My parents' HP Pavilion is now DOA: Time for a Mac-Mini?

Good luck with that. When my parent's Dell died, I moved them to a dual-processor G4 tower. It's older than the Dell it replaced, but it's faster and more reliable. My dad's only complaint is (and I quote) "it sounds like a ******** vending machine" (which it does, because of the power supply). I'm trying to move them into the Mac world.

I'd definitely upgrade from 2GB, which is a ridiculously small amount for a $599 machine these days.

Don't get the 4GB upgrade from Apple, buy it yourself. Crucial have a nice tool that makes sure you get the right memory, or you could ask here to be extra safe.

Definitely buy 4GB. If you can justify it, buy 8GB (two 4GB sticks). RAM isn't expensive. It's also easy to fit in the newer Mac minis.

If you're being frugal and you care about the graphics, how about trying to find a refurbished 2010 Mac mini. You'd get a Core2Duo rather than a Sandy Bridge, but you'd get the slightly better graphics and an optical drive (which your parents might want).

4GB is plenty for your folks. The use they have will be fine with 2GB, but third party ram is so cheap so get 4GB it will be slightly faster.

If you are gonna spend money a SSD would be better, a 128GB SSD is less than $200 now.

I got the entry model last week with 2 gigs. Then spent $60 and upped it to 8gig aftermarket. Seriously, even the 4gig kit is only $32 - go that route.

I found the experience to not be very pleasant running on 2 gigs for those few days and would not recommend it.


http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa...Intel Core i5 2.3Ghz) DDR3 - Mid 2011&Cat=RAM

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Only you can decide if 8GB is excessive. If you think 4 GB will do you, get 4 GB. 8GB isn't terribly expensive though.

YanniDepp said:

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Only you can decide if 8GB is excessive. If you think 4 GB will do you, get 4 GB. 8GB isn't terribly expensive though.

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THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!

don't be stupid cheap (penny wise pound foolish)

just get the 8gb ram and be done with it. cost is 50 bucks or less. and amazon has the base mini for 569

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MC815LL...ref=sr_du_1_map?ie=UTF8&qid=1312581756&sr=8-1


http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-DDR3-...1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1312581883&sr=1-1



here are the mini reivews I gave it 4 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MC815LL...dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1