“For about $600, you can get a good computer [in Apple’s Mac mini], now with the new Leopard operating system, that will do most anything you ask. The main issue with the Mini is the lack of expandability in that you can’t add internal drives or easily swap out the RAM. But today that is far less of an issue. You can order the thing with plenty of RAM to start and external drives are cheap and plentiful now. So for about $600 you have a full-featured Mac for everyday use,” James Derk reports for Scripps Newspapers.
“Of course, you’re bringing your own keyboard, mouse and monitor to the dance, but the prices of those items have dropped to new lows as well. I have seen 19-inch flat panel monitors for less than $130 on sale recently. Expect that to hit a hundred bucks by summer,” Derk reports.
“It is also good if you want to add a Mac to an existing PC setup. You can add a KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) switch to your setup for a couple of bucks and switch back and forth from PC to Mac and use the same keyboard, mouse and keyboard,” Derk reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s Mac mini is currently available in a choice of two base models:
• 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB memory, 80GB hard drive – $599.00
• 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB memory, 120GB hard drive – $799.00
Apple’s 6.5″ x 6.5″ x 2″, 2.9 pound (1.31 kg) Mac mini models ship with: Apple Remote with Front Row, Intel GMA 950 graphics processor, DVI connector, VGA adapter, Slot-loading optical drive, Analog and digital audio, One FireWire 400 port, 4 USB 2.0 ports, iLife ’08, and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
Mac mini customization options include up to 2GB of Memory, up to 160GB hard drive, and, of course, you can create a complete Mac system by adding a wired or wireless Apple Keyboard, a wired or wireless Apple multi-button Mighty Mouse, Apple display, and/or Apple USB Modem along with any preinstalled Apple software you might want, such as Apple’s iWork ’08.
[MacDailyNews is an Apple Store Online affiliate and, if you buy something from Apple Store Online within 24-hours after clicking one of the links above, MacDailyNews will receive the usual affiliate percentage from Apple Store Online (same as if you clicked on any Apple Store Online ad on this site). There is no extra cost to you. Thank you in advance for helping to support MacDailyNews.]
<sigh> I just wish they’d up the RAM capacity to 4 or 8 GB. 2 GB is going to hobble the thing given that it’s also depending upon that RAM for video, too.
Better yet, add a cheap Video card.
It’s also a real inexpensive way to get a good dedicated server. I’ve had a Mac mini colocated with Macminicolo.net for a few months and it performs really well.
(I bought a second Mac mini just in case Apple stops making them.)
http://www.macminicolo.net
Is this an article or an advertorial?
is plenty
I’ve had my Mac Mini for 18 months now and LOVE IT.
I reject the notion that it is difficult to service. After you’ve done it once it’s not difficult at all. A metal paint scraper to pop the top off, a magnetized small Phillips screwdriver to unscrew the fan and hard drive assembly from the motherboard, and a small pair of needle nose pliers to unplug and reseat one small plug. That’s it, it took me all of 15minutes to upgrade to 2gb of RAM and a SATA 2 160gb Hard Drive. I was surprised at how well it was engineered to fit all that stuff in that tiny box; and, how easy it was to service.
I’m sure that other’s will have their personal opinion to this, but if I would order another mini today I would order the base model and then order the memory and hard drives separately and do it myself. I got better stuff for a lesser cost than going through Apple, even before you start talking labor.
‘RevNeal’ I’m curious as to what you need all that memory for? For the average porn surfing, word, excel, and mail person would 4 or even 8GB of memory really make a noticeable difference?
Not to mention that it’s also the world’s best computer to hook into your TV/home theater.
As stated the problem with the mini is lack of any real video card.
The GMA950 is fine in a laptop where u really need it for on the go stuff, but for a desktop, you want a cheap gaming computer and u just dont get it.
Ill have to recommend the IMAC for that reason.
I bought one of the new, fully 64 bit Mac Minis in October to replace an aging MDD Dual 1.25 Ghz G4 Power Mac and have been extremely pleased. I bought it with 2 GB of RAM (which is what my old G4 had) and have been pleasantly surprised by how well it handles anything I throw at it. Even Handbrake and VisualHub encodings are so much faster than I expected! My Mini will eventually wind up in the living room connected to my Sony Bravia flatscreen TV once the new Power Macs come out in January (I hope).
Who buys a $600 Mac Mini as a high speed gaming computer? We are just talking about normal computing . . . what most people need to do.
If you need high speed gaming, you spend more $.
You’re telling me that the glut of ads on this site don’t provide income enough? You’ve got to grub for clicks, too? For shame!
>>’RevNeal’ I’m curious as to what you need all that memory for? For the average porn surfing, word, excel, and mail person would 4 or even 8GB of memory really make a noticeable difference?<<
I’m looking at putting a mini at the sound-video board in the Sanctuary. I want to shift to digital recording of the audio and video feed of worship services, and I’m concerned that just 2 GB would be insufficient given the lack of a video card and the way in which Leopard demands RAM. I’d rather not have to pony up for a Pro if a Mini would do the trick. Our Technology budget isn’t that well-funded.
I want a MacMini with the ports and OS of an AppleTV.
The mini is right for everyone, but it is perfect for a great many. My wife uses her Mac mini for web and email; pull pics off the camera into iPhoto, print to our Canon i9900, and to listen to iTunes. An occasional Excel or Quark doc is as exotic as it gets for her. Even the mini could be considered overkill as far as computing goes. I’ve been thinking about hooking one to our kitchen television. The 21″ TV has a VGA input, and the mini would would fit hidden behind it perfectly and our Airport reaches there easily. It would be fun to have web and iTunes access
That first sentence was supposed to read, “The mini is NOT right for everyone…”
You’re telling me that the glut of ads on this site don’t provide income enough? You’ve got to grub for clicks, too? For shame!
