With my old eyes, laptops tiny screens won’t cut it. Lately, I was working on a 27" iMac.
After much consideration, I finally bought the Apple Mini M1, with an ASUS 28" screen. In terms of comfort, it is the same as the 27" iMac.
In terms of speed, the new machine is simply twice as fast.
In terms of compatibility, there are a few pitfalls. First, I had everything on an external SSD, and had hoped to be able to boot on it. Fat chance. Apparently, the system meant for intel won’t launch on an M1 machine.
I simply had to reinstall all apps.
There are apps that won’t work with M1, even with Rosetta 2. But overall, most apps run flawlessly.
I will be able to test my universal build apps. Hopefully it will work fine.
I used dual monitors for decades (since Win95B) but just over a year ago, one of my 27" 2560x1440 monitors died. Had a choice of a replacement for $200 USD versus $230 USD to get a 40" 4K TV (3840x2160). Love the tradeoff between less width (2560x2=5120 vs 3840 now) but more height (was 1440 now 2160). And use a utility to define keystrokes that let me resize/move windows instantly in various arrangements.
So kinda like zero bezel side by side dual 1920 width yet 2160 tall, but can with a keystroke make 2880 wide (2/3 width) or full width. And the lower energy usage of the 4K has already paid for the thing compared to what my previous monitor used (which was still Energy Saver rated).
And multiple inputs so hooked up to MBP and M1 mini at the same time and toggle between them. I love having the extra height looking at source code windows, or browser windows. Or I split into 4 1920x1080 panes or whatever suits the need at the moment.
I still largely treat as if dual (or quad) monitor with no interior bezels, but instant keystroke configuration changes to make bigger as the need fits. Or a huge visible spreadsheet range. Amazingly flexible.
At my church for some of our production needs we had an old i5 MacMini I had donated that was from 2011. It won’t upgrade to Big Sur so we just purchased an M1 Mac Mini. It seems to work great. Have not seen any compatibility issues. We run the Xojo written app I sell there and it works great under Rosetta. Now to start compiling for Apple Silicon…
No, you can get it and a key to use it for free while it’s in testing phase by filling out a form. I think the link was posted in the thread I provided above, but just in case it wasn’t:
At least for some purposes. If you only need to run Win10, then this preview with the Insider ARM64 may go a long way.
OTOH, if you need to run prior macOS versions in a VM or older Windows versions that are Intel based (or Intel based Linux) then the preview does not help.
Windows 10 ARM Insider Build runs both 32- and 64-bit Windows Intel applications as well. If you need Windows on your ARM Mac, this is the way to go. If you need to test other versions of Windows, you’ll still need an Intel machine, but you shouldn’t be releasing software for Operating Systems you’re not testing for anyway.
There are problems trying to do this from a M1 Mac at the moment. It’s unconfirmed if this is just a ver 1.0 issue, or if that is no longer an option with arm Macs.
