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Mac mini or iPad

F

Flatsfisher

macrumors member
Original poster
I got rid of my mbp recently. It was to much for all I do. (Internet and music). I am deciding between a Mac mini or iPad. Portability will really not be an issue as I use my iPhone on the go anyways. What would be the pros and cons of each. If I did end up with a Mac mini I would probably wait for the new one and if I got an iPad I would probably get an iPad 2 refurbished
 
That is such a strange purchasing decision, in my opinion. The two do very different things - desktop vs tablet.

But, do you already have a computer at home? If you got a Mac Mini, do you already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse?

If you don't already have a computer at home, definitely go Mac Mini.

Oh, and the price difference between a used/refurbished iPad 2 and a new Mac Mini is quite large 😵
 
I know the price difference lol. I have a sony labtop I can use but syncing my phone to it would be a pain all the time. I do not have key board mouse monitor. Was thinking of just my tv as one for a little while.
 
Flatsfisher said:
I know the price difference lol. I have a sony labtop I can use but syncing my phone to it would be a pain all the time. I do not have key board mouse monitor. Was thinking of just my tv as one for a little while.
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Since you already have a "labtop" you might just want to play it safe and get an iPad. A Mac Mini might be too technical for you.
 
The labtop is a family members but I have open use to it when ever. I may just see what the new mac mini has and go from there. I like having a place to back up all my music, photos, etc and with the iPad I cannot do that.
 
tardman91 said:
Since you already have a "labtop" you might just want to play it safe and get an iPad. A Mac Mini might be too technical for you.
Click to expand...

LOL xD! , be nice man...


Go mini, buy a refurbished base line mini at around $450, you'll get a lot of bang for your buck, and it's an overall tremendous machine
 
Since you have a laptop go for the ipAd 3. It covers your life style plus more. All you need a computer is if you need to restore your idevice. Buy one from Walmart and give it a test run. Be sure to do full run through of the app store. As there are apps you didn't even know you needed to make your life easier .
 
mac mini?

the new one has LION...that is reason enough to go to the iPad.
Lion was designed by Geeks who designed WiN 95 and they want to punish Mac users for not being Windows users. Mail bounce is gone...icons in black and white and no bigger than the eraser on a pencil..Iphoto makes it difficult to print a jpeg or delete same.
...no back up discs...its in "the clouds"...I could go on but I won't.
 
JAYBEATS23 said:
Since you have a laptop go for the ipAd 3. It covers your life style plus more. All you need a computer is if you need to restore your idevice. Buy one from Walmart and give it a test run. Be sure to do full run through of the app store. As there are apps you didn't even know you needed to make your life easier .
Click to expand...

This is true. If I did go iPad what would be the easiest way to get new music to my idevice

----------
palmharbor said:
the new one has LION...that is reason enough to go to the iPad.
Lion was designed by Geeks who designed WiN 95 and they want to punish Mac users for not being Windows users. Mail bounce is gone...icons in black and white and no bigger than the eraser on a pencil..Iphoto makes it difficult to print a jpeg or delete same.
...no back up discs...its in "the clouds"...I could go on but I won't.
Click to expand...

Huh? Lol. Confused.
 
iPad3 definitely. It's all I have now... I sometimes pair it with a 27" screen for youtube and movies from itunes. I found that I could just about back up my data ( iwork, garageband, avid studio, settings etc ) on the 5gb iCloud.
 
I bought one of the refurb minis for $469. It is very nice. It still isn't my primary machine yet. I picked it up so I could run ML for testing. Once that's done, I might just switch to the thing full time, especially since I put 8 GB of RAM in the thing. It runs nicely compared to the 4GB in my 2008 Macbook.

I wouldn't try to get by with an iPad and no computer of my own. Once I had my own computer, then I'd consider an iPad as my "road machine". There is a guy who uses an iPad as his main computer at ipadalone.com. It can be done but as much as I like my iPad, I still wouldn't recommend it as an "only" machine.

There really is no such thing as sync with a desktop any more. Well there is but it's no longer necessary now that there's iCloud. So I'd say go for the Mac mini first, get a $149 monitor, Apple KB (wired) and wired usb mouse. Then when you can afford it, get an iPad as your road machine.

hope this helps...
 
Thanks for all the help. Lotta good guys on this forum. Like I said I think I will just wait to see what apple decides to do with the new mini and go from there.
 
I'm not an iPad only user, but I get my music from Amazon. It's free to store in their cloud, (forever if you buy from them) but I purchased iTunes Match, and transfer mp3's to iCloud as well. Since they match all my music, I'm going to stay with them. It's way cheaper than building a server.

There may be an easier way than syncing with my mini, but I haven't stumbled across it yet. BTW, I vote for getting the new mini, and adding an iPad when funds are available. 🙂
 
Just using pandora right now because of having no mbp. I should of also mentioned the mbp is still mine I'm just letting my gf use it for 2 years of dental schooling so I have access to that as well lol. Does anyone use any subscription music? Wish I could find a good service
 
Pandora has an app for iPad.

Just curious what the paid subscription on Pandora gets you. I thought you'd be able to listen to whatever whenever.
 
3dflyboy1 said:
Spotify premium for $10/month (30 day free trial) or Pandora One for $36/year. I personally like spotify better because I can pick and choose what I listen to.
Click to expand...

Pandora is the iPod Shuffle of subscription services.
That's actually why I love it.

There's something psychologically pleasing about hearing the right song at the right time on random. And man...Pandora has always nailed it.

The first time I heard the Christian Bale's freak out (on Terminator), the epic Batman Begins training score was playing.

Ads ruin every experience, drop the $36.
Bookmark every song you like and buy em on Amazon/iTunes (though bookmarking was retardedly removed from the web browser version, it's still on the standalone/phone app).
 
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