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$499 Headless iMac?

TorbX said:
Imagine them releasing this thing with a not-so-snappy 1.25 ghz G4... Think of all the former windows-users complaining over Safari not being equally responsive as Internet Explorer on an 733 Mhz Pentium...
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Huh!?! Safari on a 500MHz G3 is very snappy and responsive. It is even great on a 266MHz G3 iBook. A 1.25GHz G4 would be more than fast enough for web browsing.

The speed of the machines long ago exceeded the speed necessary for most applications including web browsing, email, FTP, spreadsheets, word processing, image editing, etc. Yes there are games and video applications that demand higher power, but web browsing is not one of those. If you're having speed problems at 1.25GHz on a G4 then you need to seriously look at other issues on your machine and internet connection. The processor speed is not the problem.
 
Chomolungma said:
[...] What I hate more is when any Adobe application launches, they make a point of showing you all the frivolous patents they filed. And what up with line of text on Acrobat reader window that changes rapidly (impossible to read). why are they keep annoying us with that sh*t.
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Want to know what's scary? I just timed my two systems to check how long it takes them to open ImageReady 2.0:

- Desktop system (Athlon XP 2400+, 512MB DDR, Western Digital 80GB 7200 RPM, Windows XP): about 12 seconds.

- Thinkpad 760XL (Pentium 166MMX, 64MB EDO, IBM 10GB 4200 RPM, Windows 98SE): about 24 seconds.

Now, last time I checked, my desktop system was WAY faster than my laptop... In fact, it has twelve times the clock speed, eight times the RAM and a hard disk that's about 70% faster.

But all those numbers only add up to "twice as fast" for my desktop.

Scary, isn't it?
 
Mac mini

A swedish reseller has in the Global Service Exchange for Apple found replacement parts for a computer called "Mac mini ". Nothing extraordinary, but ethernet-, modem-, bluetoothparts and some cables. What do you think? It was all reported by swedish Macworld
 
Porcelina said:
A swedish reseller has in the Global Service Exchange for Apple found replacement parts for a computer called "Mac mini ". Nothing extraordinary, but ethernet-, modem-, bluetoothparts and some cables. What do you think? It was all reported by swedish Macworld
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I like the name "Mac Mini" think that it's very catchy. Glad to see that it will include Bluetooth and ethernet. Just hope that Apple will offer a monitor also. A bundle deal would be awesome.
 
Weeee!

I just bought mine. I went with 512MB RAM, SuperDrive and Airport Extreme Card. This is the first new computer I have bought in about 6 years. I've bought a couple of used ones here and there, but not new.

I've been holding out to upgrade my B&W G3 to a G5, but I always choke at spending more than a grand for a PC without a monitor. I think the Mac mini (I wonder how long it took them to NOT call it "mini-Mac!") fits the bill for me nicely.

Thank you Steve Jobs & Apple!
 
Gerg said:
Weeee!

I just bought mine. I went with 512MB RAM, SuperDrive and Airport Extreme Card. This is the first new computer I have bought in about 6 years. I've bought a couple of used ones here and there, but not new.

I've been holding out to upgrade my B&W G3 to a G5, but I always choke at spending more than a grand for a PC without a monitor. I think the Mac mini (I wonder how long it took them to NOT call it "mini-Mac!") fits the bill for me nicely.

Thank you Steve Jobs & Apple!
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Congratulations Gerg for being among the first to purchase a "mini Mac." What was the total cost? What estimated time of delivery did they list on you order? What monitor will you be using?
 
so now I can build my perfect home theatre... (if I had the budget)

Mac mini with 1GB ram, Superdrive, BT & Airport, BT desktop, RadioShark, TV tuner, nice speakers, remote for iTunes & tv, HD beamer for bigscreen projections.

crack it open and install a big 250GB drive so I have space enough for music and video... (well maybe just hold on that one until I don't have had any trouble with the Mac, you never know... ;-) )
 
Cless said:
Just to toss my hat into this whole Windows XP vs OS X in the Snappy™ department thing, I'll say this: in my experience, OS X is very close to XP once you hit the high end machines (dual G5s with at least a GB of RAM). That's when OS X becomes Snappy™, because let's face it, Quartz, even with the help of Quartz Extreme, is taxing. OS X is doing things now that Longhorn will do in a year (two? three?). On the low end, even with more RAM, OS X can't match XP for Snappy™.

