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first mac mini

D

DDave

macrumors regular
Oct 10, 2009
106
0
Texas
mercuryguy said:
Hey guys,

Thinking about buying a mac mini.
The configuration is below
* 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
* 320GB Serial ATA Drive

Price with edu discount is $749 pre-tax.

I will be using this for light browsing, hooking it up to a samsung tv and watching movies.
You guys think this is a good choice?
Click to expand...

It think it's an awesome choice, but with that config you can do so much more. Also have you looked at the referb site, there's some great deals on minis right now on there
 
mercuryguy

mercuryguy

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 21, 2009
73
2
Tampa
DDave said:
It think it's an awesome choice, but with that config you can do so much more. Also have you looked at the referb site, there's some great deals on minis right now on there
Click to expand...

On the Apple refurb store, it says there are no mac mini's
 
LucasLand

LucasLand

macrumors 6502a
Mar 6, 2002
756
92
New England
next month i plan on doing the same thing. only difference I'm going to combine my TV viewing with the mini. Instead of a monitor I'm going to buy one of samsung's new 1080p HDTV's. i think its going to be a sweet setup.

If you want to save money on keyboard & mouse, do a search of macally products. they have some nice stuff that are way cheaper than apple's
 
M

MacKiddyWiddy

macrumors 6502
Aug 18, 2009
359
0
mate dont spend as much money on the kit like that if all your doing is light stuff.... you wont need 4gb ram, 2 will suffice
signature_SmileyFace.jpg
save money and spend it on peripherals!!
 
steve2112

steve2112

macrumors 68040
Feb 20, 2009
3,023
6
East of Lyra, Northwest of Pegasus
mercuryguy said:
On the Apple refurb store, it says there are no mac mini's
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's rare to find Minis in the refurb store. When they do show up, they tend to go very quickly. I would actually stick with the 4GB of RAM, especially if you are going to be viewing 1080 video. The bigger HD may or may not be necessary. If you are going to be mostly streaming video, you may not need that big of a HD. If you plan on storing it locally, you may need the space. Then again, I would probably stick with the smaller HD and get an external FW800 model like the Ministack. It will be faster (7200RPM vs 5400) and cheaper.
 
mercuryguy

mercuryguy

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 21, 2009
73
2
Tampa
steve2112 said:
Yeah, it's rare to find Minis in the refurb store. When they do show up, they tend to go very quickly. I would actually stick with the 4GB of RAM, especially if you are going to be viewing 1080 video. The bigger HD may or may not be necessary. If you are going to be mostly streaming video, you may not need that big of a HD. If you plan on storing it locally, you may need the space. Then again, I would probably stick with the smaller HD and get an external FW800 model like the Ministack. It will be faster (7200RPM vs 5400) and cheaper.
Click to expand...

I like your idea. I was also planning to buy 1TB external drive to save all the movie files.
What do you guys think the difference between 2.26 and 2.53 cpu is? will it make a big difference if I go with the 2.26.

Thanks!
 
mercuryguy

mercuryguy

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 21, 2009
73
2
Tampa
what do you think about the attached config.

It looks like I will be using it for more than light browsing and movie watching. I might be running like 50 firefox tabs. my wife will be using it too for composing documents and such.
 

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J

JLandis

macrumors member
Jul 26, 2008
53
0
mercuryguy said:
Hey guys,

Thinking about buying a mac mini.
The configuration is below
* 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
* 320GB Serial ATA Drive

Price with edu discount is $749 pre-tax.

I will be using this for light browsing, hooking it up to a samsung tv/monitor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001280) and watching movies.
You guys think this is a good choice?
Click to expand...

I think it is a good choice. I just purchased the exact machine with edu discount yesterday. I will be using it as an HTPC. It will match those type of tasks perfectly.
 
dmk1974

dmk1974

macrumors 68020
Sep 16, 2008
2,389
464
I took that low-end refurb mini and added the following:

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digit...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1256156807&sr=8-1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0148192&cm_re=pc3-8500-_-20-148-192-_-Product

3 GB total RAM should be about as good as 4 GB if using a Mini. I actually got lucky buying the authentic Apple memory on ebay for $10, but the above RAM is what I would have gotten if I didn't find that on ebay.

The hard drive I opted for more speed instead of size with the 7200 RPM drive since most files are stored externally.
 
California

California

macrumors 68040
Aug 21, 2004
3,885
90
What's interesting is I got the 2.26ghz Mac Mini off the refurb site in mid August.

It came with regular Leopard.

Does this mean that the newer Mac Mini's will not be able to boot into regular Leopard now?

Only Snow Leopard?
 
steve2112

steve2112

macrumors 68040
Feb 20, 2009
3,023
6
East of Lyra, Northwest of Pegasus
mercuryguy said:
what do you think about the attached config.

It looks like I will be using it for more than light browsing and movie watching. I might be running like 50 firefox tabs. my wife will be using it too for composing documents and such.
Click to expand...

I think the 2.26 version will work just fine. Firefox is a memory hog, so as long as you have the RAM boosted to 4GB, you should be ok. With the factory only running $100 vs. ~$80 for doing it yourself, it's a worthy upgrade. Leave the stock HD there and stream from an external FW drive.
 
calderone

calderone

Cancelled
Aug 28, 2009
3,743
352
California said:
What's interesting is I got the 2.26ghz Mac Mini off the refurb site in mid August.

It came with regular Leopard.

Does this mean that the newer Mac Mini's will not be able to boot into regular Leopard now?

Only Snow Leopard?
Click to expand...

It should run Leopard fine. They haven't changed the hardware outside of the processor.
 
California

California

macrumors 68040
Aug 21, 2004
3,885
90
calderone said:
It should run Leopard fine. They haven't changed the hardware outside of the processor.
Click to expand...

I don't know if this is true. They will ship with Snow Leopard.

I think regular 10.5 Leopard will now be an OS step backwards for the new Mac Minis...

I bet they do NOT run 10.5 but only 10.6...

Would be interested to know if the new ones do run regular Leopard.
 
mercuryguy

mercuryguy

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 21, 2009
73
2
Tampa
That's great to know the new macmini's can handle 8G. I am ordering a 4G mini, but the prices of 4G is still very high, it might take 2 years for those prices to go down.
 
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