Mac Mini yes or no?

[mukeliller]

I have been debating getting a mac mini myself!

I would use it to hook up to my lcd widescreen and get a wireless keyboard and mouse so i can chill in living room and use it...


so far my wii has proven to be a good stand in though :smilewinkgrin:

 

[Gaz]

ok heres a fact of life. Pcs are better than macs. Macs are more expensive and look better but are much slower for what you pay. Plus you cant upgrade them. Do yourself a favor and get a PC. as said by a editor of PC world "PC and Mac are virtually the same they can best be looked at as 2 computers whering lipstick, Mac just has more lipstick on"

ok i will re-write your text,
"ok heres an opinion of mine. Pcs aren't better than macs and Macs arn't better than PC's. Macs are more expensive and look better but are much slower for what you pay, but then again the OS doesn't need as much power to perform simple functions that vista has only just got. Plus you cant upgrade them as easily. as said by a editor of PC world "PC and Mac are virtually the same they can best be looked at as 2 computers whering lipstick, Mac just has more lipstick on" but that doesn't matter, because he works at PC World and knows nothing."

seriously please don't state facts you have no idea about..

right i have a mac mini, 1.66GHz Core Duo, with 1GB Ram, 80GB HDD, and airport. with the superdrive, i also have a 200GB External HDD, with a 5.1 Sound card as well. Mac mini's are great value for money, and i love mine, it does everything i ever wanted. i use high end programs such as photoshop, i watch TV on it, create websites, remote connected to my servers, IMing is greate on it. only thing that isn't so good is gaming, but the only gaming i do is online poker, and theres plenty of options for that. Don't forget you can use boot Camp or phraells (sp?) to run XP or something along those lines.

at the end of the day it's an opinion, but don't knock it till u've tried it!

 

[Valadrim]

im only saying from personal experiance (im on my mac now) that pc's tend to work better for stuff like office programs and other things. but macs are better for pictures music and video. and yes, you can dual boot with parallels, but that doesnt give all the featues of a pc.

if you arre buying a mac, i would buy an imac instead of a mac mini to be honest

 

[the_flood502]

ok heres a fact of life. Pcs are better than macs. Macs are more expensive and look better but are much slower for what you pay. Plus you cant upgrade them. Do yourself a favor and get a PC. as said by a editor of PC world "PC and Mac are virtually the same they can best be looked at as 2 computers whering lipstick, Mac just has more lipstick on"

Agreed.

PCs have just as many problems as Macs do

(don't crash my ass! - on OSX)

(Don't get viruses - so those 42 that exist...don't?)

(No Drivers - er... yeah... but think *macs have set hardware... of course they're going to have the drivers in!*)

Stick with a PC bud, they're easy to use and are functional.

Go with a mac only if you only use your computer for the web and work and pictures.

The pc can do all the above with different software... personally i think that the Mac applications are a total pile... WMP11 looks soo much better than iTunes and it doesn't crash!

I'm on Vista (got it yesterday £50 - i'm a student) it's MEGA!

 

[paintba||er]

im only saying from personal experiance (im on my mac now) that pc's tend to work better for stuff like office programs and other things. but macs are better for pictures music and video. and yes, you can dual boot with parallels, but that doesnt give all the featues of a pc.

if you arre buying a mac, i would buy an imac instead of a mac mini to be honest

How does it not give all the "featues" of a PC? The software is exactly the same.

Edit: @the_flood: Haha, I have never had my Mac crash aside from when I first got it and one of the 5 year old Chinese labors that make 5¢ a day didn't place a stick of RAM in properly but that was easily fixed.
There are no viruses for OS X yet. There are some for classic Mac and some security issues in OS X, but no actual viruses.

 

[Valadrim]

it feels the same but i know for a fact that mac software apllications take up almos twice as much hard drive space... and that aint good, because mac hard drives arent as big... for example, photoshop trial of CS3 on PC is something like 450mb, for mac it is abotu 800mb. Also, if u are using a dual opperating sstem like parallels desktop, it is unable to do some things, such as process direct X plugins, which parallels cannot do.

honestly mate, i love my mac, but it's a lot of money if you only want something to play about with.

i will admit, that to whoever said macs are not upgradable that they are completely... wrong... of course macs are upgradable. How do you think they put the thing together with custom componants?? and my mac hasnt crashed on me, apart from i have had 1 error message in the admittedly short time ive had my macbook, but that was because i was running four highly demanding programs and messenger...