HOWEVER (here's the other shoe), OS X is far more graceful under load than XP, especially when both are run on low-end hardware. Whereas switching out of a game on XP will cause my desktop to re-draw itself achingly slow on my Athlon 2000+ box with 512MB of RAM, my PowerBook (even before I upped its RAM) will pause for a second, hit black, and then fade to my desktop, which is all there. I can then immediately do other things. Windows XP will open a window before it draws it—OS X draws and then sizes up its windows. So it's a different design philosophy. Windows seeks to get SOMETHING (anything) on the screen as fast as possible. OS X tries to get things set before they get to the user. Under load, OS X scales much more gracefully than XP.

Just my 2 cents.
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What about with the new FSB? Should be significantly faster, don't you think?
 
Well, I added memory and the SuperDrive as well as the Airport Extreme, so it came out to $850 plus tax & shipping (2-day). They listed the delivery date as January 22nd, which is next Saturday. I'm countin' the days!

Oh yeah, I have the B&W G3 and a Gateway PC attached to a Gateway 18" LCD monitor (I also have a KVM Switch) so the new Mac mini will just go into that set-up, although I believe the G3's days are now numbered!

I also just bought a used HP ColorLaserJet from e-Bay fro $160, so it's been an expensive week, but a fun one!!
 
Jo-Kun said:
crack it open and install a big 250GB drive so I have space enough for music and video... (
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i'm 90% sure these puppies have laptop HD's in them
maxing out at 100GB/5400rpm currently.

apple lists it as "Ultra ATA HD", which 9 times out of 10 means its a 4200rpm 2.5" laptop hard drive.

there's always firewire tho! an external HD in a case larger in size than the computer itself!

on a side note - if it is 4200rpm, that is really going to back fire on Apple. This will make the machine feel rather slow as HD speed is a huge bottleneck. Booting the computer, launching apps, saving files - all these disk speed dependent actions will make the average PC "switcher" feel like they just got jipped. "My PC didn't take 5 seconds to open a web browser!!!"

Here's to hoping Apple at least put 5400rpm "Ultra ATA" drives in them.
 
I highly doubt they are laptop drives. They would never hit their $599 pricepoint with 80GB 2.5" drives.

On that note, how are GarageBand users going to interface with it? There are no audio inputs. Pretty lame.

I am a PC user, and was going to get one of these for GarageBand until I saw no audio inputs. :(

Otherwise, PHENOMINAL machine for the price.
 
brywalker said:
I highly doubt they are laptop drives. They would never hit their $599 pricepoint with 80GB 2.5" drives.

On that note, how are GarageBand users going to interface with it? There are no audio inputs. Pretty lame.

I am a PC user, and was going to get one of these for GarageBand until I saw no audio inputs. :(

Otherwise, PHENOMINAL machine for the price.
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For $40 you can get an iMic. It's basically just a USB adapter that adds stereo in and out. It's possible that there are even cheaper solutions on the market.
 
brywalker said:
I highly doubt they are laptop drives. They would never hit their $599 pricepoint with 80GB 2.5" drives.
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i would have said the same thing about the slot-loading laptop optical drive.

i am looking at this graphic:
designinsides20050111.jpg

now, most slot load drives are 5" squares, as this one appears to be.
desktop hard drives are 3.5x5.25", therefore we should see SOME resemblence of a hard drive on one of the sides, underneath the slot loading CDRW/DVD. its wider than the optical drive. The ram could be hiding it, but the ram appears very close to the optical drive, nearly flush.

