Mac Mini - Page 3

heh, kwick, sound like u r having a good time w/ it so far! glad u r liking it! yes, getting used to the key commands takes a bit. i tend to use command+tab to navigate between applications and command+`to move between windows within an application.

have u tried the exposé functions yet?
u may have found this already posted around the web, but try and play a movie, minimize it and take a gander at it down in the dock.

also, open some itunes while the movie is playing, turn on the visualizer and then hit f9, u like it? hit it again to return to normal and this time hit shift+f9. mmmm, neato...

hehe, i like your pic w/ the tv. had my eyes scanning around and me going... "so he's got a pic of his TV why? oh! hey! there's that mini!"

Glad to see another person who isn't so blindsided by one platform that they are willing to expand what they use to compute with. iPhoto is indeed nice to work with to organize photos. So far, it is the only program my last 2 digital cameras have ever talked to.

I'm still really happy with my decision to buy an Apple system. So many minor things about it that all add up to a great experience as a day to day machine for general use. I'll have a hard time ever considering Windows for much else then gaming now. Things like Bluetooth just work, power management works well on an Apple laptop, and all their systems are made to be quiet (well, any that you would use at a desk, the XServe is just as noisy as any other 1U server.)

Price wise when most people compare an Apple system to anything else, they always forget two things:

1. The value of the included software. Building you own? Guess what, Windows isn't free. Buying from someone else? Does it come with the equivalent of iLife? If not, remember to add those costs in.

2. If you do price match against a hand built system, are you including an amount for how much your time is worth? Are you including the time spent dealing with failed parts and warranty exchanges when every part in the box came from a different company?

Price wise, sure, the Mac Mini is still higher then the cheepest Dell desktop (Dimension 2400). But for the additional bit of money, you get a non crippled processor (the Dell has a Celeron), a one year warranty (Dell comes with 90 days), a DVD reader/CDRW burner combo drive (Dell comes with a CD-Rom, and no option for a combo drive nor upgrade option to a burner). Out of the box the Dell would have no DVD creation software, the crap Windows Movie Maker, and no photo management software. Due to the fact that Windows has some virus issues these days, a virus solution will be mandatory on the Dell box adding yet more cost if you can't get AVG. Sure the Dell comes with a cheepo 17 inch monitor and keyboard/mouse solution, but the same cheepo monitor could be bought and added to the Mac.

Oh, and for some reason I unignored abf to see what he was saying here. The Mac Mini is not using an iBook logic board. It is using a modified logic board based off the eMac. And the iBook logic board problem is not something most owners will ever face. Just get used to the fact that defective components exist everywhere, and recalls/repairs will occur. Dell, HP, Gateway and others all have recall pages full of things like bad memory, power supplies and batteries. Apple simply saw a common problem and decided to extend everyones warranty coverage to fix it if the problem occurs. How people can find a flaw in that strategy is beyond me. I'd much rather have a product repaired then to have to deal with replacement due to a problem.

i'd rather not have to send in my lappy for repairs every other month PERIOD.

and software "cost" please!
linux is free, and most distros come LOADED with everything you need (beats ilife a million times over).

in the mac world, they should also offer systems NO-OS since DARWIN is FREE and there are many linux distros available for the PPC architecture that just WORK (without the overhyped price tag).

So let me know when the average user can just put in a CD, boot to it, click next and have a working Linux install. That includes once it is done, they can just plug in their camera and have a program automaticially come up and ask to import the new pictures.

You are just fooling yourself if you think the free tools in Linux are ready for the mass consumer market and are user friendly. Your also in some weird parallel universe if those free tools beat out the things iLife can do, and beat it in ease of use. There is a reason more and more Linux admins are actually considering Apple machines for their desktops. Not everyone wants to run ./configure;make;make install all day long to get something working on their personal machines. Linux is a good server OS. But it is absolute crap as a consumer desktop OS at this point.

Why would someone actually want to run Linux on a Mac desktop over the OS X system is beyond me. True, Darwin is free. Sure YellowDog exists. But as a consumer desktop OS, they suffer even more so then Linux on x86. Not everything in the Linux world exists in a PPC compatible format. And anything that does exist will likely run fine in OS X using things like Gentoo for OS X or Fink.


Noone wants to send their laptop in for repairs every other month. But guess what, some people do. Those people bought their laptops from HP, Dell, Alienware, Toshiba, IBM, and Apple. And those people make up 0.0001% of the buying public. The rest of us enjoy mostly trouble free machines depending on the company. The iBook problem is still a rare issue, and one not many people will have to suffer though. The ones that do, send their system in once.

But I'm sure there is some logical reason you seem to feel the need to crap on anything Apple does. Maybe some apple tree fell on you during your early childhood, and the sight of the symbol sends shivers down your spine. Who knows. But so far you haven't really ever come up with a compelling argument against the platform beyond "Linux r0x0rs, OS X sux0rs.", so it must be an irrational fear of something.

+ignore again

looks sexy!

at the $499 price, i think it's a decent price for a VSFF (very small form factor), with the combo drive, etc. But once you start upgrading, that's when everyone else catches up.

