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What is the attraction to the mini?

B

brewser

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 8, 2006
130
3
I may be missing something but what is the attraction for the Mac Mini? I have heard people use them for media center but I don't understand how they use them in that capacity. Also there is no Blu-Ray Disc support so that doesn't work well for HD.
Can someone please explain this and maybe there is a link that refers to how the mini can be used as a media center.
Thanks.
 
check out www.plexapp.com for a great front end

the mini is tiny, quiet, and energy efficient, and most people don't care about blue ray or have a ps3 or other capable player and also you can run blue ray rips on the computer which is the draw to me, no more physical media, i doubt i'll ever play a dvd on it as all my dvds are ripped to a couple of 1 tb drives in an external enclosure
 
I want one for the desk I'm sitting at right now.

I only have a macbook pro. whenever i want to move it i need to unplug - speakers, DVI, keyboard, Firewire, HDD.

Thankgod I have a AEB or i'd have a printer and ethernet to unplug as well.

A mac mini is more convenient and less mess.
 
robotartfashion said:
the mini is tiny, quiet, and energy efficient...you can run blue ray rips on the computer... all my dvds are ripped to a couple of 1 tb drives in an external enclosure
Click to expand...

I don't get it either. I can build a PC with better specs, blu-ray, just as quiet, and for less. The only difference is that it would have a larger case (but then it could use 3.5" hard drives, internal TV-tuner, etc)

the only appeal I really see is the Apple remote.:confused:
 
thejadedmonkey said:
I don't get it either. I can build a PC with better specs, blu-ray, just as quiet, and for less. The only difference is that it would have a larger case (but then it could use 3.5" hard drives, internal TV-tuner, etc)

the only appeal I really see is the Apple remote.:confused:
Click to expand...

Some of us don't want to hassle with building anything. We just want to buy and use. Also, some of us don't find Blu-ray such a big deal. Obviously, if someone wants advanced specs, they'll opt for a full-blown desktop. For its size, capabilities and low price, I think the Mini is a great deal!
 
Small footprint, quiet, OS X.

Yes, you can build yourself a PC or buy a Dell for less. You'll be hard-pressed to find something that performs as well as the Mini in that form factor for much less, though.

As far as no Blu-Ray? I don't care. All my DVDs are ripped to a fileserver (Linux, RAID 5'd, etc.), and I'm not one of those videophiles that squees with orgasmic delight over a couple more pixels.
 
thejadedmonkey said:
I don't get it either. I can build a PC with better specs, blu-ray, just as quiet, and for less. The only difference is that it would have a larger case (but then it could use 3.5" hard drives, internal TV-tuner, etc)

the only appeal I really see is the Apple remote.:confused:
Click to expand...

ya, but the pc case isn't going to be the form factor of the mini

and i don't mind building a computer (used to do it all the time in my pc days) but i don't want to hassle with an unsupported hackintosh and i don't want to go back to windows, some of us just F*N hate microsoft products,

I switched in the g4 powerpc days (about 5 years ago now i think?) and I'll never go back....period

that being said, i still run windows under bootcamp on my mac pro as i dabble in day trading on the futures market, but other than that, forget it

the mini is a perfect little media server as as i said prior, i already have a ps3 for blue rays, but i prefer rips to physical media at this stage in the game
 
robotartfashion said:
the mini is tiny, quiet, and energy efficient, and most people don't care about blue ray or have a ps3 or other capable player and also you can run blue ray rips on the computer which is the draw to me, no more physical media, i doubt i'll ever play a dvd on it as all my dvds are ripped to a couple of 1 tb drives in an external enclosure
Click to expand...

You can store stuff on the PS3 too or play from a USB stick, it supports lots of formats. Granted, it doesn't take a terabyte size drive because there aren't any in 2.5" size. You could always hook up a USB external drive though. Pricewice the PS3 is a great media center though.

