Mac mini flaws?

If your Mac Mini will cost 540, and you don't have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers.. etc, then you will have to buy all those things too, and after buying all that you could end up in the price range of a iMac.

although saying that. youve reminded me that i have to buy the new monitor first before i sell my pc. cos no one really wants to buy a pc without a monitor.
lol
, apart from me with the mac but...! you know what i mean

I find it odd how apple didn't bother to put in PS/2 ports for standard windows keyboards.

My computer is PS/2, I use a USB mouse and a PS/2 Keyboard, I don't have any problems with it, but if I would get a mac, Ps/2 keyboard would go buh bye. I too am saving for an iBook, I got a summer job (I got my really awesome old job back :D) and I am selling parts from my old laptop (NEVER buy gateway its poopie) and my mom said she'd kick in some, and I should have enough for a 12" iBook with BT, hopefully a G5 iBook wiill be out by then and I could get one of those. But I am tired of the bs with windows and how there is so much crashing, and spyware and viruses, Shrue you can get rid of viruses, but that takes up more system resources

But, if you want a cheap mac, go with a mini, buy a new keyboard and mouse and monitor if you have to. personally, I'd spend the extra money for a flat panel
Of course, I should shut up, I am on a 15" CRT >_>

Originally posted by whymillywhy

But, if you want a cheap mac, go with a mini, buy a new keyboard and mouse and monitor if you have to. personally, I'd spend the extra money for a flat panel
Of course, I should shut up, I am on a 15" CRT >_>

Yeah ive got my eye on a 17" tft from ebuyer for 146. but the interface is vga, and the mini has a dvi port BUT with a vga adaptar, i was also wondering how do these look?

in what way does hard drive speed affect day to day usage of the computer? Is it noticably bad? I think the speed on my Dell is 5200

I know PS/2 is old, but most people that would want to switch to a mac mini from a pc would want to have PS/2 because it works with whatever keyboard and mouse they currently have. I'm sure there are a lot of people that aren't very good at computers that wouldn't understand that USB is better and would be angry at having to buy a new keyboard and mouse. Isn't PS/2 still standard on PCs?

Originally posted by iJerry
just to clarify, mobo means 'motherboard' right?
but please someone answer my question about hard drive speeds

I can't really tell the difference between the speed of the HD in my iBook (4200RPM 40HD) and my powermac G3 with a 7200RPM 40 GB drive along with My P4 Dell with a 7200RPM 60GB drive.

Originally posted by Chees
Isn't PS/2 still standard on PCs?

Our new Dells at work, surprisingly, do not have PS/2 ports. Which means I have to use the bundled Dell keyboard :mad: and not my old MS Ergo keyboard.

Originally posted by zapod
Our new Dells at work, surprisingly, do not have PS/2 ports. Which means I have to use the bundled Dell keyboard :mad: and not my old MS Ergo keyboard.

Zapod, i believe you can get USB > PS/2 convertors. I got one with my Microsoft Keyboad.

Originally posted by iJerry
Zapod, i believe you can get USB > PS/2 convertors. I got one with my Microsoft Keyboad.

such as this one

http://store1.yimg.com/I/extremepcgear_1842_143684955

anyone know what the speed of a basic ibook hard drive is? 5400 RPM or 7200? Thanks!

thanks, chees. :)

Okay, my bad

I upgraded my iBook's drive to a 40gig 5400rpm unit... I was worried about heat more than anything else because the previous upgrade just about melted the casing and it was only a 4200rpm unit albeit a 30gigger. Anyway, the upgrade plus Panther as the OS made the machine virtually like new - to me at least - and I have less need to fork out for a new machine.

Why Apple couldn't have gone the extra yard and put a 5400rpm unit in the mini is beyond me, because the benifits are tangible, and the only possible reason (excess heat output) invalid with current 5400 drives as it isn't a problem.

Cool, three pages! This is the biggest topic i've ever posted!

We have open firmware on the Macintosh, which is basically the BIOS if I am not mistaken...

How do you overclock?

I see, well i would never do it. but thanks for educating me.

Hmm. I think we should get things into perspective here. I come from a time when [Windows] applications took maybe 30 seconds to fire up. I know, I know - the hours of my life so far wasted waiting on apps to start. Sigh.

