Mini Mac- no bargain?

[Rob Babcock]

At the risk of igniting another PC vs Mac debate, what's with the new Mini Mac? As a long time PC guy, I still have considered someday getting a cheap Mac for web surfing, email, etc. since the Mac OS's don't have the security holes that Windows does. I thought maybe a Mini Mac might fill the bill.

But I have a few reservations. First, the thing is no bargain. Sure, $500 looks cheap. Right up until you see what you get. 256 MB of memory with a 40 GB HD? And no keyboard or mouse? You can get a basic PC with more memory and a larger HD, with a keyboard, mouse and monitor for less money. Bulking up to 256 MB memory and an 80 Gig HD adds quite a bit to the cost. Add a monitor and you're getting near a grand.

Plus, given the micro size of the thing, will it cool properly? I've been told the PowerCube has some problems with heat. Plus, there can't be any extra expansion slots to speak of, given the small size.

I realize this is an entry model designed for grandma's to check their email, but it seems pretty limited, and overpriced for what you get.

 

[TEvo]

http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/01/miniapplesandoranges3/index.php

http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2005/01/miniapplesandoranges2/index.php

 

[Rip Van Woofer]

Spec for spec, Macs have always been more expensive than PCs. Mac users (I am one) willingly pay the premium for what we consider to be the Mac's advantages: user-friendliness, stability, security and that mysterious "Mac magic".

That said, the first release of nearly any computer model regardless of platform should be approached with caution, lest software and other engineering bugs (like cooling) pop up. A friend has had no end of frustration with her new model iMac, having exchanged it three times. Evidently a large percentage of these have had noise issues due to some power supply problems.

Which brings up the larger issue of the computer industry's arrogance and contempt for end users...but that's another rant!

 

[Audioholics]

Plus, there can't be any extra expansion slots to speak of, given the small size.

Bashing the Mac was a hobby of mine back when they were pricing their computers at around twice that of PCs which were twice as fast... Now they've caught up again and their only problem is they continually offer bleeding edge technology that is seldom used or needed... Oh yeah, and their 200% markup that users are miraculously willing to pay while the rest of the industry is working on 10% margins...

"Expansion," however isn't something that should be picked on IMO. Most people NEVER expand their computers with cards and if you needed anything there is likely a USB or Firewire solution. That argument has been around forever and gets really old - even to a mainly-PC user like myself.

With that said, there is a lot of speculation about this new box. I'd trade my G4 for it, just to get rid of the bulky case, but I don't necessarily subscribe to all the hype that Steve-o counts on.

Apple sneezes, and about a million people go online and start pontificating. I wish we had that kind of marketing going for us. If ths new box becomes the next big HTPC - it will be because Apple writes (or buys) some very cool software for it - not due to the box itself or its capabilities.

 

[Duffinator]

As a long time PC guy, I still have considered someday getting a cheap Mac for web surfing, email, etc. since the Mac OS's don't have the security holes that Windows does.

That's exactly what the Mini Mac was designed to do. If that's all you are going to do with it then why do you need a larger hd and more RAM? Apple clearly stated up front that the reason why it doesn't come with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse is they expect PC users to use the same ones from their PC's on the mini. I don't necessarily disagree with your points but I don't understand your rant. The points you make are exacatly what Apple intended it for. Apple's have always been expensive and that's the reason why I don't own one. Although I've been seriously considering getting a Mac the next time I purchase a computer.

 

[Rob Babcock]

My "rant"? Gee, that's overstating my simple statement, it? If I really do rant, you'll know it.

For me 40 GB wouldn't even come close, I'm afraid, unless I literally only used it for websurfing & nothing else. Am I the only guy that uses a lot of HD space? I guess a little background is in order: I currently have two PCs, connected by a keyboard-based KVM switch. The first is a bare-bones HP 2.7 G Celeron (souped up a bit- I bulked the memory up to 768 MB, outfitted it with a Memorex CD-R and a 52X CD-Rom). The second is a homemade machine (P4 2.8 Gig, 1 GB DDR 2.5 CAS latency, Pioneer A-07 DVD burner, Memorex CD-R, Intel MoBo [can't recall which model, I built it almost a year ago], midline AIT Radeon graphics card- all this resides in an Antec SLK3700-BQE).

The 2nd machine is a bit stouter, and I use it only for burning CDs & DVDs for the most part, and a little gaming. I have my Eximius DVD2One Audio Remaster software on this PC, and it's a bit processor-intensive.

