Hi! Am in the market for either a Mac Mini or a Macbook Air. Use case is for my early teen son, who most likely will be distance learning for the greater part of the future. Am leaning more towards the Mac Mini (desktops are always going to be relatively more powerful and cheaper than laptops at the same price range). Considering he's not going to need to be mobile anytime in the near future (i.e. go out/take homework to Starbucks, or in mall lounges, etc)... Am thinking going for the mini as its more bang for the back minus the portability feature. Am also looking at it as an investment for at least the next 5+ years so the generally higher specs of the Mini might make it less obsolete sooner? He currently owns an iPad Pro (1st Gen). Also, which local apple reseller is currently best in terms of promos and after sales support and what are the requirements for educational discounts, if any? Thank you! for your suggestions/recommendations.
will vote for the Air... not unless you have an extra monitor with my experience working from home in a non-height-adjustable desk, I'm just lucky to have a laptop I can carry it around the house to work (when I don't need an external monitor) The Macbook Air was just released so you can expect it to have more than 5 years MacOS support...
I'd recommend the Air. - Mobile doesn't just mean outside the home; mobile within the home is important, especially now and in the foreseeable future - The Air will last. We've had both. Though the Mini served us well for a long time, it was not repairable - I can't imagine a teenager preferring a desktop Mac to a MacBook
Voting for the MacBook Air also. I maybe right or wrong but I think for most non-professionals, their use of the Mini will be for home theater computing or media consumption. The Air suits better for your kid. He'll get more work done with the Air and it gives him less excuses to finish his work. Easy to work on practically everywhere.
I'd also go for MacBook Air. Perhaps in the coming months mobility is not a requirement, but it may be necessary in the succeeding years (you were projecting the use of the device for five years). A laptop is portable and can still be used anywhere in the house). And the best thing I love about laptops is the "built-in UPS"--the battery--since you'll never know when power failure will happen (while working on something very important). In terms of specs, assess your child's use case. The spec range of the MBA is enough to cover most people's computing needs.
You may want to consider as well that you’d have to purchase separately camera, speakers and mic for Mac Mini to complete the study/work-from-home setup.
I was just about to mention this one... An Apple Keyboard will cost 5.5-7.5K to save $$, let's say you use a third party mouse... Mac Mini + Keyboard alone is almost equal to the price of the Air.
Will vote for MBA. Also, please consider the school leaning services requirement. I assume that budget is not an issue . Anyway, I have seen promos from PMC and Switch for students.You can get intouch with them via their Viber community in times of (ME/E/G) CQ.
Macbook Air, not so fancy and not so expensive. I'll be handing down my macbook airs to my kids come June when I get to see them in preparation for online schooling.
I also vote for the Air. More convenient package and less hassle setting up for online classes. The Air was just updated by Apple a few months ago but not sure yet if it is available locally. Even the Philippine Apple store is still not accepting orders of the Air yet although it already in their catalogue. Perhaps in June it will be available as lock down restrictions loosen around the Philippines. With an educational discount (no need to quality just go down the website and click on “shop for university”) you can get the base model for 52k.
