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Will this work for my wife?

X

xheathen

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 5, 2010
300
17
Hi folks,

I'm looking at buying something for my wife, and we're really budget conscious but I really didn't want to end up with a crappy dell or something like that.

I'm wondering if it's a good idea to look at getting a mac mini 2ghz or 1.5ghz.

What my wife does is very low level - only games she plays is like farmville and mafia wars, does facebook, email and pays bills. But she's tired of our current ibm laptop just freezing all the time.

Would the 1.5ghz mac mini work for that stuff pretty easily? We already have a mouse, keyboard and monitor and I've seen the 1.5's for sale around in the neighborhood of $300. And if so, what's the max memory you can put in those things and can you (or would you even want to) put snow leopard on it?

Or is it much better to look at going with a 2ghz?

Or should I really save up for a macbook?

Thanks in advance!
 
alust2013

alust2013

macrumors 601
Feb 6, 2010
4,779
2
On the fence
Do not get a 1.5GHz. These were the core solo models, and are very slow. I'd look at the 2GHz model, you could put at least 2GB memory in those, and definitely install snow leopard.
 
A

AbSoluTc

Suspended
Sep 21, 2008
5,104
4,002
If she plays Farmville regularly - get something much newer and with a minimum of 2 gig of ram My new 2010 mini I bought a few days back ran just fine out of the box. However, I do play Farmville and it was a bit "choppy" sometimes. I upgraded the ram today to 4 gig and it's perfect. No complaints.

Just a forewarning on that.
 
SnowLeopard2008

SnowLeopard2008

macrumors 604
Jul 4, 2008
6,772
17
Silicon Valley
AbSoluTc said:
If she plays Farmville regularly - get something much newer and with a minimum of 2 gig of ram My new 2010 mini I bought a few days back ran just fine out of the box. However, I do play Farmville and it was a bit "choppy" sometimes. I upgraded the ram today to 4 gig and it's perfect. No complaints.

Just a forewarning on that.
Click to expand...

Doubt the extra 2GB of RAM made a difference. Farmville relies on the network connection and Flash. Flash is poor on anything.

Save up for a newer machine. You want this to last for a long time. A computer usually lasts the average user (like your wife) about 4-5 years. If you buy it when it's 3 years old, then it only has 2 more years of life.
 
X

xheathen

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 5, 2010
300
17
Good points all around, thanks guys. Maybe I can get this thing she's running now to stop freezing and spend $75 on a few more gigs of ram and start saving up.
 
A

AbSoluTc

Suspended
Sep 21, 2008
5,104
4,002
SnowLeopard2008 said:
Doubt the extra 2GB of RAM made a difference. Farmville relies on the network connection and Flash. Flash is poor on anything.

Save up for a newer machine. You want this to last for a long time. A computer usually lasts the average user (like your wife) about 4-5 years. If you buy it when it's 3 years old, then it only has 2 more years of life.
Click to expand...

It did make a difference. Farmville uses flash and in return, that uses CPU and RAM. Flash is a resource hog, so the more you have, the better off you are. The upgrade helped me and it shows. :cool:
 
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