Mac mini Review At Macworld

lemonylimey writes "Macworld has the first hands-on review of the new Mac mini along with nicely illustrated step-by-step dissection. It looks like the mini comes apart easily and (unsuprisingly) uses standard notebook components: a Panasonic DVD-R drive on 'SuperDrive' equipped models, Seagate Momentus 2.5" notebook ATA-100 hard drive and a single, nicely accessible 184 pin DDR DIMM socket. Upgrade options aside, it might not have the clock-for-clock power of the equivalent $499 PC, but you have to ask yourself - If you put them both on a shelf and ask your Mom* to pick one, which one is it going to be? (Yes, I'm sure your Mom is a Doctor of Mathematics and wouldn't buy anything she couldn't run Debian on. You know what I meant.)"

Re:Standard bog PC2700 DDR ram?

[Gob Blesh It]

You've always been able to use off-the-shelf RAM, but it's true that recent versions of Mac OS X (apparently not the hardware?) are more sensitive to timing issues. So be careful not to buy the rebranded DIMMs they'll sell you at a 50% discount because they failed all the QA tests. Stick to name-brand RAM, or at least buy from somewhere with a decent return policy, and you'll be fine.

Re:Can Mac Mini run Linux?

[satoshi1]

So, what are the reasons to run Linux on Mac Mini? Because you can.

Re:Can Mac Mini run Linux?

[JMZorko]

OK, this is just wrong.

1. Linus is not the _only_ person who looks at submitted code for Linux ... there are many people, and i've met some of them. This is just disingenuous to suggest.

2. The kernel source is not available because it's the least complex part of the OS -- it's available partly because it's one of the more complex pieces, and a lot of really smart people who know their stuff in kernel space look at / debug / suggest additions for it.

3. Come on -- on a Linux box, if you don't want to compile from source, use apt or rpm or dselect or whatever.

Hey, I love my Macs (1.33ghz 12" PowerBook, 450mhz Cube, dual 1.25ghz g4) but your points are deceptive -- there are harder methods of doing things on OSX, and easier methods of doing things on Linux. You choose the best method for the desired outcome.

Regards,

John

um. . .

[Bastian]

A) I am making this post from a TiBook running Debian. Debian has one of the best PPC ports out there. I think the Mini will most likely run Debian very nicely.

B) Everyone is sick of the stupid clock speed per dollar argument. It's lame. Quit assuming that everyone out there cares about raw CPU power first and foremost, or shut up.

Re:Can Mac Mini run Linux?

[amichalo]

For $99 you can purchase Mac OS X and get real live tech support for problems that (probably won't) pop up.

From your comment I am not certain that you realize the $499 Mac mini comes with OS X, there is no need to purchase Mac OS X for $99.

Or am I the one who is confused?

Re:My Mac sucks

[Gob Blesh It]

Dude, I don't think that's actually Jason Kottke [kottke.org]. I linked to it in my original post because it's a pretty well-known troll, or so I thought.

Re:PC competition for the Mini-MAC?

[Bastian]

Assuming your wife is after a Mac for the two main reasons why people buy Macs (the OS, and it just works), you're not going to find a PC on the market that compares to the Mac Mini. You can certainly find PC's the same size - just check out the Mini-ITX platform.

However, a preliminary look-through suggests that in this size range, you're going to get more bang for your buck with the Mac Mini. (I'm assuming, that, like most other Mac-disparaging PC users, you're a Megahertz Weenie.)

A good example of what I can find at CappuccinoPC.com is a 1ghz Celeron with only 128MB RAM, a 20GB HD, a CD-ROM drive (as in, no DVD, no burning), and a crap graphics card. For a price tag of $580.
To get it to something comparable to the Mac Mini, you're going to have to upgrade to a 1.26ghz PIII ($155), 256MB RAM ($55), a 40GB HD($30), a CD-RW/DVD combo ($60, $70 for slot loading), and add Windows XP ($119 for Home, $159 for Pro). Meaning that a comparable PC in the same form factor will cost you $920 - $970. And you're still stuck with a crap graphics card. I'm not sure if you get a sound card. On top of all that, 256MB RAM is the most you can get, and all the other upgrades (wireless, bluetooth, etc.) are more expensive than the same upgrades for the Mac Mini.