Anyway, my new Dell at the office can start Excel 2000 before I lift my finger off the mouse button. Is that fast enough? I guess it is because that's generally faster than my thought processes at that moment in time.

Personally I get by with this old (upgraded) iBook. It takes a few seconds to start Mail. Let's see - something I dont run often.. iCal... 10 seconds... System Preferences... 7 seconds... iMovie (inc. the time to load a project)... 1min 10secs.

I suppose if I had to fire up iMovie many times a day then the wait would get to me, but in truth I use it once in a blue moon and once it's running that's it... so the wait is acceptable to me. As for day to day stuff - email, web, er - email ;) it's fine.

Take all this into context - a new iBook with a 1.2GHz processor and at least 512Mb ram will be way faster than mine - yet mine is perfectly useable... as long as you don't foam at the mouth if an app takes longer than a heartbeat to start!

PS. I also come from a time when you had to load software from cassette and it took 5 minutes to load 48k (actually 41.5k or something... can anyone guess what computer I'm referring to??) [ooh tricky one there! not! lol] so any time less than that is a miracle of science to me ha ha! praise be the winchester drive! /rambling

Do iBooks even have the option to come with a 80GB drive?

The 80 will be 4200RPM.

Of course that depends on the person. I for one can't stand to work with a machine that has a 4200 rpm drive. Yea its fine for checking mail and browsing forums (though I don't like the second delay when these apps open up either).

However any real application like Matlab, or Visual Studio, PhotoShop/GIMP, or even stuff like Itunes and other less resource efficient media players like Quicktime or Windows Media Players, you will see a difference when opening the programs, and depending on how much ram you have normal usage will suffer too.

Originally posted by afandiewinter
i have a mac mini and i have to say that the slow hard disk is the only flaw with it. like funnyperson1 said, "it effects how fast a new program opens up, and also greatly effects the time needed to copy files, or work with large files."

A couple questions.

1. Is the hard disk really that noticably slow?

2. Can you upgrade the Mac Mini? Like HDD and RAM in the future? If you upgrade to a faster HDD will the Mini get hot?

3. Do you think there will be a Mac Mini update anytime soon?

wow for people in the uk, i found a site with real cheap memory especically for mac mini > http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/listparts.asp?Mfr%2BProductline=Apple%2BMac+mini&mfr=Apple&cat=RAM&model=Mac+mini+%28G4+-+1.25GHz%29&submit=Go

using a PS/2 port is pointless. For those of you who think you are saving an extra USB slot, that why they make USB hubs.

If you use thumbdrives, and have external harddrives, a lot of external harddrive manufacturers now include a thru usb port on the drive itself. Alot of new keyboards incude USB ports dirrectly on the keyboard themselves too.

complaining about the lack of a PS/2 port is like whining about the lack of a 3.5 disk drive... its pointless.

Originally posted by genuine fraud
using a PS/2 port is pointless. For those of you who think you are saving an extra USB slot, that why they make USB hubs.

If you use thumbdrives, and have external harddrives, a lot of external harddrive manufacturers now include a thru usb port on the drive itself. Alot of new keyboards incude USB ports dirrectly on the keyboard themselves too.

complaining about the lack of a PS/2 port is like whining about the lack of a 3.5 disk drive... its pointless.

I still usually want a 3.5 disk drive in my PCs.

Don't you need to boot a rescue disk from a floppy disk anyway?

Having just read through this thread (finally), I'm surprised that no one yet has posted a link to Anand's typically thorough, informed, and generally favorable review, The Mac Mini: Tempting PC Users Everywhere (http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2328). Certainly any PC user who's considering a Mac--mini or otherwise--should read Anand's thoughtful series on his experience with recent Macs from a bona fide super PC geek's point of view. Even died-in-the-wool MacAddicts might want to check it out to get a more objective and informed perspective than they're accustomed to getting from Apple fanboy sites.

IE is faster than most other browsers as far as opening it because it is integrated in the OS. It may not load pages faster but it will open faster.

Personally I find that Anandtech is one of the lesser biased sites online and much prefer it to say Toms Hardware and other big review sites.

I like ARS, too, but the last article I found there about the mini was this preview: http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/mac-mini.ars

iJerry, are you Beavis or Butthead?? ;)

hehe