@streakmachine At the time of release of the Mini 5, the Mac User Group held its last (pre-COVID) hardware raffle. 1st prize was a 256 GB cellular iPad Air 3 and 2nd prize was a 64 GB wi-fi iPad Mini 5. I was lucky enough to win the 2nd prize. I was a bit put out at not scoring the big one but later realised that apart from connectivity, storage and physical size limits, the two had identical internals. I still use it a lot despite my recent cellular 256 GB iPad Air 5 purchase. It really is quite a capable device.
To err is human,
to forgive is divine,
to moo is bovine,
to bleat is ovine,
to oink is porcine,
to howl is lupine,
to bark is canine,
to purr is feline.
This list is asinine.
Bother. The Apple Store was out of blue 5th gen cellular iPad Air 5s with 256 GB storage. The only colour available in that capacity was Starlight, which is an off-white with a hint of cream. Anyway, I bought it and an Apple Pencil 2.
Suitable keyboard cases with trackpads can’t be had at present but I should be able to get one from an office supplies store, I have ordered a Logitech Combo Touch case/keyboard/trackpad.
@matigo Not likely given the price of a decent 4k monitor at present. An M2 iMac though could be interesting.
@variablepulserate I never understood the attraction of a single Bluetooth speaker setup, all the ones I’ve ever had were stereo.
Project: use Handbrake on both my 2017 4k iMac & 2020 M1 MacBook Air to convert a video into a smaller one while retaining the file type. Identical settings in Handbrake were used.
The project started out at 700 MB, the end result was 335 MB. The iMac (3.0 GHz quad core i5 Kaby Lake with 16 GB RAM, AMD Radeon 555 dedicated graphics and 1 TB Samsung Evo 860 SSD) took 12.5 minutes.
The fanless M1 MacBook Air with 256 GB storage, 8 GB Unified Memory, 7 graphics cores did it in just 5 minutes.
Sometime in the next 12 months I intend replacing the iMac with an Apple Silicon desktop Mac of some kind.
Next week I hope to have a new 5th gen cellular 256 GB iPad Air, Apple Pencil 2 & Logitech Combo case, keyboard and trackpad. My existing 128 GB cellular iPad 8 with be sent off to Apple’s trade-in partner. It’s been valued at 310 Aus dollars (aka Oz micro pesos).
@variablepulserate The previous owner installed a gas central under-floor heating system, but did it on the cheap. it was designed to heat a building in excess of 2000 square feet in area, mine is just 950.
As a consequence, I was never able to dial back the heat output to suit my space and it was too expensive to run. i have disconnected the power that drove the blower fan & shut off the gas. In fact, the power outlet previously used for the fan now provides the ignition circuit to an externally-mounted instantaneous gas hot water-on-demand system.
Flooring is done, I’ve moved maybe a third of the stuff than needs to go back. Speaking of such things, my back is getting sore from all this shoving of stuff about.
The flooring people have been and gone, taking the grotty old carpet with them and leaving me with Masonite with cemented surfaces that have to be dry before the adhesive for the vinyl imitation floorboards can be applied. They left at 12:30 pm saying I can walk on the surface in two hours but since they will only be wasting time if they wait here they’ve gone off to another job. They’ll be back to finish it tomorrow: it’s a cash job, so it’s in their interest to finish ASAP.