Mac Mini Again Shipping Within 24 Hours in the U.S.

Razeus said:

Apple TV is much cheaper.

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Apple TV is cheap junk. I actually wanted one for airdisplay, but the dealbreaker was the atrocious menu system. All the crap channels you'll never use that you have to scroll past with the tedious toy remote control. Why can't apple allow you to hide the garbage that's only in the way to streamline the interface? The remote is another part of the Apple Disease, tiny and cute but horrible to have to use. Remember cheap TVs where the remote control only had up and down with no channel numbers, now apple has recreated the experience.

Adding the keyboard support was a recent "amazing" new feature. You actually think it's okay to try and enter content searches on a remote with a few buttons?

On my mac mini, I stream internet radio, TV from network websites that don't support ATV, watch DVDs (C2D mini with an internal drive), watch video with VLC in formats ATV can't handle, and store a large media library locally (640 gig internal HD). I also play games on the mini to enjoy my big screen experience. Considering the low cost of C2D minis, I can't imagine why anyone would buy an ATV, and considering the price premium on ATV2's for jailbreaking, it seems even ATV users don't like them.

Even at 6 times the price for a new one, a mini plugged into the TV is a much better option than an ATV.

iMac is also a complete dud. I've got no problem spending $1000 on a monitor, but there is no way in hell I'm having it permanently attached to a junky machine made out of laptop parts and sealed against upgrades. The $800 mini gives amazing speed out of the box, and then it's cheap and easy to give the mini a 256 gig SSD while keeping the 1TB HDD, so going the mini + ATD route gives me a better computer at a lower price and then in 2-3 years I can replace the mini and still have a perfectly good ATD on a brand new computer.

You can't even say the iMac gives you a sleek all-in-one any more since Apple wants to push everything out of the box anyway to save a few mm at the edges.

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ResPublica said:

2
The Mac mini currently has some features the iMac lacks; FireWire 800, HDMI, Line In and upgradeble memory. Apple's obsession with thin design could remove those.

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There is a very good chance that at the next Mini refresh I'll end up buying a 2012 mini as my last Apple purchase until they reverse course (so my last Apple until hell freezes over).

Razeus said:

Not if you own an iMac.

And once you configure it not to have gimped hard drive speed and more RAM, the price now is that you might was well get a more powerful computer.

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Some people are fine with it "gimped," as you call it, or don't care about the GPU.

Others don't mind doing the legwork to upgrade the RAM and the disk.

And still others, as previously was pointed out, would prefer to buy a nice LCD once and for all, and simply update the head every few years.

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Oracle1729 said:

There is a very good chance that at the next Mini refresh I'll end up buying a 2012 mini as my last Apple purchase until they reverse course (so my last Apple until hell freezes over).

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If they solder on the RAM, I and a bunch of other people may join you.

john123 said:

If they solder on the RAM, I and a bunch of other people may join you.

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Soldered RAM is a guaranteed no-buy for me. So is losing the nice standard drive bays.

Razeus said:

Not if you own an iMac.

And once you configure it not to have gimped hard drive speed and more RAM, the price now is that you might was well get a more powerful computer. Also, the lack of GPU is baffling this day and age.

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Apple TV is much cheaper.

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Most people don't need a GPU, and often want a non-reflective screen. or already have a screen from their PC. They also want to be able to open the machine up and upgrade the hard drive more easily.

If the new mini ships with an iris GPU i'm quite tempted to pick one up myself.


edit:
Agreed, the AppleTV interface is junk. However as an easy way of hooking up your macbook or iDevice to your TV, it rocks. Download content on macbook, bring it into living room, play and redirect to ATV via airplay. or browse content on shared library from ipad/iphone and redirect to ATV...

Pretty much the way I use mine most of the time.

Razeus said:

Not if you own an iMac.

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That's the point. Not everyone wants a desktop with everything jammed into the monitor. I would go hackintosh over an imac, not everyone is the same.

