M4 Mac Mini Power Button Has New Bottom Location

Luu Tuyen@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 533 points –

This is ridiclous

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Apparently there is a button on the keyboard, so you get to buy an Apple keyboard (I guess that is bundled?) and don't get to use your own keyboard with it.

Doesn't look like it, or at least, they've not included one before (you just got a power cord), so it's doubtful they would start including one now. Either that, or they're about to release a power-button/TouchID dongle specifically to use as a separate power switch.

You can use your own keyboard with it

Sure, but my keyboard doesn’t have a power button.

Oh, I had one of theses keyboards!

Pushing the snooze button insta crashed the PC.

I think the special button on the keyboard is a fingerprint/lock button. Not sure if the computer supports powering on by pressing any key like the MacBooks, but it certainly will wake from sleep with any key. I don’t think you’re supposed to fully power it down as part of regular use, so they can get by with a less accessible power button

How often do you use the power button to turn on your computer? These days I might use it once a year, at most!

Literally every single time I use it. I only need it to be on when I’m using it, and I don’t use it every day.

Why? This isn't 1998 anymore.

Well unless you have my shitty ass Thinkpad that can't reliably go into S0 standby to save it's life.

I have a desktop and there’s no reason for it to constantly be drawing power. It boots fast enough even with fast boot disabled that it’s not an issue for me.

I leave my work laptop on, but it lives on my desk at work. Not my power bill not my problem. I still have to regularly reboot it because windows can’t update without reboots.

How often do you use it, if not every day? Once a week? Once a month?

I use my laptop every day so it makes sense that I don’t use the power button even though it’s right there. I also have a raspberry pi set up to run Retropie that I only turn on once or twice a year when I have an old friend in from out of town. In that case I use the power button every single time but I don’t mind that it’s kind of finicky (I have to turn on several other devices with it as well as a power strip to power them all) because I don’t use it that often.

I could see the new Mac Mini being a bit annoying with its bottom side power button if you’re using it every other day. But honestly I would be more annoyed at the boot time taking 30s than the 2s it takes to reach under the case and power it up. If I had one I would probably just get the keyboard with built in power button and finger print reader though. I use the finger print reader on my laptop all the time because it unlocks my password manager.

Why am I buying a machine that small if I need to make space for two separate keyboards? I can just buy a different thing instead.

Sounds like you should buy a different thing. I bought one, though. None of this keyboard stuff matters to me, since I won’t even be using a keyboard with it