Overall Mac Mini experiences?

[eroda]

For clarification, the "disk drive is loud as hell" comment is almost certainly referring to the optical drive, not the hard drive. The hard drive is almost silent, but the optical is extremely loud. I don't have to use it much though, and besides, it's a slot loader so I can forgive it because of its coolness .

its not that the drive is loud its that the machine is so quiet when compared to the opticla drive put that drive in a regular PM and see how loud it is

 

[Westside guy]

Thanks all!

512MB is a given. I told her that was the single MUST HAVE upgrade.

She's been a Windows user for quite a while, running this ancient Compaq that's still got Windows 95 on it. ANYTHING will likely seem speedy by comparison.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Thanks all!

512MB is a given. I told her that was the single MUST HAVE upgrade.

She's been a Windows user for quite a while, running this ancient Compaq that's still got Windows 95 on it. ANYTHING will likely seem speedy by comparison.

You are welcome.

My other half just had to reinstall Win XP after me doing it for him a few months back. Even though he swears he never went to any sites for the adware viruses he ended up with. He is too pig headed to take the eMac we bought for him back!

 

[EGT]

Thanks all!

512MB is a given. I told her that was the single MUST HAVE upgrade.

She's been a Windows user for quite a while, running this ancient Compaq that's still got Windows 95 on it. ANYTHING will likely seem speedy by comparison.

Ohh dear!! She'll love OS X when she gets the mini!!

A friend of mine got one a few weeks ago. I must say, its a beautiful piece of engineering!

 

[jayscheuerle]

its not that the drive is loud its that the machine is so quiet when compared to the opticla drive put that drive in a regular PM and see how loud it is

Slot load drives ARE just loud. It's worth the sacrifice I guess...

 

[Westside guy]

My other half just had to reinstall Win XP after me doing it for him a few months back. Even though he swears he never went to any sites for the adware viruses he ended up with. He is too pig headed to take the eMac we bought for him back!

I must admit that XP is part of the equation in this. My sis is one of the people for whom I'm the "tech support". She knows that I'm getting rather tired of dealing with the various XP problems and oddities people seem to frequently have. Her still running Win95 (on a Pentium 120!) has actually saved her a bit of grief; but there's just so much that OS can't do (or at least can't do well). Put a fork in that computer; it's done!

We've got an XP box at home that hasn't been too much trouble; but having direct control over it makes it easy to enforce good practice - plus my wife is pretty good about not doing the silly things some users seem hell-bent to do. However it's not like I can set up a group policy and lock down my sister's computer (or my mom's, or my friends', or ...). Okay, technically I could, but politically...

Plus having had the past 1.5 years to compare OS X and XP side by side, using them both with the same types of hardware and software - it's made it easy to sell OS X on its own merits (as opposed to going the negative route: "Use OS X because of XP's shortcomings").

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

I must admit that XP is part of the equation in this. My sis is one of the people for whom I'm the "tech support". She knows that I'm getting rather tired of dealing with the various XP problems and oddities people seem to frequently have. Her still running Win95 (on a Pentium 120!) has actually saved her a bit of grief; but there's just so much that OS can't do (or at least can't do well). Put a fork in that computer; it's done!

We've got an XP box at home that hasn't been too much trouble; but having direct control over it makes it easy to enforce good practice - plus my wife is pretty good about not doing the silly things some users seem hell-bent to do. However it's not like I can set up a group policy and lock down my sister's computer (or my mom's, or my friends', or ...). Okay, technically I could, but politically...

Plus having had the past 1.5 years to compare OS X and XP side by side, using them both with the same types of hardware and software - it's made it easy to sell OS X on its own merits (as opposed to going the negative route: "Use OS X because of XP's shortcomings").

Amen on so many levels! In the 2= years that we have have OSX and XP under the same roof, we are on the 2nd or 3rd install of XP due to nothing other than bad emails or websites. I have only had to reinstall OSX due to my not wanting the OS to do what it should do, without my ***** it up.

 

[cheekyspanky]

My Mac mini is running well, had it almost a month now and its only been turned off 3 or 4 times and that was for software updates.

I get the beachball of death quite often, but i do tend to have a lot of programs running at once, and my fan seems to be pretty noisy but other than that all is well.

I haven't really used iLife much, (iTunes is the exception of course) but I feel iPhoto could be improved - with a faster opening time and some more Picasa2 style features!

 

[homerjward]

i don't get why people are saying exposé is choppy and the graphics is bad, etc. i have the same gpu in my emac and exposé is fine, along with many games including halo at mediumish settings; the only game i have trouble with is a few n64 games under sixty force. perhaps the 7200rpm disk in my computer somehow affects the graphics? id certainly trade a little less graphic performance for a non-deafening fan.