Mac Mini Photos and Details

[DPazdanISU]

Your 60's a 2.5 inch laptop-style drive, inside that enclosure... right?

be nice... he bought a mac.... we all know if he fits that drive in the mac mini then a black hole with appear that sends us directly to the meaning of true happiness 🙄

 

[DPazdanISU]

Unfortunately, it seems to only show ""Basic iMac G5 1.6GHz 512MB" iMac (Flat Panel)"

regardless- the mac mini is not a stupid purchase- i think i'll be editing and burning movies on it with ease

 

[adamjay]

I couldn't agree more...though I have to say this is a much better XBench:
http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge.xhtml?doc2=83485
The XBench I linked compares a mac mini and an imac G5 both of them with 512 Ram- From what it looks like the mac mini can definitly hold its own, thats y i ordered one 😀

all i see is the G5 in your link... no comparison. 😕

 

[adamjay]

raise your hand if you would have rather had another inch wide on the mac mini all around in exchange for a 3.5" 7200rpm HD ?

:::raises hand:::

some switches are gonna be pissed coming from 4 year old compaqs that had at least 5400rpm desktop drives, gonna hear alot of those "these macs are slow" from the switchers!!!!!!! 😱 🙁

 

[TypeR389]

Your 60's a 2.5 inch laptop-style drive, inside that enclosure... right?

Yea, Hitachi travelstar 2.5" 9mm 60GB 7200 RPM in the OWC firwire/USB2 case. My whole intent was to put it into a powerbook when I bought one, but I ended up getting a mini first/instead since I really didn't need mobilty since I have a work laptop and the mini was SOOO much cheaper for basically the same performance.

 

[jouster]

raise your hand if you would have rather had another inch wide on the mac mini all around in exchange for a 3.5" 7200rpm HD ?

:::raises hand:::

some switches are gonna be pissed coming from 4 year old compaqs that had at least 5400rpm desktop drives, gonna hear alot of those "these macs are slow" from the switchers!!!!!!! 😱 🙁

But you heard the response at MWSF when Steve revealed the mini, right?

There was an audible buzz of excitement - and it was all based on its size. It's easy to imagine that this was precisely the response intended, and that anything that caused it to be bigger was never going to make the cut.

And, as has already been pointed out ad nauseam, this is not intended to be a power box. Switchers are coming to OS X with few preconceptions; will they *really* be disappointed if their HD takes a fraction of a second or so longer to access?

 

[adamjay]

But you heard the response at MWSF when Steve revealed the mini, right?

There was an audible buzz of excitement - and it was all based on its size. It's easy to imagine that this was precisely the response intended, and that anything that caused it to be bigger was never going to make the cut.

And, as has already been pointed out ad nauseam, this is not intended to be a power box. Switchers are coming to OS X with few preconceptions; will they *really* be disappointed if their HD takes a fraction of a second or so longer to access?

so whats another inch. another half inch on all sides.
its still friggen small!!!!
and trust me the buzz died once folks around the world realized that a brand new computer that ISNT a laptop comes with a 4200rpm HD.
i was gonna buy one, but now factoring in the cost of a faster HD, and of course a keyboard and mouse to be able to USE the computer.. well its hardly a $499 mac at that point. eMac becomes the more cost conscious option.

have you ever put a 5400 or 7200rpm HD in a laptop that you were using with a 4200rpm HD? its the biggest bottleneck in laptops, and the difference is NOTICABLE. when you aim something at switchers... you wanna make sure that they are taking a step forward (and they are with OSX), but they will certainly feel like they are taking a leap backwards when everything takes longer than their 4 year old pcs to load.

 

[Stratification]

Speed is an issue, but I think a lot of switchers are going to be someone's parents. Their son/daughter gets it for them/persuades them to get it to move away from:

-very old machine
-Windows (spyware/virus/etc.)
-Trips to do maintenance

And gets:

-Easy to use
-small
-Better accessibity (font handling anyone?)

That's where I'm at, trying to persuade my parents in law that it fits them. They're struggling along on a Pentium 233 and Windows 98 at the moment. I guarantee they won't think it's slow.

 

[alexf]

Fan?

Does the mini have a fan? If not, I would assume that it is very quiet.

 

[ruud]

Does the mini have a fan? If not, I would assume that it is very quiet.

From what I've read somewhere (can't remember the exact link) it does have a relatively loud fan, but it only comes on when you stress the system. Just like as in the laptops, I guess.

 

[Stratification]

Does the mini have a fan? If not, I would assume that it is very quiet.

Talks about it in the hands-on here:
http://www.macworld.com/2005/01/news/macminihandson/

 

[jouster]

so whats another inch. another half inch on all sides.
its still friggen small!!!!
and trust me the buzz died once folks around the world realized that a brand new computer that ISNT a laptop comes with a 4200rpm HD.

Once geeks around the world...maybe. I have a family full of PC users. Believe me, not a single one of them has the vaguest idea that HD's have speeds.

i was gonna buy one, but now factoring in the cost of a faster HD, and of course a keyboard and mouse to be able to USE the computer.. well its hardly a $499 mac at that point. eMac becomes the more cost conscious option.

