quote:

Originally posted by henryaz:
 
I've been following the M1 forum on MacRumors very closely, and I believe I'll hold off until the next version of the M processor. For one thing, only 2 TB ports? My 2018 Mini is running along just fine, and has 4 TB ports (with 3 in use). A problem reported often has been with monitor support on the current M1 (mostly with Dell monitors defaulting to YPbPr color space rather than RGB, with no way to change it to RGB). Also, monitors not waking from sleep (which is not an issue for me as I never sleep any Mac), and not being able to choose certain resolutions. Lots of good reports, too, but I still think I'll hold off.

WRT (possible clarification): the Thunderbolt ports on the M1 Macs - each port is on a separate TB3 bus. Non M1 Macs share the TB3 bandwidth across 2 ports.

OWC has 2 docks arriving shortly that me of some benefit to you.
•Thunderbolt Hub with three TB ports & a USB 3.2 port.
•Thunderbolt Dock that adds more ports.

Rumors report that the M1 MacBook Pros will have more ports - not necessarily TB/USB-C.

Hope this helps.

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:

quote:

Originally posted by Veeper:

quote:

Originally posted by straightshooter01:

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
I have a 2017 Macbook Pro and the battery is starting to bulge. Debating new battery or new Air. I hate the keyboard on this pro. How is the Air's keyboard n comparison?

You may want to check and see if that is under warranty. I seem to recall that a series of Pro's in that general time frame had battery issues (bulging)
and Apple issued a recall with free battery replacements.

Keep in mind that if you have any, and I mean ANY keyboard issues with your 2017, it’s probably eligible for a replacement keyboard for free from Apple. When they replace the keyboard, they replace the keyboard, top deck, touch pad, and battery. I have a stack of 2017 and 2016 MacBook machines with brand new keyboards and 1 battery cycle because of how terrible the butterfly keyboard is/was.

Now THAT is how I should have approached this. I already have an appointment for the battery. I'll call and cancel it and reschedule for a look at the battery and keyboard. If they quote the battery, I'll just tell them no, just do they keyboard! haha

Yeeper! -- I owe you one. I used the (very legitimate and true) complaint that my keyboard was skipping "g"s often, and also that my battery was bulging. They took the laptop on Wednesday, shipped it to the Apple service center Thursday. It arrived Thursday. And I'm back on it at this moment. All fixed up. FOR FREE!

Thanks much!

SIGforum FTW agin'!

I've had a few Macbook pros over the years. My latest one is from 2016. This past year, the battery went bad. I called Apple to see what it would cost to have a new one installed since the design is not the easiest to work on. For everything, they wanted over $400.00 total cost. I let them know that was outrageous. In the end, they ended up installing a new battery for nothing. They even paid the shipping both ways and I had it back in about 1 week.

At the time, my model was about the most expensive to repair in the country.

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:

Yeeper! -- I owe you one. All fixed up. FOR FREE!

Thanks much!

SIGforum FTW agin'!

Awesome isn't it? Funny thing is that I've been using that trick to get our fleet MacBooks refurbished, and then I ship them BACK to Apple again via Phobio to be recycled, and they've been paying me $7-900 in Apple Credit for the high spec '16 and '17 units that aren't under AppleCare.

Then I turn around and nab $999 M1 MacBook Airs for my Sales employees.

It's pretty epic.

quote:

Originally posted by mrbill345:
WRT (possible clarification): the Thunderbolt ports on the M1 Macs - each port is on a separate TB3 bus. Non M1 Macs share the TB3 bandwidth across 2 ports.

2 ports on a bus is how Intel builds their TB controller chips. Very few devices use the full bandwidth available on a TB3 port. The main exception would be larger high resolution monitor. I use 1 port/bus for my monitor (32" 4K), and leave the 2nd port on that bus open. The 2 ports on the other bus support a CalDigit TS3+ dock and an external NVMe drive. The dock further has 2 SATA SSDs attached via the 10Gbps USB-C port, which are the main data drives for the system. The dock also has miscellaneous USB backup drives that only come on for backups, and other devices. With the NVMe drive, dock and all its drives, rarely are any 2 drives being accessed at the same time, so that second 2 port bus is never fully utilized.
 
My issue is not having enough physical TB3 ports to enjoy the flexibility. Since Apple is using the 1 bus per port model now, hopefully they will continue that practice when they do add more TB ports in future models. I can wait. My current system with the 2018 Mini is working just fine.

Just ordered the M1 mini. Added extra ram and storage. Last time I got a new Mac was 2010, so I’m looking forward to it.

I think I’m going to get a 16gb mini to run my PLEX server. There’s a guy on the plex forums running one and it barely looks alive while simultaneously serving up like six 4K streams.

quote:

Originally posted by sigalert:
Just ordered the M1 mini. Added extra ram and storage. Last time I got a new Mac was 2010, so I’m looking forward to it.

Keep us posted on your experience. I'm interested.

I have a 2014 MacMini; I had "upgraded" to Big Sur, then found out that the Olympus Capture software I use for digitizing slides doesn't run on BS (good abbreviation), bud does on Catalina. So I spent a huge amount of time creating a USB boot drive for Catalina, re-formatting my HD, installing Catalina, then restoring my files from Carbon Copy Cloner. Only to find that the disk was corrupted, apparently because of a conflict with the clone source being a case-sensitive disk and the Mac HD not. So I reformatted to APFS case-sensitive, encrypted; reinstalled Catalina...rinse and repeat. Now it works...took two days. Watched a number of episodes of WW II in the East.
All of which is to say that I did NOT pull the trigger on a new Mini because it would come with Big Sur. At least I wouldn't use it to replace the existing Mini.

mcrimm--thanks for helping our friend Val adapt to Montana!

quote:

Originally posted by henryaz:
 
My issue is not having enough physical TB3 ports to enjoy the flexibility. Since Apple is using the 1 bus per port model now, hopefully they will continue that practice when they do add more TB ports in future models. I can wait. My current system with the 2018 Mini is working just fine.

OWC will soon be releasing a Thunderbolt 3 Hub that may help with your needs.

quote:

Originally posted by mrbill345:

quote:

Originally posted by henryaz:
 
My issue is not having enough physical TB3 ports to enjoy the flexibility. Since Apple is using the 1 bus per port model now, hopefully they will continue that practice when they do add more TB ports in future models. I can wait. My current system with the 2018 Mini is working just fine.

OWC will soon be releasing a Thunderbolt 3 Hub that may help with your needs.

When I said "my issue", I was referring to the new M1 Mini, and why I am not even considering upgrading to it (and that's only one reason. There are several issues being reported about the M1 Macs). My current needs are fully met, with 5 TB3 ports.