Re:iDVD question

[phillymjs]

According to this, [apple.com] you still have to have a Superdrive-equipped computer to burn DVDs directly from iDVD.

According to this, [mac.com] however, the disk images feature would allow you to save your project as a DVD image and then burn the image to a disc with another app.

~Philly

Re:Underpowered?

[jo_ham]

I use Motion, possibly Apple's heaviest app in terms of system requirements, on my 15" 1.5Ghz powerbook and it runs quite nicely indeed. Just don't expect full frame, full quality playback of an unrendered multi-layer composite (but then, don't expect this of a Dual G5 either).

As noted, the Mini has similar specs to a Powerbook, although it only has 32Mb of video ram compared to the 64 in my PB. My laptop will also take twice the amount of RAM if you can afford two 1GB SO-DIMM sticks.

I think the Mac Mini is well specced for what it is and will hardly break sweat for the apps that its target audience will be running on there. Garage Band might give it pause for concern if you start getting complex, but freezing the ttracks you're happy with while working on others will fix that.

Re:iDVD question

[sootman]

this page [mac.com] says that there's a trick to make iDVD 5 create an image, rather than burn a disk. Also, there's a hack out there to do this in iDVD 4. I used it a year ago and it worked fine. made a plain-vanilla .iso or .dmg or .img (I forget which) so no, it shouldn't be some goofy iDVD-only format. I made images one one mac and burned them on another with Toast. I'm posting this from my combo-drive mini but I haven't installed iLife 05 yet. (Ships with '04 and comes with '05 on a DVD.)

Re:iDVD question

[admactanium]

you don't need their drive to burn a dvd, you need their drive to burn a video dvd from idvd. i can burn data dvd's on external drives all day long easily from the mac os x finder. it opens it as an empty volume and i drag and drop files onto it like any other disk. when i eject it asks me if i want to burn the disk.

plus, there are ways to get around the idvd restriction.

Re:Fan behaviour?

[caulktel]

I have been using mine now for about 50 hours without shuting it off, and I have yet to hear any fan at all (its in my bed room) in fact the case of the Mini itself feels cool to the touch and the power brick just slightly warmer.

Re:Not really $499

[Senjutsu]

The first thing I noticed was lack of an analog monitor connection. This automatically drives up the price for most would be buyers looking to replace their PCs. Most users would rather spend $500 on a new PC and use their existing montior, thna be forced to buy a DVI compliant (read: flat screen) monitor.

True. That why the Mini comes with a DVI-to-VGA adaptor, genius.

Re:talked with the project lead

[voisine]

The mini already passed the previous best first day for an apple computer (Imac G5), just on pre-orders.

There's PC3200 RAM in my Mini...

[parvenu74]

I bought my Mac mini this morning (waited in line in the 18 degree temps outside the Apple store in Kansas City so I could be fifth in line!) and have been working with it all day. Of the more interesting things I've noticed: System Profiler indicates that I have 256MB of PC3200 RAM installed... and I thought these things came with PC2700! I am going to buy myself a putty knife [macworld.com] and will get back later with info and a picture or two of what I find inside...

