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Why get a mac mini?
- Thread starter brianr19
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just a question my friend, no need to get hasty. especially since other minis go for 400 on the refurbs and is a good deal....aside that
the new mini could do anything your white macbook could do. just as long as you have all the externals
the new mini could do anything your white macbook could do. just as long as you have all the externals
well the screen just makes me angry. its ok for a while, but then i just start to hate it.. lol. why would apple put glass on it. i really dont see the advantage. i could hook it up to an external display but that just defeats the purpose of the built in screen. not to mention i dont have much desk space to work with here. its dumb that i have to wait until i can afford a mbp with a matte screen.
Apple has always cheaped out when it comes to its consumer portables, and they always will. Compare an ibooks screen to that of a powerbook. Ditto for macbook and macbook pro or macbook air. Apple just likes to subtly upsell you to the next model in whatever you're buying from them.
That said, screen aside, the new white book is a nice package for the price. You're going to have to go on craigslist or ebay to find an apple laptop with a nicer screen for anywhere near that price.
I think I'd rather just find a decent quality lcd monitor on sale and hook that up to the macbook when I was at my desk. You'd have to get one anyway for the mini, and you'd be giving up portability for only a very modest savings.
That said, screen aside, the new white book is a nice package for the price. You're going to have to go on craigslist or ebay to find an apple laptop with a nicer screen for anywhere near that price.
I think I'd rather just find a decent quality lcd monitor on sale and hook that up to the macbook when I was at my desk. You'd have to get one anyway for the mini, and you'd be giving up portability for only a very modest savings.
If you don't need portability, the min adds a FW800 port for faster external drives. Otherwise, you could hook up an external matte monitor to the MB for use at home.
I do have both, an old Core Duo mini and a late 2008 macbook 2.4GHz. Aside from being faster (of course), I think the macbook is much more versatile. The mini has the advantage of being much better equipped with ports, e.g. 5 usb + fw 800 + two video ports. So if you want two displays, you need the mini. However, if portability is of use to you, and you do NOT need two displays, maybe stay with the mb.
In terms of expandability, the number of options seems to be about equally close to zero.
No, you have the one option apple wants you to have: you can skip over to the apple store and buy a more expensive machine or machines.
Which would be a MacPro, as an iMac does not really offer that many more options.... so I guess that might indeed be the concept.
you could still take it back and get anything that you want. strange question to ask as they are completely different products - laptop vs desktop. you need to decide how important portability is to you and then your decision is made - simple as that. who cares how powerful each is unless you can use it where you plan to most of the time.
now a mini vs imac is a whole different question that you didn't ask...
Portability is the only reason to get the MB over the new mini. If you take out the portability issue, it's the mini all the way 
Here's what you get with the mini:
1)More ports - very important. Way more.
2)FW800 - whoa!
3)vastly better expandability options - you can hook in more external monitors (2), instead of being stuck with the stupid MB screen. You can get really nice big monitors pretty cheap these days. Also, you can hook up with any number of keyboards, some of which will be better than the MB keyboard, mice etc.
And you're not paying more money (maybe even less) for the mini + externals compared to the MB.
Really, why get the MB? If you answer the obvious - "portability", then I'd say you are better off with a MBP, since that's a better computer and still portable (of course, you pay more $).
If you don't need the portability, go for the mini. If you need portability, go for the MBP. If you need portability, but can't afford to get the MBP, I guess you're stuck with the MB, and then I feel very, very, very sorry for you.
Here's what you get with the mini:
1)More ports - very important. Way more.
2)FW800 - whoa!
3)vastly better expandability options - you can hook in more external monitors (2), instead of being stuck with the stupid MB screen. You can get really nice big monitors pretty cheap these days. Also, you can hook up with any number of keyboards, some of which will be better than the MB keyboard, mice etc.
And you're not paying more money (maybe even less) for the mini + externals compared to the MB.
Really, why get the MB? If you answer the obvious - "portability", then I'd say you are better off with a MBP, since that's a better computer and still portable (of course, you pay more $).
If you don't need the portability, go for the mini. If you need portability, go for the MBP. If you need portability, but can't afford to get the MBP, I guess you're stuck with the MB, and then I feel very, very, very sorry for you.
Isn't there an issue with playing protected Hollywood content on non Apple monitors?
If there's an issue it would apply equally to the mini and the MB (unless you propose to watch movies directly on the very 13" screen the OP is complaining about), so the MB has no advantage over the mini wrt. this issue.