Wanna get a mini but, I need clarification..

[Zer0Force]

I'm currently in high school and, Ive been thinking about getting a Mac for awhile but, they prices are bit high so I put it off countless times. My friend told me about the mac minis and, after looking at them I became very excited because the price was good and, it takes up to virtually no space.

I happen to be really into art(I plan to goto art school) and, I have my heart set on getting this but, I'm worried about a few things:


Will the mac mini be able to run photoshop,gimp and blender without any/little lag?

Will I be able to use a tablet without any hassle?

Can I use my old dell 17" LCD monitor or will I need a apple one?

Should I get a external hard drive or will 80GB be enough for simple photoshop/blender use?

I also heard that they might update the mac specs, would this cause the price of the current mac mini to drop a significant amount in price?

 

[Sun Baked]

A price drop is not guaranteed, all depends on how much stock is left.

But check the special deals section for savings on refurbished machines and old stock.

If you are going to run Photoshop, you will want to pick up the Core Duo version at the very least from the older stock.

The Mini/MacBook/MacBook Pro/iMac are basically all the same machine technically -- just configured a bit different.

However, anything you run that is GPU dependent on the integrated graphics (GMA 950) machines will suffer a bit.

Photoshop is not GPU dependent, which is why you want the Duo version.

---

Use the Dell monitor.

And 80GB is going to seem small, and the mini requires a notebook drive -- though USB2/FW is a good alternative for massive storage.

 

[risc]

There are a few problems with the Mac mini for what you want. The first problem is the mini like all of the current Apple Mac range is an Intel based machine _BUT_ Photoshop is only available as a PPC app and Rosetta support leaves something to be desired. The next version of Photoshop will be Universal and will work great on the mini. That brings us to the next problem the onboard Intel GMA 950 video is very bad at 3D so you may have issues trying to use Blender.

If the tablet you want to use is supported by OS X it will work fine with the Mac mini.

Your Dell monitor will work with the mini; the mini supports both DVI and VGA out of the box.

The HDD question is 1 only you can answer; so get the mini if you wish and if you need more storage you can add external storage later. The mini supports FW400 and USB2 for external storage. It also has GB LAN if you want to use network storage.

If Apple update the specs they will just get rid of the old machines from the store and offer the new ones. You may then be lucky and pick up an older model in a sale somewhere. This is what I did when I picked up a mini a couple of weeks back, I purchased the old 1.66 GHz Core Duo SuperDrive model for a steal. I used the money I saved to buy more memory, a bigger internal notebook drive, and a Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz processor. So far I've only bothered putting the memory in but the HDD and C2D are there to be installed when I get a bit of free time.

 

[Scarlet Fever]

i have a Core-Duo 1.83GHz MacBook and i use Photoshop CS1, and it does have a tendency to lag. It isn't painfully slow, but it isn't breaking render records either.

If you are really serious about your photoshop work, save the pennies until you can get a late-model G5 powermac or a mac pro. They will probably save you money over the long term, as you don't have to upgrade your machine as often, and there is much more room for upgrading.

I think your display should work with the mac mini. Is it DVI or VGA? If it is VGA, you will need an adapter for it. DVI will plug straight in.

I have a 60GB HDD, and after i factor in my 'essentials' (iTunes, pics, apps, etc) i am left trying to delete anything remotely useless. I reckon stick with whatever comes with it and buy a good external drive. FW400 will be essential here.

The tablet should work fine. I'd check with the manufacturer beforehand, though.

Good on you for making the effort to switch!

 

[risc]

I think your display should work with the mac mini. Is it DVI or VGA? If it is VGA, you will need an adapter for it. DVI will plug straight in.

The mini comes with a VGA to DVI convertor.

 

[Zer0Force]

Thanks for the replys guys.

i have a Core-Duo 1.83GHz MacBook and i use Photoshop CS1, and it does have a tendency to lag. It isn't painfully slow, but it isn't breaking render records either.

If you are really serious about your photoshop work, save the pennies until you can get a late-model G5 powermac or a mac pro. They will probably save you money over the long term, as you don't have to upgrade your machine as often, and there is much more room for upgrading.

I think your display should work with the mac mini. Is it DVI or VGA? If it is VGA, you will need an adapter for it. DVI will plug straight in.

I have a 60GB HDD, and after i factor in my 'essentials' (iTunes, pics, apps, etc) i am left trying to delete anything remotely useless. I reckon stick with
whatever comes with it and buy a good external drive. FW400 will be essential here.

The tablet should work fine. I'd check with the manufacturer beforehand, though.

Good on you for making the effort to switch!

I'd love to get a mac pro but, I'm trying to save all the money I can to buy a car. I can barely afford a mac mini but, a friend agreed to pay whatever I couldn't scrape together.

I was thinking about the option to wait until October and use birthday money and such to go ahead and possibly buy a mac book. I probably can get by by using my Celeron until then but, windows is just insanely unstable and fails at everything.

*sigh* I don't know, I'll think of something...maybe I can get a used mac book off ebay.


Edit: Apple has it so I can pay a monthly fee. Is it like other places where I pay more then its worth or, will I just pay 1099 and be done with it? Also, does it only work if I have a Juniper Visa Card?