(no subject)

[unbibium]

Every time I work up the gall to order a Mac mini, I hear of some shortcoming. This time around, it's the hard drive speed, as reported in this guide to upgrading to an external hard drive. 4200 RPM? FireWire 400? It's beginning to look more and more like the Mac mini is Apple's way of unloading all the parts it's about to phase out.

Not a bad strategy, but it certainly means I'd be spending more than $499 if I wanted a decent setup.

Comments

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Firewire 400 isn't bad-- it's still the one that flogged USB1.1 without breathing hard.

4200RPM HD? That, on the other hand, is laughably slow. I have never heard of such a thing. Could be a laptop standard, though, from what I'm now reading-- the power savings might be a benefit to a laptop user, but a Mac Mini plugs in to the wall and really ought to have a 7200.

So what's so attractive about the Mac Mini?

[kerri9494.livejournal.com]

The price.

Only got $500? Still want to run OS X on a new machine that's under warranty? There ya go.

A Mac Mini is not going to be as good as a G5. Hell, it's not going to be as good as a G4 iBook. It's less than HALF THE COST.

It's an entry opportunity for people who are short on cash, but want a Mac. It's the Mac for the kitchen. It's the Mac for the kids' room.

Is it Apple offloading old parts? Could be. But so what? If you don't want to spend more than a grand on a Mac, now you can. I think that's what's so attractive.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Well, right, it's cheap, but you can get a new PC cheap and upgrade it later, and I know that Pentomino has been using PCs for years. I guess I'm just not sure that a half-hearted attraction to OSX is worth spending $500 on a sub-par computer.

But if it's a whole-hearted attraction, go ahead and buy it.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Hmm, memory reminds me that Pentomino has an Apple laptop of recent vintage. My point was that if you want OSX, don't get in at the bottom level-- chances are that it's every bit as good everyone says only if the hardware's there to back it up.

Many people go on at length about the optimization of software that Apple can manage since they control their hardware so well, and I'm sure it's more than significant, but the fact is that this computer's hardware is on par with the third-fastest PC I could buy in late 2001 (paid 3 times as much, natch), and it's running a modern OS. I know that $500 is the baseline price, and that upgraded Minis are available-- get one with more memory-- you can't have too much, especially since it'll probably do double-duty as video memory. Also check to see that you have a compatible monitor-- I don't expect otherwise, but that would make for a nasty surprise if it turned out you didn't.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

My iBook is an old G3, and its battery is starting to peter out. It's been a lot of fun to use, and I got a great deal on it. But it's definitely slower than a Mac mini, and I really need a full-size screen. I can hook it up to my 19-inch monitor, but it's slightly awkward when I don't have a KVM switch.

On the other hand, my PC hasn't been upgraded since late '03, when I bought a budget GeForce FX5200 so I could play Second Life. It has six very loud fans, and no DVD-ROM. I haven't bought a game for it since I downloaded Second Life that long ago.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

Well, unless you've got a lot to recover from the PC, and unless you see big games in your future (Half Life 2? GTA:San Andreas this summer?), well, I hate to say it, but GET A MAC. The PC you get for $500 won't be much better than what you have now-- faster clock speed but lightweight video, RAM, and HDD. Make sure that your emulation hobby won't be affected adversely.

(A small part of me says that you should spend all $500 on a video card, but I know personally that that's wrong wrong wrong.)

Also, FWIW, I've heard that 2 port KVMs can be gotten cheap ($20-30), though caveat emptor, that's sometimes true when they have no cables, so always check that-- I'm definitely going to use one on my next PC-- my monitor's great (knock wood) and why spend another $3-500?

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

I've been Frankensteining my way up the PC food chain since '98 or so. If I spent another $500, I could replace my case fans with quieter ones, maybe get a second 100GB hard drive and a DVD burner.

But I'd still be on Windows 2000.

Be cool

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I like XP Pro that I use at work, but I've felt no real compulsion to upgrade from 2K at home-- it runs everything that I've seen. The only things that I know of that don't want to run on XP are business softwares that the company does't want to guarantee function on non-XP OS, even though it obviously runs just fine. To a substantial degree, Win2K is just a slightly unfriendly version of XP. Admin tools with 2K are more arcane, and of course there's no candy coating, but there's no *need* to upgrade to XP unless you encounter a major compatibility problem with your other machines.

I can't believe you have six fans-- how hot can it run? You might take the time to get some temperature readings in there, either with software or else with your kitchen thermometer. You might just be able to power down some of the fans. Else you could drop $100 on a new case with maybe a better PSU (and newer-- they don't last forever) and an interior that was built to be cool *and* quiet. Might be worth doing even if you get the Mac.

Re: Be cool

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

Weirdly enough, when I first turn it on it's quiet, but later on it starts whirring up. That suggests there's some kind of smart fan technology controlling how many fans are blowing.

Mostly, my objection to my current computer is that it's a mess, there's too much stuff on it and I think it's broken in ways I don't see because I've been trained not to play too many games or do too much programming. I haven't started from scratch since '99, I'm pretty sure, though starting from scratch is a habit I probably picked up from Windows 95.

I think I just want to quit pretending I'm a power user, and have a computer that Just Works and doesn't fight me.