For you PC (ab)users (I'm now in recovery on this point!) who are sitting on the fence wanting to get one of these but don't want to loose the functionality of all your Windows software, have no fear. Just go download the Windows Remote Desktop Connector [microsoft.com] and get cooking. Among the neat features, you can map the drives on your Mac to the remote PC allowing you to move files back and forth between the PC and the Mac with the utmost of ease! :-)

memory, drive

[a984]

- actually 1GB memory can be had for $85.
http://www.pricewatch.com/h/prc.aspx?i=33&a=4922

- macintouch has a decent performance review. http://www.macintouch.com/perfpack/comparison.html Overall mini is pretty good, but the disk is roughly like iBook, that is half the speed of eMac, (BTW eMac is a gem, it beats new iMAC G5 in most tests). Going FireWire or USB2 on mini is no solution, they are half as slow as internal even with fast drives (thus 4 times as slow as latest eMac). They have 60Gb/7200 internal on order so check them later to see if this solves disk problem.

correction

[a984]

sorry, actually FW on mini is imperceptibly faster than internal, it is USB2 that sucks

Re:Can Mac Mini run Linux?

[amichalo]

You are the one who is confused. That is one of the reasons why it is so cheap.

According to Apple [apple.com] the $499 Mac mini comes with:
- Mac OS X Panther
- iLife '05 (GarageBand, iMovie, iDVD*, iPhoto, iTunes)
- Quicken 2005
- and two games Nanosaur 2 and Marble Blast Gold
* previously, Apple has not included iDVD on systems that do not have a Super Drive, and therefore, no DVD authoring capability.

Thanks for the FUD.

Re:Where's the PS/2 connector?

[dcstimm]

Ps2 keyboards / mice have never been used by macs, so it does require a USB/Keyboard and mouse, Apple just dropped the price of its keyboard/mouse from $49 to $29 because of the mac mini. The Apple keyboard also gives you two USB ports so you dont lose any ports when you hook up a keyboard and a mouse. Most people will need to get a new keyboard and mouse but most people wouldnt complain because its not that expensive.

Also the Dvi to Vga adapter comes with the computer so ANY monitor will work, vga or dvi.. Hell Im going to hook it up to my HDTV..

And Apple is just trying to convert PC users that are scared to give up their new $80 dollar wireless usb keyboard and mouse combo they just bought.

Also with the Mac Mini Coming with a free Printer http://apple.com/promo they are going to sell a shit load of these babies.

Use Patchburn for external and unsupported Drives

[j0kkk3l]

You can use the free Patchburn [patchburn.de] to enable burning from Apple's iApps with nonsupprted burners.

Re:Where's the PS/2 connector?

[slim]

Even in the PC universe, PS/2 is getting increasingly rare: pretty much everything you'll see on the shops is USB now. My ThinkPad has no PS/2 socket either. Here's an example of a $25 PS2/USB convertor [trianglecables.com]. I expect you could get cheaper. It only takes up one USB port too: neat.

The DVI->VGA adapter DOES come in the box, like you ask.

If you already own a KVM switcher, you're right, the migration away from PS/2 is a pain: but USB/VGA KVMs appear to be the basic choice in mainstream outlets now, from my brief investigations.

Re:Imagine...

[hcdejong]

You do realize that OS X Server includes "Server Admin: Remote Server Admin tools let you configure and monitor all key services of Mac OS X Server from near or far." [quote from Apple's site], right? this is a GUI tool. I do think people are buying them so they can have a GUI.

Mac Mini Info for Linux / Windows Users

[BobWeiner]

O'Reilly has a useful article [oreillynet.com] on Mac Mini information for Linux / Windows users.

Re:hard drive question

[lemonylimey]

ATA/100 means that the interface has a top speed of 100MBps and it was the last official ATA standard before Serial-ATA. ATA/133 was just something Maxtor cooked up as a marketing ploy.

Internal capacity isn't the upgrade you should be looking for on the Mac Mini. Since it uses a 2.5" Notebook HD you're pretty much limited to 100GB, which is a pretty expensive upgrade for gaining 20GB of space. My plan is to dump the 4,200rpm or 5,400rpm drive in the mini and replace it with one of the new 2.5" 7,200rpm drives. If I need more external storage, I'll just buy a Firewire HD.

Re:Underpowered?

