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$499 Headless iMac?

the computers tiger is really made for are the G5's...

this is the entry level mac, probably this will kill the eMac but I'm not sure since that comes with screen and input devices...

about the drives, well then get the toshiba 7200rpm laptop drive to put in there... if apple stays on using 4200 they stay behind, allso in the laptop market where pc's sometimes have the 7200rpm as standard...

but this mac isn't made for power its made for average use... office, iLife, safari that stuff

people who need power still will grab for the topline Powermacs instead... this is more the second mac for a lot of users or backup in case of...

or like sony once made: my first (sony) mac

they're focussing on switchers, thats why you don't get keyb & mouse, so you can just replace your big ugly pc tower with this lunchbox
 
I am probably beating a dead horse, but it seems that if it had everything everyone wanted on it, it would cost more and/or rob sales of other units.

My best buddy is a real estate mogul (local scale - 2million sq ft of commercial space + apartments) he has a couple of offices loaded with older imacs/emacs and his laptop and assorted desktops (plus a kicka** sound studio) and he is very excited about the mini because he can upgrade employees units cheap, he has lots of keyboards/mice around, he will use it in his offices, which my be a much better application for these units, or like me use it for the kids, more than enough for them (add airport card).
 
Jo-Kun said:
about the drives, well then get the toshiba 7200rpm laptop drive to put in there...
Click to expand...

i'm not speaking for my own preference, but for the preference of all these "Switchers". 9 out of 10 of them are NOT going to want to buy a $110+ hard drive and then "try" to put it in this MacMini, (not to mention look at it, does the Hard Drive really look like a user accessible part?..mmmmm no.)

4200rpm drives are going to make these machines crawl.
We better hope, for apple's sake and all these Switchers' sake, that they put at least 5400rpm laptop drives in these, or some how managed to squeeze a desktop drive in there (though i see no evidence of one). That latter of which would be harder than stuffing a Clydesdale in a hatchback..
 
adamjay said:
4200rpm drives are going to make these machines crawl.
We better hope, for apple's sake and all these Switchers' sake, that they put at least 5400rpm laptop drives in these, or some how managed to squeeze a desktop drive in there (though i see no evidence of one). That latter of which would be harder than stuffing a Clydesdale in a hatchback..
Click to expand...

Yeppers. I got a 4200RPM drive in my PB, and even with 768MB of RAM, it will sometimes crawl with iDVD open. I can only imagine someone trying to run iMovie with 256MB RAM and a slow 4200RPM harddrive.!
 
when they are available in the store near me, I will ask them in detail about all things...

because ram & Airport are BTO how will they do that in the stores???

People expect to cash & carry one of these out of the store, and buy some options when they are there... so they will all sit there in stock with an open case and when you buy one they will finish it on the spot close and put in a box???

or is apple making people to buy the BTO's only trough the apple store site?? so people can't buy cheaper ram modules than apple offers (I did buy mine seperate for my G5, same type half price...)

people sometimes buy the mac first and later on decide they need more ram or want airport... without the hassle of leaving the mac for service in a shop...
 
Jo-Kun said:
about the drives, well then get the toshiba 7200rpm laptop drive to put in there... if apple stays on using 4200 they stay behind, allso in the laptop market where pc's sometimes have the 7200rpm as standard...
Click to expand...

Not in the *real* laptops they don't. No business is going to buy a 7200 RPM system and roll out thosands of them to a field force that uses a battery. there is a difference in 4200 vs. 7200 when it comes to power consumption and when you're on a 6 hour flight from Atlanta to San Diego in a crap airline who doesn't put power in the seats for you to use you want to squeeze every bit out.

Those 7200 RPMs are for the idiots who think they make a monster difference vs. a minor difference. Given a random I/O workload even the fastest, most expensive U320 or SAS 146GB 15K RPM drive can only pull off about 12MB/s, which is the exact same speed a 146GB 10K RPM drive will do. Head seek time is what is important more than rotational speed. If your drive has got to spin around 3 times before the head gets in place all that roatational speed is a waste.

Check out the big boy benchmarks like TPC-C or TPC-H and how many hard drives they hang on it. You gotta have hundreds, if not thousands of spindles to do it.
 
Trekkie said:
Not in the *real* laptops they don't. No business is going to buy a 7200 RPM system and roll out thosands of them to a field force that uses a battery. there is a difference in 4200 vs. 7200 when it comes to power consumption and when you're on a 6 hour flight from Atlanta to San Diego in a crap airline who doesn't put power in the seats for you to use you want to squeeze every bit out.

Those 7200 RPMs are for the idiots who think they make a monster difference vs. a minor difference. Given a random I/O workload even the fastest, most expensive U320 or SAS 146GB 15K RPM drive can only pull off about 12MB/s, which is the exact same speed a 146GB 10K RPM drive will do. Head seek time is what is important more than rotational speed. If your drive has got to spin around 3 times before the head gets in place all that roatational speed is a waste.

Check out the big boy benchmarks like TPC-C or TPC-H and how many hard drives they hang on it. You gotta have hundreds, if not thousands of spindles to do it.
Click to expand...

Are you familiar with Barefeats ? You might want to check out this article.

However I do agree that cost-wise there is no company building laptops will offer 7200rpm discs as standard, also because not many people actually need them.
 
Trekkie said:
Not in the *real* laptops they don't. No business is going to buy a 7200 RPM system and roll out thosands of them to a field force that uses a battery. there is a difference in 4200 vs. 7200 when it comes to power consumption and when you're on a 6 hour flight from Atlanta to San Diego in a crap airline who doesn't put power in the seats for you to use you want to squeeze every bit out.
Click to expand...

don't know where you've been for the last 4 years but power consumption across the board from 4200 . 5400 . 7200rpm is nearly the same.
where as anything above 4200 is going to launch applications at least 50% faster on average.

4200rpm drives in *real* laptops and also *real* MacMini's are, for lack of a better word, DUMB at this point.
 
ts1973 said:
Are you familiar with Barefeats ? You might want to check out this article.

However I do agree that cost-wise there is no company building laptops will offer 7200rpm discs as standard, also because not many people actually need them.
Click to expand...

I do agree that 7200rpm drives are a waste in money in laptops unless you need to do multitrack audio recording in a portable.
the read speed comparisons of 5400 vs. 7200rpm drives is so negligible. and consumers don't care about write speeds. so long as the drive is IN your laptop, it will write faster than any USB2 or Firewire400 drive.

and when you can get a 100GB 5400rpm for the same price as a 60GB 7200rpm, which one are you gonna choose? :)
 
Its possible it is a 3.5 drive...

It's possible that it is a 3.5 drive and not a notebook drive. to upgrade the ibook frive from a 30GB to a 60GB it costs $75 and $150 for a 80GB and on the PB, $125 to go from 60GB to a 80GB... But the mac mini only $50 from 40GB to a 80GB same for the emac. and none of the *books don't even have an option for a 40GB drive. so im guessing its a 3.5 drive....

Unless they're using 3600 rpm notebook drives in it or something.
 
hanq said:
It's possible that it is a 3.5 drive and not a notebook drive. to upgrade the ibook frive from a 30GB to a 60GB it costs $75 and $150 for a 80GB and on the PB, $125 to go from 60GB to a 80GB... But the mac mini only $50 from 40GB to a 80GB same for the emac. and none of the *books don't even have an option for a 40GB drive. so im guessing its a 3.5 drive....

Unless they're using 3600 rpm notebook drives in it or something.
Click to expand...

4200 rpm 2.5" HDD
 
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