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Mac Mini Released

gco212 said:
I just noticed this. The mac mini has only two USB ports. If one is for the mouse and one is for the keyboard, then none are left for the other things. USB flash drives are gaining popularity, this might be an oversight on Apple's part.
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It may be an oversight...if all USB hubs are incompatible with the Mini. But they aren't, so I wouldn't worry. 😉
 
Apple!Freak said:
I am making the switch! Now I'm not sure which to get. I think I will go with the iMac G5 but I'm not sure. It's between the iMac G5 20" and the Mac Mini 1.42Ghz.
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Definitley go for the iMac G5 20. I just got one for my longtime-PC-using biz partner and he absolutely loves it. It's a stunning and powerful computer. He is so glad to be rid of Windoze and his old bulky, beige Dell PC.
 
Hi gang, Just wanted to chime in on this subject.

I'm a webdeveloper that has been in the business for years. A year and a half ago, my office purchased a G4 1ghz apple for me to "test" pages out on. A few months later, that test machine became my primary machine and my windows machine became my "test" machine. (just hang in there)

The rumor that this new Mac Mini was coming out really created a buzz with me and every mac user I know. You see, all of my friends came from the windows world, and all of them are developers or programmers or network people. We never owned macs (personally) because of the price. If you're technical, you just "build a majorly kickass computer" yourself. For home, that is what all of us do.

This new price point is "throw away." We can buy one of these for home - run it for 2 years, and throw it out. Do it all over again with the latest "mini."

Yes, Apple has finally figured it out. This computer gives us the latest software in a Mac wrapper with a windows price to boot. My wife will greenlight me on this thing for sure, and yes - I was one of those people that told family members to just get a Dell. Now I don't have to help them fix their computers anymore. Times have changed.

They are gonna sell a ton of these things.
 
I have to say that the Mac mini looks nice. I even called it iMac mini before it was released I should say that I was in the same boat in that regard. 🙂

Mac mini pro:

1. Style, Form, Size, Ease of Use.
2. Price.


Mac mini con:

1. External PSU brick.
2. Wires.
3. No AirPort Extreme Card.
4. No SuperDrive.
5. 1Gig Ram Limit and Apple Tech only installable.


The iBook and the Mac mini have a lot in common, however when comparing price and features I will say the iBook 12" is a way better deal you get:

1. LCD screen.
2. Microphone.
3. Speakers(even though they are not great).
4. a Keyboard (even though some people complain).
5. a Track pad.
6. AirPort Extreme Card included.
7. More Ram 1280MB
8. Mobility. 🙂

This is not brain science the iBook is a way better deal than the Mac mini. For switcher that this machine its targeted its great I guess.

The good news is that the Video Card even with 32MB of ram can drive a 20 and 23 Cinema Display that is great. This system most likely will only handle one display nothing more, though I could be wrong in this regard.

Don't know why they didn't incorporate the PSU into the case. All this seems is like a Cube 2.

This is good news for the G4 chip, which means that it has a lot of life ahead of it.

The PowerBooks really look like the worst deal at present with the introduction of the Mac mini. 🙂
 
WOW!

The Mac mini is an amazing piece of kit, I've got a Power Mac G5 here and an iBook so I wont be buying one, but this would be the perfect Mac for my GF. I've got a spare Apple mouse/keyboard lying around and she's got a LCD so it's all good.

A quick question though would the 1.42 GHz model be noticeably faster than the 1.2?

A final comment all the people here talking about getting a Mini mac and a AL ACD are you guys on crack? Why would you even consider doing this? Just buy a Power Mac or an iMac and be done with it.
 
risc said:
A quick question though would the 1.42 GHz model be noticeably faster than the 1.2?
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Barely any difference in speed. It's almost on par to each other. 🙂

1.25GHz compared to 1.42GHz not much of a difference. 🙂
 
cgc said:
Buy up a few of these little guys and X-Grid 'em.
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And network with what a FireWire Hub or Ethernet Hub. 🙂

They will work in an XGrid however you will need a Hub. 🙂
 
Haven't read through all the pages but...

Does anyone else find it VERY PECULIAR that Apple is bundling AppleWorks with the Mac mini?