 

[paintba||er]

it feels the same but i know for a fact that mac software apllications take up almos twice as much hard drive space... and that aint good, because mac hard drives arent as big... for example, photoshop trial of CS3 on PC is something like 450mb, for mac it is abotu 800mb. Also, if u are using a dual opperating sstem like parallels desktop, it is unable to do some things, such as process direct X plugins, which parallels cannot do.

honestly mate, i love my mac, but it's a lot of money if you only want something to play about with.

Well yes certain apps may take up more space in OS X than Windows, but it works the other way around too. It all depends on the application. Also if you dual boot it with BootCamp you can do everything a Windows PC can.

 

[Valadrim]

the above is true ^ but on a lower budget pc's are better, and i think most people would admit that, but if you have the money, an imac or macbook is the way to go. I prefer the layou of Mac OSX to XP, and for those of you seeking vista... although microsoft claim it hasnt been ripped from OSX, some features have, and i find MacOSX to be more reliable.

One word of warning... MSN and other IM programs sometimes dont have as many features on mac... just an advanced warning. But straight from the time you first turn it on, the mac seems friendlier.

 

[Gaz]

PCs have just as many problems as Macs do

User Based, a Mac can have just as if not more depending on the stupididty of the user

(No Drivers - er... yeah... but think *macs have set hardware... of course they're going to have the drivers in!*)

Yeah they have set hardware, but what about hardware you add on? well they have there own software, no drivers you need to install, and for things such as printers, there pre-installed with the OS, but you can delete them for your HDD

Stick with a PC bud, they're easy to use and are functional.

OS X is easy to use, and just as functional

Go with a mac only if you only use your computer for the web and work and pictures.

So basically only if ur into gaming, use Windows

The pc can do all the above with different software... personally i think that the Mac applications are a total pile... WMP11 looks soo much better than iTunes and it doesn't crash!

like you said, personally, thats an opinion. WMP11 is disgusting imo, i hate it, iTunes on the other hand holds my massive library, are you bassing your opinion on the release of iTunes 7.0 on PC, yeah you can't really do that Apple has a clean sheet of errors compared to Windows, Windows ME? Windows Mistake Edition. hahaha

One word of warning... MSN and other IM programs sometimes dont have as many features on mac... just an advanced warning. But straight from the time you first turn it on, the mac seems friendlier.

True.. but i love Adium more than WLM.

 

[paintba||er]

Just to show that the Mini has enough power to run almost anything you want to I will list what I am almost always running simultaneously without any problems:

• Web Browser (Safari or Camino)
• Adium
• Bits On Wheels
• iTunes
• NeoOffice
• PhotoShop or Flash

If you plan on running more than that at a time, then you will probably want to look into something better than a Mini, if not then a Mini should be fine for what you are doing. The only thing that really needs alot of improvement is the graphics card.

 

[Valadrim]

yeah, if you're looking for something that will run most of your programs at once, the imacs are better, but if youre looking for a home system, then the mac mini should do.

off topic: paintballer , how do you have that animated sig in your signature... is it a swf file?

 

[Gaz]

Just to show that the Mini has enough power to run almost anything you want to I will list what I am almost always running simultaneously without any problems:

mine's like...

• Camino - Web browser
• Adium - im (MSN and Google Talk)
• eyeTV - TV application
• iTunes
• Mail
• Flash
• Dreamweaver
• skype
• Quicktime
• Handbrake

 

[wii_cammy]

How much memory would it take up to dual boot?

 

[Gaz]

How much memory would it take up to dual boot?

well standards these days of any OS is 1GB, i would go for 2GB if i was you.

 

[paintba||er]

Its a gif. We can't use swfs in our sigs.
Edit: I think cammy means HDD space.