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Mac Mini or iMac

S

seanf

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 8, 2006
310
0
UK
Myself and family are going to be buying a Mac for my nieces at Christmas. I did order a Mini from Toys-R-Us when the Core Solo was on special, but they have completely screwed my order. We're now either looking at buying the base Mini model with a 19" widescreen monitor, but are also considering the 2GHz 17" iMac. The price of the Mini plus monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc. is not that much less than the iMac and it has a much better spec. Which would people recommend for light Internet, email, photo editing, etc.?

Thanks

Sean :)
 
The mini is a wire monster. So if you want to give her something complete (adding the niceness of the "it just works" policy of Apple) I would go for a iMac. Did the same for my sister.
 
Since you don't already have a monitor, keyboard or mouse, the iMac is the better value and a better machine.
 
emptyCup said:
Since you don't already have a monitor, keyboard or mouse, the iMac is the better value and a better machine.
Click to expand...


I second this. If you don't already have a monitor you are in love with, the price of the 17" iMac is hard to beat. I like the form factor, and ease of use that comes with it. The Mini is nice, but with what you are explaining as your need, I see the iMac as perfect.
 
imac, like others said tis a lot neater w/o all the wires, also, no intergrated graphics:)
 
get the imac if you can, and dont have a monitor already.

why? graphics are better. with GPU, unless you buy low end model. and also make sure you get enough ram, on either machine.

makes a huge difference.
 
jTreu said:
also, no intergrated graphics:)
Click to expand...

Except on the 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo model. Even that is a dead-set bargain if you're not going to game or need to burn DVDs.

Another vote for iMac, the mini is only a deal if you have everything else. If you need to buy the peripherals too then the iMac is a much better purchase. Good screen, awesome performance, more HDD, more RAM, if you get the 2.0GHz+ models then you've got much better graphics abilities - it's a really good deal.
 
mdntcallr said:
get the imac if you can, and dont have a monitor already.
Click to expand...
Ditto. The other biggie is that you get a much larger & faster HDD. Plus the iSight + Photo Booth can be lots of fun depending on how old your nieces are.

B
 
miniConvert said:
While my head agrees that the iMac is the right choice, my heart loves the Mac mini. *touches the Mac mini*. It's very easy to become rather attached to the tiny little blighters.
Click to expand...

Agreed! I just like the fact that I can upgrade me LCD size whenever I want. If only the RAM was easier to upgrade... *curse*... :mad:
 
While I am getting a MacBook...and the thing has had numerous probs, I still love the iMac. It is probably the best machine I have ever had. Beautiful, exceptionally fast, at a decent price.
 
Thanks everyone. We were pretty sure we were going to get an iMac for them, but this confirms it.

balamw said:
Plus the iSight + Photo Booth can be lots of fun depending on how old your nieces are.
Click to expand...
I know they're going to love that!

Sean :)
 
seanf said:
I did order a Mini from Toys-R-Us when the Core Solo was on special
Click to expand...

Wait, Toys-R-Us sels Macs? What's up with that? So you can buy a Tickle-me-Elmo and an Mac Mini at the same place, huh?
 
[Instead of starting a brand new topic, I figured I can probably get enough input by jumping onto this one and holding on for dear life. Please continue to give the original author any input you may have. :) ]

I've wanted one of the sexy looking G4 iMacs ever since they came out. Now that they are a generation or two behind (depending on whether you think the introduction of Intel under the hood splits the G5 gen.), they're down to where I can afford them. Barring the argument that I should save up longer and just put out for an Intel G5, what sort of specs should I be looking for if I want to run Tiger? I have a G4 tower overclocked to 400Mhz w/ 1 GB of RAM (4 x 256MB) that runs Tiger pretty well, if you don't count the kernel panics induced by my little warranty - voiding adventure. As I'm sure you all know, you can get a G4 iMac in one of four flavors: 700, 800, 1.0, and 1.25 (Mhz/Ghz respectively).

So enough rambling. What do you users recommend?
 
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