That ain’t the half of it, MacDaily News is headquartered in the lowest taxed county of…
…I just had a pang of remorse…
…but then I really don’t like my posts deleted to create a slant here…
decisions decisions…
I tried to verify this but it was impossible for me to get on Apple’s store. I’ve never seen it that bogged down. Oh well.
Didn’t they just upgrade the integrated graphics to the Intel GMA 1300 that utilizes 128 MB of RAM? It performs a little better than the GMA 950. Still no good for 3D games, but fine for most other things.
I believe the MacMini would be more than adequate for the majority of people. With the included software it’s a great bargain.
As for the ads on MDN, don’t they get paid only if someone clicks on a link? Or is it only if it leads to a sale? Either way, from what I’ve heard, these sites don’t exactly get rich from the ads. It covers the costs of having a site, I thought. After all, this isn’t Google. Why do you begrudge them for this. It’s not like we are paying a subscription to MDN.
The Mini is a tease.
The iMac gets outdated and slow quickly.
The MacBook’s performance is terrible.
The MacBook Pro’s performance is hobbled and costs too much.
The MacPro offers the best performance value and upgradability.
Buy as much processor performance as possible and a stepped up video card. Go less on the RAM, hard drives, monitor etc.
Read Accelerate Your Mac, Barefeats and understand which video cards, RAM and super fast hard drives work with your machine. Buy them when they are available, you can sell the slightly older ones on eBay for a profit when they are discontinued or kept as backup.
Install a RAID 0 pair of the fastest drives, clone your boot onto it from a external drive using Carbon Copy Cloner. Increase the RAM over time.
You’ll have a wickly fast machine that will last 8 or more years easily. Unless your into heavy CPU performance for rendering video, then of course upgrades will occur frequently because time is money.
Do performance tests on your machine, like Cinebench and X-Bench (average several results) to see the performance loss over time with OS updates. Eventually you’ll have to decide NOT to upgrade the OS. Or try the new one out to see and reverse clone back to a earlier version. However check first that the firmware or EFI is not altered with the new update, or your stuck and not able to reverse back.
I have a well over 5 year old Mac, it’s still very fast and can 3D Game well. But a two year old iMac is already slow and obsolete, even surfing the web is slow. Because nothing in it is upgradable.
So learn grasshoppers. Save HUGE amounts of money, by slightly used or refurbished.
I am debating downsizing to a 24″ iMac from my current G5.
Processor wise – it’s an upgrade.
Footprint and weight are much less.
I design for print and web sites and flash. Just debating on whether I’m overlooking something.
Lijo your interpretation of value is different than mine.
value=(tangibles+intangibles)-price
Your interpretation of Apple’s entire product line is also different than mine.
I’ve been content with my G4 mini for nearly 3 years now, anything more would have represented less value based on my needs.
@Peter
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Same here… but since 2005
@cb
I don’t know if you seen this yet;
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/15841/
> I just wish they’d up the RAM capacity to 4 or 8 GB. 2 GB is going to hobble the thing given that it’s also depending upon that RAM for video, too.
You must be joking. Even with the video using a mere 64 MBs of RAM, 1GB is enough for most people. With 2GB of RAM, it would be enough for anyone. Anyone, that is, who would buy a Mac mini as an entry-level Mac OS X computer. 4GB of RAM would be totally wasted in a Mac mini.
I am debating downsizing to a 24″ iMac from my current G5.
Processor wise – it’s an upgrade.
Footprint and weight are much less.
I design for print and web sites and flash. Just debating on whether I’m overlooking something.
Depends upon the G5…if it’s a single core G5 then yes, go ahead and upgrade to the iMac.
If it’s a Dual Core/Processor PowerMac G5 then yes you are overlooking something, the cost of new Intel based software you’ll have to buy.
With only a small portion of the money spend upgrading to a iMac (that isn’t upgradable by the way outside of some RAM) you can apply it to the PowerMac G5 and get a machine that is much faster than the new iMac’s.
The PowerMac G5 has bandwidth to burn, especially the dual processor models, each with a 1Ghz frontside bus PER PROCESSOR. Compared to only a lousy 800Mhz for the new dual core Intel models.
All the Powermac G5 needs is faster hard drives and more RAM, a new video card (you’ll have to search) and it will scream like the wind and out-perform and out-live the recent iMac Intel hands down.
CPU performance isn’t everything, the gates in and out of the processors matters as well. As well as the video cards, hard drive read and write speeds and RAM amount.
However if your the creative type, you’ll wind up picking the iMac because it looks better, despite it being a lousy buy for your performance buck.
Just remember to allocate for another upgrade two years from now.
The problem with the MacPro, among others, is having dual processors. With the advent of dual and quad cores, this is an unnecessary excess for most people. And if you want to upgrade in the future, you will need two of them. Go to NewEgg and look at the prices on these things. There is no way of knowing what Intel multi-cores might cost in the future, hopefully cheaper.
The graphics situation at this point is rather pathetic. A standard 7300GT or optional ATI 1900 variant or nVidia Quaddro for workstations. The 7300GT is lamer than what’s in the iMac and the 1900 runs too hot and is old tech.
Apple needs to offer some of the new stuff from ATI and nVidia.
But this is dependent on whether they cooperate with Apple. Hopefully something will come out at MacWorld.
The fully buffered RAM is also unnecessary in the average rig. It’s more accurate but slower. Prices have come down lately but are still high compared to standard RAM.
Apple needs to produce a tower for average users that is good for gaming and has the ability to be upgraded like any PC on the market.
But maybe that’s exactly what they don’t want. I sure don’t know.
With double the height you could add a blue ray, increase the ram to 4-8gig, get a better graphics card, make an X-box a thing of the past, and still run both windows and mac software.
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