have the i5, 2018 Mac Mini and won’t be upgrading it to the M1 any time soon for two reasons. I installed 32GB of RAM on it and am running a Blackmagic EGPU which changes the performance significantly. Aside from the standard productivity applications, my kids are getting over 360 FPS on Minecraft and I’m using it as a flight simulator with the graphics turned up to maximum on Flight Sim X. As an update, try an EGPU with it and then see what you think.

Hey man, do you know what the CPU/GPU temp should be for imac 2010 27"? I can't find it anywhere on the internet. thanks

I’ve been waiting for this since that Genius Bar episode :)