Only the HP is connected to the net, for a multitude of complex reasons. So most of my PC use is handled by the HP. I'm really baffled by your comments, Clint- by expansion I don't even mean cards, although the graphics capability of the Apple is probably negligible. I'm referring more to additional hard drives. Am I wrong about the Mini Mac? It looks too small to accomodate a 2nd drive.

How can anyone keep a straight face and claim 40 GB is enough for anyone but Granny? I have a pair of 80 Gig drives in my HP, and a pair of 120 GB drives in my Antec, and when I can afford it I'll probably replace them all. I keep an awful lot of JPEGs, including a ton of art from various sites, along with a lot of files for SureThing products. Hell, my Avatar folder is 1 GB!

Beyond that, what about music? I have about 800 CDs, and I enjoy listening on my HP computer as I have a pretty nice audio rig connected to it. Obviously is a pain to rip your music onto a PC that's not connected to the web since you don't get to use the online databases. I prefer to use wav.files for a variety of reasons, although eventually I'll probably learn to use some type of lossless encoding to save space. But even at 320 kbps/VBR, my collection wouldn't fit on the Mini Mac even if I didn't store any files.

I certainly don't consider myself a power user, but Mini seems really underpowered and lacking in features at the price. A cursory reading of my post will show I never claimed Apple was hiding the fact that the $499 only bought the CPU, but in sharp contrast, my HP came with a 2.7 Gig Celeron, 256 GB memory, 40 Gig HD, CD burner, mouse, keyboard & a superb 17" monitor, all for $449. The HP came complete with XP and a pretty good software suite, too. Reliability has been 100%, and the smallish case is near silent yet runs very cool.


I'm not bashing the Mini Mac by any means. I'm just disappointed that it seems like it's not enough machine for my needs. As I said, someday I may take the Mac plunge to get away from weekly critical security updates we must endure with Windows. I could go on, but this is not a Windows vs Mac OS debate- I'm just curious what everyone thinks of the Mini.

 

[Mort Corey]

This machine I'm using now has a six gig drive....four free Why on Earth would anybody need FORTY I've still got my 1981 IBM machine but its serial port only goes up to 9200bps and it's a little slow surfing the web with my 300 baud modem.

Mort (who's considering trying one of those cell phone things some day)

 

[Rob Babcock]

This machine I'm using now has a six gig drive....four free Why on Earth would anybody need FORTY I've still got my 1981 IBM machine but its serial port only goes up to 9200bps and it's a little slow surfing the web with my 300 baud modem.

Mort (who's considering trying one of those cell phone things some day)

Are you kidding me? Did you not even read the post directly above you?

Six gigs? Wow! Why bother to even have a computer?

 

[Mort Corey]

What can I say...I'm just not a junk collector. I'm the only guy on my block with a two car garage that holds two cars

Mort (who wonders how people get money out of those ATM machines too)

 

[Rip Van Woofer]

...If ths new box becomes the next big HTPC - it will be because Apple writes (or buys) some very cool software for it - not due to the box itself or its capabilities.

Oh yeah, the first thing I thought when I saw it was "MUSIC SERVER!!". It'd be a natural: a small, quiet, unobtrusive box. But, from what I've read, Apple has inexplicably decided to cede the HTPC/music server space to Windoze, in spite of their much ballyhooed "Digital Hub" strategy. Hello-o-o-o-o, Mr. Jobs, how about something like "iMovie Server" and "iTunes Server" huh?. Go figure. (And if I'm wrong, somebody tell me!) So we have to wait for the third party vendors/shareware authors to come up with stuff to make it happen.

When Steve's right, he's right. But when he's wrong...oy!

 

[WmAx]

willingly pay the premium for what we consider to be the Mac's advantages: user-friendliness, stability, security and that mysterious "Mac magic".

Magic? I'm afraid that I was never able to find that 'Mac magic'. I used Macs, profesionally, for years, and stopped using Macintosh computers back in OS9 days....

Windows seems fine to me, excepting the standard quirks that I've gotten accustomed to.

-Chris

 

[BMXTRIX]

ROB: I agree, 40GB is really not enough, but reading through the reports (see URL's above) I finally realized that the firewire port offers the exact expandability you are looking for - or anyone would - for an additional drive.

Need 250GB of extra space? No problem, just hook the drive up via firewire and you have a 800mb/s connection that allows signal flow much higher than any current stock drive gives.