Copied from the tech specs:

"iLife ‘05 (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand), AppleWorks, Quicken 2005 for Mac, Nanosaur 2, Marble Blast Gold and Apple Hardware Test"

So iWork is not replacing AppleWorks? Why wouldn't Apple want to bundle iWork so that people adopt Pages?
 
kenaustus said:
For me this is a no brainer - go with the G5 iMac. The iMac mini is targeted at a market that wants to try the Mac for little money. If you are up to the money you are showing then you'll get a faster processor, a larger HD and performance will bump up even more when Tiger comes out.
Click to expand...


Yeah, I agree. I need something to replace to my somewhat powerful PC. Currently I'm running a P4 2Ghz Processor with 512mb, a Radeon 9200 128mb card and Audigy 2 sound card.

My only concern about the iMac is the Game performance IE Video Card and the Sound quality IE Sound Card.

I am somewhat of an Audiophile and have around $300 headphones so I need a powerful sound card like the Creative Audigy2. Now do you think the iMac will supply me with a good enough sound card that compares with the Audigy2?

Next is the Video card. Does the iMac have enough power to feed power hungry games like Halo?

Thanks!
 
ADC Connection

Would I be able to hook this thing up to an ADC display? I like the looks of the mini, but if I am forced to buy Apple's 100 dollar DVI to ADC converter to use the machine, the attractive price begins to grow ugly.
 
m a y a said:
I have to say that the Mac mini looks nice. I even called it iMac mini before it was released I should say that I was in the same boat in that regard. 🙂

Mac mini pro:

1. Style, Form, Size, Ease of Use.
2. Price.


Mac mini con:

1. External PSU brick.
2. Wires.
3. No AirPort Extreme Card.
4. No SuperDrive.
5. 1Gig Ram Limit and Apple Tech only installable.


The iBook and the Mac mini have a lot in common, however when comparing price and features I will say the iBook 12" is a way better deal you get:

1. LCD screen.
2. Microphone.
3. Speakers(even though they are not great).
4. a Keyboard (even though some people complain).
5. a Track pad.
6. AirPort Extreme Card included.
7. More Ram 1280MB
8. Mobility. 🙂

This is not brain science the iBook is a way better deal than the Mac mini. For switcher that this machine its targeted its great I guess.

The good news is that the Video Card even with 32MB of ram can drive a 20 and 23 Cinema Display that is great. This system most likely will only handle one display nothing more, though I could be wrong in this regard.

Don't know why they didn't incorporate the PSU into the case. All this seems is like a Cube 2.

This is good news for the G4 chip, which means that it has a lot of life ahead of it.

The PowerBooks really look like the worst deal at present with the introduction of the Mac mini. 🙂
Click to expand...

The Mac mini IS available in either GHz configuration with a SuperDrive for $100.
Airport extreme and Bluetooth are also available upgrades.

The Apple Store configurator shows what's availabe.
 
Pics of case

I found these pics of the Mac mini case. I sure hope there is a way to open this sucker and upgrade the ram yourself, and swap the hard drive out. I am hoping that it is a 3.5" HD in there because I would love to swap in a extra 160gb drive I have here. Any idea how quiet this thing will be? I hope it is much quieter then my eMac is now. I can hear it when it is on when I am at the other end of my house 😛
 

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MontyZ said:
But, I think it would be "cuter" to call it the Mini Mac.
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Maybe, but I think they may have named it "Mac mini" since they have "iPod mini" and "mini Mac" wouldn't sound right in contrast to "iPod mini"

MontyZ said:
A bit odd that it comes with no keyboard or mouse, though. And if you need a monitor, too, you might as well just buy the new iMac G5, nearly the same price for a more powerful computer. But, I think this is a great way to finally compete with the likes of Dell.
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Yea, it is a bit odd that it doesn't come with a keyboard/mouse, but it may have to do with keeping the price down and as someone else said, to have a "cuter" package design.

You don't have to spend $1000 and get the 20" Cinema Display (or other high end display). You can get a cheaper 15" LCD or there abouts. You can even get this LCD, for example, for about $300; $700 cheaper than the 20" Cinema Display.

I know you can't do this, but can you imagine putting dual 30" displays on the Mac mini 😱 🙄 That would be some sight 😉
 
I can see the future and the future is.....