Not to mention the obvious - Heat. Desktop HD's radiate a ton of heat.
Ever seen one of these P4 laptops that used 160GB Desktop HD's and were 3.75" thick? Yea, yer not alone - most people haven't. They were yanked from the shelves when all the components around the HD's started melting. :eek:

these puppies have laptop HD's folks.

EDIT: other evidence.
slot loading optical drives half an inch thick. also consider a quarter inch for the casing (1/8" on the top as well as the bottom)
thats 3 quarters of an inch taken away from a 2 inch thick case already.
leaving only 1.25 inches for the motherboard/cpu AND HD? c'mon!!!
desktop HD's are 1 inch thick!. .25 left for the mobo and cpu.
They pack em tight folks, no doubt - but if they fit a Desktop Hard drive in there, it would be packed so tightly it would be a diamond by the time a G5 Powerbook is released.
 
adamjay said:
i would have said the same thing about the slot-loading laptop optical drive.

i am looking at this graphic:
designinsides20050111.jpg

now, most slot load drives are 5" squares, as this one appears to be.
desktop hard drives are 3.5x5.25", therefore we should see SOME resemblence of a hard drive on one of the sides, underneath the slot loading CDRW/DVD. its wider than the optical drive. The ram could be hiding it, but the ram appears very close to the optical drive, nearly flush.

Not to mention the obvious - Heat. Desktop HD's radiate a ton of heat.
Ever seen one of these P4 laptops that used 160GB Desktop HD's and were 3.75" thick? Yea, yer not alone - most people haven't. They were yanked from the shelves when all the components around the HD's started melting. :eek:

these puppies have laptop HD's folks.
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I believe I stated before MWSF 2005 that the Mac mini is a stripped down iBook. :)
 
m a y a said:
I believe I stated before MWSF 2005 that the Mac mini is a stripped down iBook. :)
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I said it would have iBook parts as well but it appears they are using regular 3.5" inch harddrives? I probably think they are using notebook drives in them minis. I just wished they made it just a TAD bigger, to fit in another RAM slot.

To bad AE and Bluetooth are not user serviceable options. Looks like possibly another G4 Cube flop?
 
aswitcher said:
I wish this thing allowed for a larger HDD and also had s-video out. That would have really made it a media server...
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You can just use Apple's DVI to S-Video/RCA connector and your set.

jon
 
Sir_Giggles said:
To bad AE and Bluetooth are not user serviceable options. Looks like possibly another G4 Cube flop?
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This will not be a flop cause the Cube was made for some odd reasons. They were trying to make a neat machine with the power of a PowerMac. Problem resulted in a hardly upgradable machine that costs a little bit less than a PowerMac. Mac Mini is completely different for the obvious reasons. Just the basics and only the basics bringing to a nice $500 price point.

jon
 
m a y a said:
I believe I stated before MWSF 2005 that the Mac mini is a stripped down iBook. :)
Click to expand...

I don't think you'll be winning too many awards for originality at this year's Soothsaying Convention! ;) Apple were never going to spend the sort of R&D monies they do on a totally new iMac when the margins for the product would barely reach 15% - take what you've got and sex it up a bit.
 
adamjay said:
on a side note - if it is 4200rpm, that is really going to back fire on Apple. This will make the machine feel rather slow as HD speed is a huge bottleneck. Booting the computer, launching apps, saving files - all these disk speed dependent actions will make the average PC "switcher" feel like they just got jipped. "My PC didn't take 5 seconds to open a web browser!!!"

Here's to hoping Apple at least put 5400rpm "Ultra ATA" drives in them.
Click to expand...

I agree. I have 4200rpm HDD in my PB and the 7200RPM in my eMac I believe. And the performance on the eMac is a bit snappier.

The other issue I was surprised by is that video card on the Mac mini does not seem to support Core Images from Tiger.
 
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