[dwightk]

I do some programming, some typesetting, edit some sound samples, why should I need more than 1,2 GHz Mac Mini?


You wouldn't I do all that and more (DVD encoding works but is the only thing I do that I would like more power for) on a PB G4 867MHz

Re:Imagine...

[tu_holmes]

I have used the Server Admin tools... They're pretty nice and give you a decent representation of what the server is doing.

I wish I had tools like that in solaris, but I don't.

This is one of the things that Apple has done it's due diligence on, and have, in my opinion, created utilities that are just as good, if not better than those on windows server platforms, IE. Compaq and Dell's server utils.

Re:memory, drive

[Judogi]

Those $85 sticks of ram have serious compatibility and quality issues. They are the 128x4 design, usually only 4-layer pcb, and even on the PC side will only work with a very limited set of VIA chipsets.

Macs have historically been picky with ram. I had to buy new ram for my G4 Cube after upgrading to Jaguar because the old stuff wasn't up to spec. The cheapest ram I have seen that could potentially work with the mini is about $155 on newegg.com. That ram is the good stuff - 64x32, 6-layer.

Other than that, any ol' DDR PC2700 1gb unbuffered should work. But I have a sinking feeling the cheap sticks won't work.

It really is PC3200 RAM in my Mini

[parvenu74]

For what it's worth, I managed to easily and quickly open up my Mini with a simple putty knife (and no scratches to the plastic or aluminum!) and sure enough, there was a 256MB stick of Samsung PC3200 RAM (Apple advertises these as coming with PC2700). I removed that stick and replaced it with a 512MB PC3200 (CL 2.5) Mushkin stick (my WinXP Pro box will have to do with only one of two of these sticks for now), replaced the cover and booted up. The performance increase was noticeable and immediate; the NewEgg.com order for a 1024MB stick of PC3200 goes out tomorrow! (Supposedly the Mini will only use PC3200 at PC2700 speed, but when the PC3200 is only $4.50 more at NewEgg, why not get the faster chip?)

I did snap a couple pictures with my Nikon D70 but I decided against posting them since there are already several links to pictures of deconstructed minis in various places on /. and I presume nobody reading this is all too interested in either the RAM stick that was in my Mini or the putty knife used to open up the box...

Re:Anyone know if Apple's USB keyboard works on PC

[Judogi]

Yep. The Command (Apple) keys works as the Windows key. The volume controls even work on XP it seems.

Re:Where's the PS/2 connector?

[AlgUSF]

I am a switcher, and I got a $19.99 adapter for my mac-mini which changes PS2 keyboard/mouse into USB. Works perfect. It comes with a DVI->VGA adapter.

Noise!

[Zhe Mappel]

From the review:

One thing that did surprise me about the Mac mini was the noise level, both good and bad. Most of the time the machine is very quiet, basically silent; I expected more regular fan noise given the cramped quarters inside the box. On the other hand, under the heaviest extended loads--ripping a number of CDs in a row while performing other processor-intenstive tasks, for example--the fan ramps up to a surprising volume. Nothing compared to the wind tunnel levels of a crashed Power Mac G5, to be sure, but louder than I expected. Similarly, the Mac mini's optical drive is about as loud as its PowerBook cousin--it can get noisy when ripping songs in iTunes. (Thankfully, it's nearly silent when watching DVDs.)

Well, that's hardly encouraging. That it's even being mentioned by MacWorld, whose job is generally to cheer for Apple products, is significant.

Small form factor PC's have struggled mightily to reduce noise, with minimal but increasing success. Apple might have learned from the PC sector's improvements and produced a design with better heat exchange. One obvious direction is being pursued by Hush. [hushtechnologies.net]

Re:Fan behaviour?

[AntiGenX]

I love my new mac mini, the only time I have ever heard the fan was when I was running catman in the background of the terminal while doing a bunch photoshop stuff at the same time. The fan was barely noticible compared to my dell across the room.