Perhaps. But I use my iPad as an Apple TV remote. Much better way to interact with it. And it just works.

Razeus said:

Perhaps. But I use my iPad as an Apple TV remote. Much better way to interact with it. And it just works.

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Interesting, so your $100 media box needs a $500 accessory to make it less crappy...and you can't understand the purpose of a mac mini. Nice.

Oracle1729 said:

Interesting, so your $100 media box needs a $500 accessory to make it less crappy...and you can't understand the purpose of a mac mini. Nice.

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...no. I don't NEED a $500 device to make it less crappy. I use it by choice. Don't be silly.

Razeus said:

...no. I don't NEED a $500 device to make it less crappy. I use it by choice. Don't be silly.

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You're contradicting yourself.

You say it makes no sense get a mac mini media center when the ATV does the job. Then you agree that perhaps I'm right that the ATV has a interface too clunky to be usable but that's okay for you because you use it with the iPad. So I point out that you're only saying the ATV is a viable device because you're using it with a $500 accessory, not as a $100 device. And you say you don't need the $500 accessory, you just choose to.

So which is it? Are you happy using the ATV only with a stock remote or would that cause you to throw the ATV out the window in frustration?


Also, I often stream media from TV network websites and radio station websites using their embedded flash players. It's simple and easy on my mac mini, could you please tell me how to do it with an ATV?

Oracle1729 said:

You're contradicting yourself.

You say it makes no sense get a mac mini media center when the ATV does the job. Then you agree that perhaps I'm right that the ATV has a interface too clunky to be usable but that's okay for you because you use it with the iPad. So I point out that you're only saying the ATV is a viable device because you're using it with a $500 accessory, not as a $100 device. And you say you don't need the $500 accessory, you just choose to.

So which is it? Are you happy using the ATV only with a stock remote or would that cause you to throw the ATV out the window in frustration?


Also, I often stream media from TV network websites and radio station websites using their embedded flash players. It's simple and easy on my mac mini, could you please tell me how to do it with an ATV?

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I have no problem using the ATV remote. I CHOOSE to use the iPad. It's portable, unlike the Mac Mini. There's nothing frustrating about using the ATV as it comes out of the box.

If I wanted to stream something that required flash players, I have my iMac and Airplay.

Don't overthink it dude. Everything works out of the box.

Razeus said:

I never really understood the point of the Mac mini to be honest.

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and

Razeus said:

I have no problem using the ATV remote. I CHOOSE to use the iPad. It's portable, unlike the Mac Mini. There's nothing frustrating about using the ATV as it comes out of the box.

If I wanted to stream something that required flash players, I have my iMac and Airplay.

Don't overthink it dude. Everything works out of the box.

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So, now to make your $100 work, you need a $500 iPad and $1300++ iMac to provide the same basic functionality as the mac mini. Plus you need somewhere to store the iMac. Then it's extra work to go to the iMac, play your media, synch the air display. It may work right out of the box, but it's way more of a kludge than a dedicated media PC on an HDMI cable.

Your solution is now up to $1900 and still isn't as good as a $600 mac mini. Plus my mini has room for 2 hard drives and upgradable memory.

And you don't understand the point of a mac mini yet....you really don't get it?

Oracle1729 said:

and



So, now to make your $100 work, you need a $500 iPad and $1300++ iMac to provide the same basic functionality as the mac mini. Plus you need somewhere to store the iMac. Then it's extra work to go to the iMac, play your media, synch the air display. It may work right out of the box, but it's way more of a kludge than a dedicated media PC on an HDMI cable.

Your solution is now up to $1900 and still isn't as good as a $600 mac mini. Plus my mini has room for 2 hard drives and upgradable memory.

And you don't understand the point of a mac mini yet....you really don't get it?

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Wow. You're still going at it huh? Amusing. Let me know how that Mac mini does on the latest games too, while you're at it.