Not in size, of course, the Apple has the smallest form by far. But when you configure with the 1.4ghz processor, 512mb ram, the superdrive, wireless and a wired keyboard, you are at $882.00. Suddenly a regular SFF doesn't look so bad, with a 2.8ghz P4, 512mb RAM, 80gb drive, DVDRW, wireless and keyboard.

But I'm not into direct comparison, because I'm doubting anyone is buying this for any more than either a second system, or a box to do email, watch a dvd, edit pictures, office basics. That's the market Apple is going for, and that's the one they'll do well in, not converting PC gamers to Apple users.

but if I was going to buy my grandma a PC so she can do the things she does, (and I didn't build systems myself), I would very much consider the mini. Plus she's a woman

ahh...my friend. wake up and smell the java.

there are plenty of linux distros where you stick the cd in, press next a few times and have a fully working OS. Anaconda installer is simpler than installing WINDOWS! Vidalinux (based on gentoo technology, uses anaconda) should be very friendly, even now in version 1.1 it is an able and ready OS where i can just stick my iriver usb cable into it, and it mounts automatically. Mandrake, Yoper, Fedora Core, Slackware and even Debian (err..Ubuntu) are very noob friendly. Distros like Libranet are BEYOND them all. And all it takes to get something to work is "apt-get update" + "apt-get upgrade" + "apt-get install" and in just a minute or 2 you have a package installed that will work perfectly.


yes, linux tools (graphical in KDE and Gnome) are very simple. KDE is custom tailored to make a Windows user feel right at home. Gnome gives you a deja-vu of Mac OS. Tools like Audiocity (sound file editor), GIMP (like photoshop), OpenOffice (office), XMMS (like winamp), k3b (Cd/dvd burner) and a few others are very noob friendly. just click the icon and go. no tricks, no games.

why would somebody want to run Darwin or PPC Linux over OS X? because it is free! and i am yet to meet a single person who doesn't like saving $200.

nobody has to send it in more than 1 time to apple? its a joke right? my friend had to send in her 14" G4 ibook nearly 5 times by now (3 of them due to logic board issues). he brother had to send in his powerbook (that he just bought) because of keyboard troubles, many of my friends had to send in their ipods (not a laptop..but apple product nontheles) several times either due to the port breaking or battery trouble (which is quite common).

you're the one who is living in a dream world. WAKE UP!

abf, i think u r getting your OS's mixed up. u must be referring to windows xp pro as the $200 os? OS X as platform, not segmented like xp is (u get the "pro" version of os x on every machine, even the mini), is much more affordable than xp pro. for ~$100 u can have all the xp home that u want. given apple's low marketshare, i've always been impressed at how affordable their OS has been. given MS' dominance u'd think u could get home for $50 and pro for $100, but nope.

in the perfect world, free is better. since it's not a perfect world most ppl r willing to pay a reasonable amount of money for a solid OS that they don't have to mess w/. i.e.- mac mini w/ os x and sweet @ss software suite. btw, what sw u use for dvd authoring on linux? or windows? just wondering if i'm missing something cuz in my experience, as kwick said, JUST iDVD blows all of the PC based $99 authoring sw away. w/ iMovie getting HD support it only gets better.


Kwick,
i told u you'd love it! it's crazy how sweet some of the animated templates are eh?

I'm looking forward to getting one as well. I've been a PC user but schools that I work at use Macs. I really want to play with OSX

i wasn't sure on the sticker price os OS X and too lazy to look it up, but yet even if it is $100, that is still more than a price of 1 CD-R it costs to burn a linux ISO

and u use which software suite for multimedia authoring in linux? is there a reasonable one?

mac mini

Apple has always had 1 year warranty

heh,Anandtech's Review notes that their system came w/ a 5400rpm seagate momentus built in! schwing! i was hoping they'd be smart enough to not use the 4200rpm drives. we'll have to see if this is true across models however, bc when i went to the apple store the HD in the mini was a 4200rpm 80GB toshiba model.

for those who have the mini would u post your HD model number?

huh, just read this paragraph....let's hope apple get their shop in order and makes the 5400 standard.

"Although it uses desktop memory, the Mac mini uses a 2.5” notebook hard drive. The base $499 version comes with a 40GB drive and the $599 version comes with a 80GB drive. What is surprising however is that some units appear to come with Seagate’s 5400RPM Momentus ST94011A drive, including the unit reviewed here today. The 5400RPM drive features a 8MB buffer and is fairly snappy for a 2.5” drive, it’s still much, much slower than a 3.5” desktop drive, but it’s a nice surprise to see a 5400RPM drive used in the mini. We have been getting reports of some units coming with 4200RPM drives however, right now it seems to be luck of the draw as to which drive you get."

Did I ead the post that said it only comes with 90 days of support warranty, does that sound a litle screwwy or is it just me, I personally expect a year

90 day tech support (phone), one year warranty.

as for the "luck of the draw", unless they bought retail, I'm not surprised that the review site Anandtech got the faster hard drive. I doubt it was luck.

kino (after you install the kinoplus plug-in)