Which Mac to buy

djborden wrote:

I ended up getting the Mac Mini M2 Pro and a Dell U3223QE Monitor, which has more ports than I know what to do with. What is the best port to connect them?

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/u3223qe-monitor/docs

The easiest way to connect them would be with a USB-C cable between one of the USB4/Thunderbolt ports on the Mac mini, and the USB-C (video + data) port shown as port 5 on page 12 of the monitor manual. There is a USB-C to USB-C cable in the monitor box, and that single cable would be enough to carry video and to connect downstream USB and Gigabit Ethernet ports.

You could connect video using a HDMI-to-HDMI cable to the HDMI port (port 3) or a USB-C to DisplayPort cable to the DisplayPort (in) port (port 4). But then you'd need a separate USB cable from one of your Mini's USB-A or USB-C ports to the monitor's USB-C upstream port (port 8) to connect the USB and Ethernet hub ports. (NOTE: this is a different USB-C port than the one you'd use for video+data.)

In case it matters … note that the versions of the 14" MacBook Pro that come with the 'base' M3 chip have some of the same limitations of the 13"/15" M1/M2 MacBook Airs: and the 13" M1/M2 MacBook Pros.

• Two USB4 (Thunderbolt) ports, instead of the three on high-end MBPs.
• The ability to drive a maximum of ONE external display. This might matter if you were so much into "accounting, investing, and finance related apps" that you were interested in buying two monitors to display more data at one time.

On the other hand, you still get the mini-LED-backlit screen, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, and active cooling fans.

You could get a good 27" 4K monitor or two – and run each monitor in a Retina mode.

27" 4K monitors are a LOT cheaper than the three 27" 5K (5120x2880) monitors that I know about (from Apple, LG, and Samsung). There are some basic (but decent) ones for as little as $300 – $350 (even if they don't have all the bells and whistles, like hub ports or USB-C), and even mid-range ones are likely to cost only half as much as a 27" 5K Apple Studio Display.

You probably give up some sharpness / contrast compared to the Apple 5K display – but the text quality of a 27" 4K monitor running in Retina "like 2560x1440" mode is probably better than that of an 27" 2560x1440 monitor, and you could run in Retina "like 3008x1692" mode to get more (but smaller) text; something that you could not do on an actual 27" 2560x1440 pixel monitor.

Things to look for:

• IPS display
• Near-100% coverage of standard gamut (sRGB). If no figure is given, assume the worst
• Two or more modern inputs, of two or more types: USB-C (DisplayPort), (Mini) DisplayPort, HDMI. USB-C is nice because a USB-C cable can hook up any downstream USB or Ethernet ports that the monitor has – thus avoiding the need to use a second port on the Mac mini, or to forgo the use of the monitor's hub ports.
• VESA mount on the back of the monitor, and VESA stand that does not require drilling or clamping your desk
• Tilt/height adjustable stand (pivot optional)
• Some monitors have thinner bezels than others. Thin bezels can make it easier to place two monitors of the same type side by side, and not be distracted as much by the boundary. They can also make it a bit harder when it comes to finding built-in Webcams (or to attaching clip-on ones without obscuring part of the screen)

Monitors vary when it comes to whether they have built-in speakers, microphones, and Webcams. Whether to look for a monitor that includes them, or to get them separately, is up to you.

djborden wrote:

I'm gathering that text size and resolution are trade offs then.

There is an inherent tradeoff between

• The physical size of a display
• The physical size of text and objects on that display
• How much "stuff" (text and objects) you can cram onto the screen, i.e., workspace

That would be true even if the display had infinite resolution.

Human vision is sensitive to physical size, which is why you don't see most books printed in 2- and 3-point text – even though printing presses have resolution greater than that of any display.

On a 27" 5K Retina screen, a Mac might normally run in "UI looks like 2560x1440" mode, where

• All applications size things as if they were drawing on a 2560x1440 screen.
• Retina-aware applications draw at a 5120x2880 level of detail.
• Non-Retina-aware legacy applications draw at a 2560x1440 level of detail – and macOS transparently maps their drawing requests onto a 5120x2880 canvas, so that the locations and sizes of things are correct - even though the legacy applications are unable to take full advantage of the 5K screen.

Things would be similar on a 27" 4K screen – except that the iMac would downscale the 5K images to 4K.

Is there no way to increase text size in a higher resolution set up (like Retina) so that you get both bigger text and the higher resolution?

The Retina modes give you the advantage of bigger text and higher resolution. They use some of the resolution for increased detail, rather than for cramming more stuff onto the screen until everything gets unreadably small.

that is kind of a suggestive question.

but anyways, I think that with that limited usage you have planned, as well as the fact that you will be getting a 27" display anyways, I would recommend the Mac mini.

You're welcome.

You will not notice any difference for what you do. At this point, only Apple knows when an M3 Mac mini will be available.

Plus it really doesn't pay off to procrastinate or second guess release dates. If you need a new Mac, then now is as good a time as any to buy one.

djborden wrote:

Thanks. Is the performance boost of the M3 chip over the M2 Pro enough that it would be worthwhile to wait for an M3 Mini. I think the M2 Mini only came out in Jan 2023, so maybe an upgrade to an M3 isn't even coming in the near future.

A lot of the M3 improvements that Apple is advertising on their Web site have to do with the GPU – with things that might benefit animation/rendering and high-end 3D games. If you aren't doing animation or playing lots of games, those M3 improvements might not be that important to you.

You say that "I don’t do much intensive computing - no Video, mostly Accounting, Investing and Finance related apps." I would think that the things that would matter for you would be

• A large screen. Or a couple of screens, if you have enough desk space, and the Mac you choose supports it.

• Sufficient RAM.

• A good selection of expansion ports. Here's where a Mac based on a 'Pro' or 'Max' chip might offer you some advantage over one with a 'base' chip, even if you did not need the extra CPU and GPU cores that you get on a 'Pro' or 'Max' chip. E.g., a M2 Pro Mac mini has four USB-C (TB) ports to a M2 Mac Mini's two.

djborden wrote:

Will ALL of these be considerably faster than my Intel iMac?

sorry, I missed that. yes, you would see a significant improvement over an Intel Mac no matter which M.x Mac you choose.

All of the above are considerable faster than your 2015 Intel iMac.

If you do not want or need portability, then the M2 Pro Mac mini and a decent 27" or 32" display is the best bang for your buck.

You're welcome.