The real beauty of the external drive is that you can put it on any computer you end up with. So, you don't get stuck transferring 200gb of files to a new machine or dealing with networking issues. You can just hook the drive up and go. All your applications would reside on the local drive, and all the files could go on the external drive.

It definitely is a cool little box, but I just got my new PC this year and end up spending 3/4 of my PC time on my work laptop.

 

[Rob Babcock]

The external HDs I've heard have all been somewhat noisy. Plus, they're a lot more expensive per GB than a standard internal drive. You can of course buy your own drive enclosure and convert a standard one for less money than buying one premade. Of course, that sorta defeats the purpose of having the small form factor is you have to find a spot for external drives. But it would work.

 

[SQ Kid]

a lot of what you're paying for is the form factor (size). i know when i was trying to build an htpc, if small size was what you wanted, you paid for it. i have a mini-itx board that ran me $130 and the specs of it were:
-800mhz cpu (although compaired to an athlon or pentium, it was much slower)
-2 ram slots
-one ide connector
-2 pci slots
-no agp, only built in vga with up to 8meg video ram
-built in ethernet, video/s-video out, audio/digital audio out

it was meant to be an all in one solution, so you paid for the features, as useful as they were. unfortunately, this thing couldnt do divx (the whole point of the project for me), so it sits while the xbox took its place.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

Obviously, people without monitors, keyboards, mice, and who also happen to have dozens of gigs of software: The Mac Mini was never intended for you! Apple will be happy to sell you a CRT eMac or LCD iMac turnkey with all the accesories.

And the bare-bones mini knows exactly which market it wants: Joe & Jane sixpack who have a 3 year old seriously funked-up (spyware, viruses, crappy programs) Windows machine who want to switch to a more stable OS, easier to learn programs (Lets see Windows try to compete with iLife), and want to save money by not buying a new monitor, keyboard, or mouse.

As long as it allows them to collect pornography, burn CDs, play online poker, and spend money at Ebay without the system crashing: They're happy. They don't even know what 256 megs of RAM is or why they should get more.

Unless you want to play video games. Gamers hate Mac's because upgrading the videocard is impossible in Apple's consumer-level machines.

 

[jaxvon]

Wait a second here. Lets not call Mac OS more stable. It's user incompetence on Windows machines that creates instability. Also, on the issue of an external HD, you can do it on the cheap like I did. Just buy a normal 3.5" internal IDE or SATA hard drive and an external enclosure (of the right interface type, of course). It takes about 5 min of assembly, or less. And unless you can get a killer deal, don't try looking at Best Buy or those stores, they'll just rip you off.

Ok, I didn't really read the thread, but here's my take on the Mac Mini. Most people that buy macs are either A) Music/Video pros that buy them because of the software or B) People that don't possess the ability/knowledge to keep up a windows machine. Mac mini is for the latter group. These people, as mentioned, just need something for the internet, word processing, etc. They don't need a powerhouse.

 

[Rob Babcock]

I used to be very critical of Windows in the past and found it exasperating in the extreme. Until XP came out. I can honestly say in all my time with XP I've never had a problem at all. At least, no problem related to the OS. Yeah, it still have security holes and weekly updates (thanks, MS for making us all beta testers ), but it's been rock solid for me. Much of my mac interest has waned given my satisfaction with XP. My desire to eventually get a mac to monkey with is more due to my love of gadgets than any real need.

 

[jaxvon]

I'd be wary about shelling out for a mac right now. I'm a mac tech here at the U and we've been getting a string of iMac G5s in with blown capacitors. I suspect either a run of bad caps, or a lack of good cooling. Considering they're stuffing a G5 proc in a lil skinny case...I'm leaning toward cooling.

 

[bray]

interesting views

I'm a professional photographer (100% digital) and most the cameras I use are teathered to a Mac. For those in my profession the Mac Mini is ideal for location shoots where SLR based digital cameras just wont do. I'll get one once A. they get all the bugs worked out. B. the price comes down.
I just priced one before I ran across this thread, and with a 20" Mac monitor and a keyboard and a ram upgrade, the price came to about 1800.00. Holy crap what happened to that 500.00 deal?
As far as the hard drive goes, I carry and back up EVERYTHING on 2 120gb western digitals with me anyway. Less chance of losing that one great shot, or a whole catalog for that matter.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

What part of widescreen 20' LCD monitor did you think was a "deal'?


PS: If portability is a huge concern... why not a laptop?