All of which just goes to show that you are not the target market

have you ever put a 5400 or 7200rpm HD in a laptop that you were using with a 4200rpm HD? its the biggest bottleneck in laptops, and the difference is NOTICABLE. when you aim something at switchers... you wanna make sure that they are taking a step forward (and they are with OSX), but they will certainly feel like they are taking a leap backwards when everything takes longer than their 4 year old pcs to load.

I disagree. HD access time is far from the only determinant of performance. Also, do casual users - those at whom the mini is aimed - really care if the app takes a couple of seconds longer to load? I run Office on a TiBook 400. Word takes a while to load - maybe 10 secs. Then I work on it for nine hours. Where do you think the slow downs occur?

They're taking a much bigger leap forward when they rid themselves of malware and can use intuitive bundled apps like iLife. They could care less about speed.

 

[T.Rex]

Unfortunately, it seems to only show ""Basic iMac G5 1.6GHz 512MB" iMac (Flat Panel)"

Try this one.

Amazingly, the mini beats the G5 iMac in such things as the CPU test and the Altivec test!

 

[aswitcher]

Talks about it in the hands-on here:
http://www.macworld.com/2005/01/news/macminihandson/

Nice review.

 

[areyouwishing]

And I'm not talking some no named company. Apple needs to ship these in bulk. Again we are talking a planned 100,000 units per month. So Simple inc is probably not going to be able to handle the orders. I’m talking Seagate, Toshiba, etc. 7200 laptop drives don't ship standard in most laptops and there IS a reason for that.

I think you may have misunderstood me, im talking about a 7200 3.5 drive, not a 2.5 7200 drive. I have no expectation for Apple to stick a 7200 .25 drive in their production units.

 

[jouster]

Try this one.

Amazingly, the mini beats the G5 iMac in such things as the CPU test and the Altivec test!

Wow. That does not show the iMac in a good light at all.

I wonder if it was set to automatic? I didn't notice if they mentioned that or not.

Kinda embarassing for the iMac.

 

[tex210]

For those saying a 3.5 won't fit, you're right... but,
why put it back in that case. What was it... necessity is the mother of invention. I'm sure between all the creative folks around, someone will have some very cool case ideas... (don't forget the 2.5 to 3.5 cable adapter)
For those saying 256 isn't enough, I say, I wish I could just buy the Motherboard. Shipping with low ram and low HD is just fine. They're not going to stay in there anyway.
For those saying 1 dimm isn't enough...
1 gig should be enough for quite a while.

This is not your typical Mac... this thing is better than the mini-itx I was going to build. Because of the current design, we all have an excuse to tinker if we wish. I know some of you think it's blasphemy, but I'm hoping to see non-apple-ish designs come out of this. Don't get me wrong, the mini is beautiful as it is, but how can you resist a gumball machine computer, or one built into a mac classic. Not original ideas I know, but there are some very nice projects out there.

 

[displaced]

Waiting...

This is slightly embarassing... I don't think I've looked forward to a new piece of tech this excitedly for many a year...

I've had a G3/500 iMac for 3 years, and it's been a dream. Every update's gone without a hitch, and the only time it's been reinstalled from scratch is when I took it apart to add a bigger HD. It is my first Mac, and it got me well and truly hooked.

All I've been waiting for is the money to get a machine quick enough for my day-to-day use. I already have a ludicrously quick PC, with some really nice peripherals. But I'd much rather be using OS X.

The Mini's perfect for me. Plenty quick enough for what I want to do, and doesn't come with anything I don't need. There's a gap under my PC's monitor shelf which it'll slide right into, and a USB KVM switch is on its way so I can use my Logitech Cordless Desktop MX Bluetooth keyboard and mouse straight away. In a touch of serendipity, my keyboard's even got dual Mac/Windows symbols on the modifier keys, so the match will be perfect. I wouldn't trade my iiyama 19" CRT monitor for all the flat-panels in China, so the Mac's display's gonna be gorgeous.

Anyone know if OS X's IP-over-Firewire works OK with Windows' IP-over-Firewire? I've already got a multi-Gigabyte folder on my PC stuffed with data I want to move to the Mac -- 802.11g will be annoyingly slow to transfer all that data, and if IP-over-Firewire goes faster than 100Mbit ethernet, then it sounds like the best solution.

Still.. untill mid-February, all I can do is look at the space under the monitor, and grin like an idiot 🙂

 

[SiliconAddict]

regardless- the mac mini is not a stupid purchase- i think i'll be editing and burning movies on it with ease

I don't think anyone here would argue that it’s a stupid purchase. What people are arguing is if Apple had tweaked it just a bit (64MB GPU, 512MB RAM, 5400 drive.) it would be a better purchase without going head to head with a G5 iMac.