Seeing tens of thousands of these units being shipped to public schools around the World for educational use. 🙂
 
nagromme said:
You have feel bad for this guy: http://billpalmer.net/

""Headless iMac rumor is just as phony as it ever was"

"it's a pointless product with no target market whose only purpose would be to confuse potential buyers about the merits of Apple's other Macintosh products and thus make them less likely to buy a Macintosh at all. Steve Jobs is neither an idiot nor hopelessly out of touch. I gave the headless iMac rumor a zero percent chance of being true prior to the lawsuit, and I give a zero percent chance of being true now."

"After years of the tiny irrelevant "geek caucus" wasting keystroke after keystoke trying to convince Apple to remove the monitor from the iMac, such futility finally gave way to flat-out lies on the part of the frustrated. If you can't convince Apple make the product, then why not just make up fake rumors about its impending release in an attempt to build support for the product and force[/i] Apple into building it?"

"Mac enthusiast sites whose deep geek underpinnings prevented them from understanding that outside of the Geek Caucus, no one in the real world gives a damn about having their monitor separate from their CPU."

I imagine he will change tacks to "Apple screwed up big-time and nobody will buy these." 🙄 (The MWSF recap on another site of his mentions how the mouse and keyboard being optional will "confuse" people so much they will buy a Dell instead 🙄 )

But hey, he took a firm position 🙂
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LOVE THAT!!!!!

I really think this machine is great. My 700mhz G4 iMac with a 40 gig hard drive and 80 gig external drive could be greatly improved. Unfortunately the all in one iMac 15" LCD can't be used... I'd love to get this in June if they stick a G5 in it and ship it with Tiger and all the other goodies. My wife is due in August and that would be just in time to get a Camcorder and burn DVDs etc for all the family to see.
 
FFTT said:
The Mac mini IS available in either GHz configuration with a SuperDrive for $100.
Airport extreme and Bluetooth are also available upgrades.

The Apple Store configurator shows what's availabe.
Click to expand...

Not at the price point they are tooting it for. 🙂

Those are added, I can also add FASTER SuperDrive into the iBook. 🙂

And already have APE card built-in. 🙂
 
(The MWSF recap on another site of his mentions how the mouse and keyboard being optional will "confuse" people so much they will buy a Dell instead)
Click to expand...

That has to be the most stupidest thing I've heard in a while. How can someone get confused by getting an optional (or keyboard/mouse they have already) keyboard/mouse. It's not too hard:

• Order Mac mini.
• Order keyboard/mouse option
• Checkout

Dam that was confusing, screw that, I'm going to Dell 🙄

(yes I know they're more to ordering than that, but that's just an example 😉)
 
tech4all said:
That has to be the most stupidest thing I've heard in a while. How can someone get confused by getting an optional (or keyboard/mouse they have already) keyboard/mouse. It's not too hard:

• Order Mac mini.
• Order keyboard/mouse option
• Checkout

Dam that was confusing, screw that, I'm going to Dell 🙄

(yes I know they're more to ordering than that, but that's just an example 😉)
Click to expand...

That was confusing can you repeat that. 😉 🙂

Do I need a monitor too? 😉 🙂 😛
 
digitalbiker said:
... value buyers will buy a cheap $449.00 Dell that includes monitor, keyboard, mouse, faster cpu, equivalent gpu, word perfect, and XP home media package.
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I see no such thing at Dell.com. Getting anywhere CLOSE to the Mac Mini bundle put me over $600 at Dell, without a monitor and without antivirus software, which is a must for Windows. And it STILL lacked a real GPU with any VRAM at all. It also, of course, lacked OS X and anything remotely as good as iLife '05. And lastly, it was big and loud and ugly 😀 Options? No SuperDrive possible. No concealed wireless antennas. Etc. etc.
 
Its not like Dell's site has no upgrade options.

JOE WINDOWS USER:

What this option of Windows 2000, Windows XP Home, Windows XP Professional? I just want Solitaire.
 
I am very surpised that no one has brought up the fact that there is no audio input on this machine, a must for GarageBand IMHO.

That was the dealbreaker for me.

I was at the checkout stage before I noticed. 🙁
 
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