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Have you considered a Mac Mini? I was in the same boat (main dev machine a linux/win dual boot) and a mini fit my needs perfectly.

Someone1234 11y ago
The Mini is a nice inexpensive way to get into the Mac world. I would like to add a small word of caution: The current generation Minis are not upgradable. Previously you could pop them open and turn a 4 GB RAM Mini into a 16 GB Mini for under $70, now the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard so the configuration you buy is the configuration you're stuck with. PS - This was done without physically shrinking the size of the Mini, so one can only assume Apple did this for profit reasons (either manufacturing savings OR forcing people to buy their overpriced upgrades during purchase).
- astrodust 11y ago
  If it saves a step during assembly and makes the final product more reliable, it'd make business sense to do it. Very few people upgrade their machines after buying them, it's a small percentage of their user base that ever bothers to. The inconvenience there is worth the trade-off: Any Mini coming in for service is using factory memory, no questions, past this point. It's was always a nice to have, but it's not exactly a deal-breaker now, their prices aren't anywhere as crazy as server vendors can be. It just means you need to build-to-order a machine as they rarely stock the upgraded models.
  - Someone1234 11y ago
    That's a really Apple-apologist answer. You're essentially justifying it because it makes "business sense [to them]." Of course making more money makes business sense to them, that was never in question.
    - astrodust 11y ago
      Given Apple's target market is not hobbyists, that there is already an embarrassment of components you can buy and build your own system from, being able to add after-market memory was never a priority for them for this spot in the product line. Historically it wasn't advantageous to lock it down like that, people would typically upgrade their memory several times over the course of a system's lifecycle. If you look at what the original G3 case was like, where there was a latch on the side that lays the case open with easy access to memory and hard-drives, a design improved upon throughout the early Mac Pro models, you can see they were never intentionally user-hostile. In the interests of shrinking components and improving reliability, though, in an appliance-like product such as the Mac Mini, it makes sense. Notice that the new Mac Pro has extremely easy access to the memory slots. For most people, the memory that comes with their computer is the memory that computer dies with. This holds true for all kinds of systems, especially laptops where in most cases people don't even know or care how much memory they have. It was nice to be able to save a little by buying third party memory, but it's not the end of the world that you can't. The Mini can only go to 16GB, so the savings are minor. The Mac Pro can go to 128GB, so it's almost expected you can do that.
gofullappleorno 11y ago
I have considered it, but for a "little" more I would have a lot more portability.

Someone1234 11y ago

The Mini is a nice inexpensive way to get into the Mac world. I would like to add a small word of caution: The current generation Minis are not upgradable. Previously you could pop them open and turn a 4 GB RAM Mini into a 16 GB Mini for under $70, now the RAM is soldered onto the motherboard so the configuration you buy is the configuration you're stuck with. PS - This was done without physically shrinking the size of the Mini, so one can only assume Apple did this for profit reasons (either manufacturing savings OR forcing people to buy their overpriced upgrades during purchase).

astrodust 11y ago
If it saves a step during assembly and makes the final product more reliable, it'd make business sense to do it. Very few people upgrade their machines after buying them, it's a small percentage of their user base that ever bothers to. The inconvenience there is worth the trade-off: Any Mini coming in for service is using factory memory, no questions, past this point. It's was always a nice to have, but it's not exactly a deal-breaker now, their prices aren't anywhere as crazy as server vendors can be. It just means you need to build-to-order a machine as they rarely stock the upgraded models.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  That's a really Apple-apologist answer. You're essentially justifying it because it makes "business sense [to them]." Of course making more money makes business sense to them, that was never in question.
  - astrodust 11y ago
    Given Apple's target market is not hobbyists, that there is already an embarrassment of components you can buy and build your own system from, being able to add after-market memory was never a priority for them for this spot in the product line. Historically it wasn't advantageous to lock it down like that, people would typically upgrade their memory several times over the course of a system's lifecycle. If you look at what the original G3 case was like, where there was a latch on the side that lays the case open with easy access to memory and hard-drives, a design improved upon throughout the early Mac Pro models, you can see they were never intentionally user-hostile. In the interests of shrinking components and improving reliability, though, in an appliance-like product such as the Mac Mini, it makes sense. Notice that the new Mac Pro has extremely easy access to the memory slots. For most people, the memory that comes with their computer is the memory that computer dies with. This holds true for all kinds of systems, especially laptops where in most cases people don't even know or care how much memory they have. It was nice to be able to save a little by buying third party memory, but it's not the end of the world that you can't. The Mini can only go to 16GB, so the savings are minor. The Mac Pro can go to 128GB, so it's almost expected you can do that.

gofullappleorno 11y ago

I have considered it, but for a "little" more I would have a lot more portability.