I’m debating dropping some ends on a Mac. It’s been a long time coming and I’m finally at the end of my rope with Microsoft. Looking for some insight on my potential purchase I skimmed through a good review on the Macintouch website. Long story short they concluded:
Pros
* compact
* quiet
* inexpensive
* quick
* excellent display support
* includes useful applicationsCons
* limited disk performance and capacity
* very difficult access to internals
* video problems affect some displays (and not others)
Right now the Mac Mini is the most affordable option. I’ve been pining over their iBook but the 1G+ price tag, and my owning a large monitor and 160GB external hard drive already makes me think a desktop setup is a more strategic plan of attack. The biggest drawback going for the Mini at the moment is its incapacity for hardware upgrade. This could pose problems down the line if I ever wanted to do high end graphics, audio or video production.
That said, if I did decide to go with the Mini I’d most likely do the $499 package with 1GB Ram (+$100) and one or possibly two eternal USB hubs (the Mini has only two USB 2.0 ports). Do I need the Super Drive for DVD burning at an additional $100? Egads! So much to consider.
Anyone have feedback on the Mini? I could use some advice.
3 Comments
Only has one memory slot.
you can do a lot with one slot
I think you can’t go wrong. The rumor is that Intel based Mac Mini’s will be out in the first quarter of 2006 and you’ll probably see a large speed increase then, but if you need one now, this is a good place to get your feet wet.
I will be waiting for the Intel version myself…and waiting for it to include Apple’s new Front Row software. I’m in the process of bringing all my music into iTunes as Apple Lossless files and playing them through a tube USB D/A Converter > my stereo. Should be pretty shweet.