 

[SiliconAddict]

some switches are gonna be pissed coming from 4 year old compaqs that had at least 5400rpm desktop drives, gonna hear alot of those "these macs are slow" from the switchers!!!!!!! 😱 🙁

Not really. First off anyone who knows enough about a computer to know what is a good speed on a hard drive is, by and large, enough of a tech geek to know they are going to upgrade the hardware. Second. The bigger concern is RAM. Hard drive speed is all well and fine but 256MB is going to cause the hard drive to thrash and at a 4200 speed...well its a cascading effect. If the purchaser of a mini were to put a 512 stick in the thing they wouldn't feel the effect of that 4200 drive speed nearly as much. (1GB would be pref but you have to lub up to get that memory from Apple.)

Finally I want to find benchmarks on the relative speed difference between a 4200, 5400, and 7200 laptop drive. I've been saying whenever I get a mini I'm going to upgrade the hard drive. For me its simply about squeezing ever last ounce of performance out of the thing but for the average user I really want to know what real world performance gains you get. Honestly with 512MB of RAM a 4200 drive should be fast enough. Even Gates said that this system wasn't designed for any type of speed. Do you really need a 5400 drive to run iTunes, web browse, e-mail, etc? 😕

 

[numediaman]

Hard drive, hard drive. My first Apple (see signature below) came with one floppy drive standard. But I, being a brilliant young man, bought a second floppy. This way I could have the software in one floppy drive and the "write to" floppy in the second drive -- no need to eject the software to save a file.

So the mini has a smaller and slower hard drive . . . well that's the breaks. What I don't understand is this: without a 5" floppy drive, how does one run software? And when does the new OS written by that golfer come out?

 

[displaced]

Longevity

Even when I was a PC-only user, I wouldn't lay down any money for anything without some idea of how I'd use that component over its useful lifetime.

If I bought a new motherboard, I'd ensure I had the option of several relatively cheap CPU upgrades over the upcoming 2 or 3 years, I'm not an incredibly avid gamer, so even a graphics card would last a minimum of 3 years for me.

As I've mentioned before, I've got a 3yr old iMac G3/500. That's turned out to be the best value-for-money computer I've ever owned. Over the years, it's gone up to 512MB RAM, bigger hard disk, bluetooth and AirPort additions, scanner, couple of printers (standard inkjet and a photoprinter). And the machine is still incredibly useful. It marshals all my personal data between my various devices/phones/etc, holds many years of photographic memories, and is the home for my iPod.

My soon-to-arrive Mac Mini's got a similar lifetime mapped out for it in my head. I'm ordering it with built-in bluetooth & WiFi, a Superdrive and 512 MB. It'll probably stay in its current config for at least a year. After that, the putty knives will come out, and it'll get more RAM and a bigger HD. I'm supposing that the present 1GB RAM limit isn't a hardware limitation, rather that DIMMs > 1GB are rare, if available at all. A year and a half down the line, that may change. It'll benefit from better software (OS X updates, iLife '06 or whatever). Most importantly, it'll keep doing the job I want it for now, and will get better at those tasks as I add relatively inexpensive upgrades -- the cost of which is minimal over the 3-year timeframe.

Its form-factor is also a definite bonus. My iMac really isn't going to perform in any other role than it is now. And believe me, I'm still very happy at what it's grown into. It's serving web pages, sharing files, firewalling my broadband, and sharing internet access over my AirPort. My AirPort Express has given it yet another trick -- streaming music to my stereo too. But if I ever replace it (my Mini's intended to complement, not replace it), there's not an awful lot else I can set it up for.

The Mini's a different proposition. Anywhere I've got a TV or a spare monitor, it can find a home. After however many years of service it gives me before I buy something to do its current job, it'll still be useful. Maybe as a mini-server. Or a networked multimedia receiver for any TV -- like an AP Express on steroids. There's plenty that it'll be able to do long after Apple have moved on to the bigger and better.

So this Mac Mini is going to have a long and useful life ahead of it. And if it even comes close to the value my 'ancient' iMac's given me, I'll be more than happy.

 

[T.Rex]

Finally I want to find benchmarks on the relative speed difference between a 4200, 5400, and 7200 laptop drive.

http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20031031/index.html

This isn't an ideal comparison, but it is the only benchmark i've come across that compares laptop drives this way. Just ignore the stuff about battery life comparison.

I think a 7200rpm drive might be a nice upgrade, but I don't think its as huge an issue as some people have made it out to be. I mean, you don't hear people complaining that their iBooks or PowerBooks are unusable because they have 4200rpm hard drives, do you? And those machines cost upwards of $1000. If these machines don't come with 5400rpm hard drives standard, why should the $500 Mac mini?

Mind you, it would be nice for apple to offer faster harddrives as a BTO option, as it does for the 15" and 17" PBs. Though in reality, if you really need a faster hd, you really shouldn't be looking at the mini at all - or if you will be editing lots of videos, just get an external 7200rpm firewire drive.

 

[dongmin]

Do you really need a 5400 drive to run iTunes, web browse, e-mail, etc? 😕

For surfing and email, no. But for running iLife? Hell, yeah.

 

[T.Rex]

For surfing and email, no. But for running iLife? Hell, yeah.

You're right, no one who has a laptop has ever successfully used iLife.