To me the main attraction of the Mini is the small size and quiet performance. I think it's a great piece of gear for many because you don't need to have a big noisy box underneath the table. I suppose this is the same thing that attracts people to the iMac.

Pricewise I'm a bit disappointed with the new ones though. For nearly 600€ I'd have expected at least 2GB RAM and a 160 or 250 GB HDD. Also I see no sense in having the Mini-DVI connector there, why didn't they just have two mini-DisplayPort connectors?
 
Give me a break!!

thejadedmonkey said:
I don't get it either. I can build a PC with better specs, blu-ray, just as quiet, and for less. :
Click to expand...

Why? Oh Why?!!!!!

Why do people insist on bringing this up time and time again?? Is it that hard to just move forward with the assumption that this being MACrumors, most of us dont care about the PC anyone can make, and how much cheaper and better that would be?

And yes, if you were to attach a value to having to stare at an ugly, black&silver pc case under ones entertainment center, that alone would top the price tag of the mini...
 
Ok so here it was for me. I am an old PC guy that built his last machine piece meal. Yeah it was fun finding hardwar conflicts, why this would POST but that wouldnt. In the end I had a great system about half the price of comperable out of the box stuff you buy at a store. Well 7 years later I dont really care about benchmarks I dont read the spec sheet as a holy grail.

I bought a mini about three weeks ago and I dont really care about the update. Why you ask? Because my current mini does an amazing job at everything I want it to do. Surf the web, stream HD content and edit my home video. So why would I cry that the new systems are out and can do more for less. Thats life. I will buy another mini, probably the 599 entry level as a dedicated home theater unit sometime in the future.

One last point! My cousin bought a nice dell with some bitchen specs for about 200 less than mini and it even came with a keyboard mouse and monitor. I mean bitchen specs 2.XX processor 4 gigs of ram and a huge 500gig HD. He can play games on it and it did good. But when he hooked up his video cam it slowed to a crawl and it seemed like it was taking forever. It seems like anytime you do processor intensive apps it would do this. He was pissed but is stuck with it. But guess what he can still play games better than me.
 
A capable file/media/printer/internet/etc server that uses less power than a light bulb and makes no noise.

The Mini is *perfect* for some applications. Despite it being much less powerful than the other Macs, it is still a very capable computer, and can run iLife very acceptable. It is also a very inexpensive Mac.

I love the Mini :)
 
I go back and forth in deciding between the mini and the iMac. I'm leaning towards the mini because I have an HP monitor and an Apple keyboard already that I use with my MacBook.

I also like the fact that it's small so should I really want an iMac later on, I can still use the mini as a media center or better yet give it to my mom. She hates big computers and a mini would be a great way to get her to switch to OS X.
 
I like it because I currently switch between my PC and Mac which share the same screen, kbd and mouse. iMacs don't handle that sort of thing very well and a new tower is more $$ than I would like to shell out.
 
robotartfashion said:
check out www.plexapp.com for a great front end

the mini is tiny, quiet, and energy efficient, and most people don't care about blue ray or have a ps3 or other capable player and also you can run blue ray rips on the computer which is the draw to me, no more physical media, i doubt i'll ever play a dvd on it as all my dvds are ripped to a couple of 1 tb drives in an external enclosure
Click to expand...

Yup!! Mac mini + Plex + bluray mkv (free movies) is bluray movie heaven!
 
With the 2.2 CPU, and 4 GB of RAM, my guess is that the Mini will perform the same as a comparable Macbook. Wouldn't you agree that's pretty good performance?
 
zomgit'ssoshinyimusthaveonenow is part of the reason.

In all seriousness, though it is:
  • Conservative in its use of space,
  • Quiet,
  • And attractively designed...
Oh, and runs OS X.
 
For me, I already have dual 24" screens running off 2 towers. I dont think I could handle a full sized imac. But a mac mini, with a kvm would be ideal
So it is a switcher machine
 
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