The first teardowns have already been presented. Now the specialists at iFixit are taking a look at the circuit board of the new Mac mini.
Not much has changed on the outside, but the professional device shines on the inside. Four processor cores are now standard. However, Apple offers the option of purchasing the device with six cores. The Mac mini can also be equipped with up to 64 GB of RAM.
Easy opening
Opening the Mac mini is quite easy. After removing the plastic cover, the antenna plate can be removed using a Torx screwdriver. The internals are then easily accessible and the Mac mini can be easily repaired.
After opening the device, the professional mechanics discovered that the RAM was not soldered to the motherboard. This was the case with the previous model. This means that the RAM can now be expanded as desired. In contrast, Apple's T2 security chip, the CPU and SSD are soldered to the motherboard. Upgrading the hard drive is therefore not possible. In the event of a single defect, the entire motherboard would have to be replaced. This is neither cheap nor can it be considered environmentally friendly.
ports firmly connected
Due to the fact that all interfaces are also firmly connected to the mainboard, the entire mainboard would have to be replaced in the event of a problem. This is a major criticism from iFixit. Nevertheless, the Mac mini 2018 received a good rating for its ease of repair. iFixit awarded it 6 out of a possible 10 points. Ultimately, the Mac mini performed significantly better than other Macs.
The basic model offers a 3.6 GHz quad-core i3 processor of the 8th generation, 8 GB RAM and 128 GB flash memory. The price of the variant is 899 euros.
