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.)"

Underpowered?

[zmotula]

From the article: "As I stated in my previous column, 'machines like the mini or the cheap Dell desktop are underpowered for advanced users, but both will suffice for their target market.'"

Underpowered? What does an "average advanced user" do to need more than a one gigahertz processor? I'm currently running a PII/350, which is a bit slow for my needs (some movies skip a bit and the browsing is not as smooth as I wish it would be), but I'll be quite happy with, let's say, 800 MHz PIII.

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

Allright, editing half a GB photographs in Photoshop would probably suck on the machine, but that's not "advanced user", thats "professional" in my terms...

Re:Can Mac Mini run Linux?

[daviddennis]

I wouldn't be as negative on Linux as you are - surely it should be admitted that the "kids", in the long term, have created a high-quality product that works well for a large variety of applications, especially for knowledgeable users.

In my mind, though, it just doesn't match up well to a bunch of user interface obsessives over at Apple Computer. Can you imagine the meetings, with Steve obsessing on the exact shade of aqua blue to use for the default button on a form? I can imagine hours of bone-grinding tedium for the other folks on the team, while Steve pushes and shoves and demands as close to absolute perfection as we can get on this planet.

I don't see Open Souce folks doing that. They're too nice. They don't really care about the shade of aqua blue on their buttons at all. And none of them have much tolerence for ten hour meetings. They'll just use the same ugly shade Windows does and go on with their lives.

That's why Open Source software is never going to win on the cool factor when pitted against Steve Jobs and pals.

I don't think I'd enjoy working for Steve. But from the outside, the polished perfection he gives his products is second to none. that's the first thing I love about the Apple platform.

The second thing is that it gives you a near-perfect blend of Open Source software for web development, and commercial software for video editing, animation and word processing. So far, the commercial programs for those purposes are superior to their open source alternatives. So you can use open source for what it's great for, and proprietary software for what it's great for.

Neither of those advantages exist in Linux, and they are, broadly speaking, why I'm a Mac user nowadays and not a Linux user. So I join your puzzlement; I don't understand why someone buying into Apple hardware would not want their sofware as well.

So I'd certainly be interested in hearing peoples' responses to this question, and hopefully this less inflammatory post will help get reasonable people out of the woodwork.

D

Re:PC competition for the Mini-MAC?

[Yaztromo]

It's not just the same comment over and over again, it was also a story [slashdot.org] last week.

I guess some PC users are just jealous :).

Yaz.

Re:Can Mac Mini run Linux?

[sootman]

Jeez, does this need to be spelled out every single time? Yes, OS X is a great OS and a great UNIX. But some people, sometimes, just want to run Linux, and they want to run it on Apple hardware. I will be using my mini as a web server (apache, php, postgres, mysql, gallery, geeklog, and more) and everything I need works fine under OS X. If someone else wants a wsebserver in a tiny package BUT they have the desire or need to do it all in Linux, why shouldn't they?

Re:Can Mac Mini run Linux?

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

That is one of the reasons why it is so cheap.

Sorry, no. If Apple really wanted to have a $499 computer, and components and labor cost over $400, they'd just throw in OS X free/underpriced. They're Apple. They can expect the profit on the Mac Mini to exceed any losses by not charging for OS X.

It is software, after all. Copying software has effectively zero marginal cost. The only question is whether to consider the profit as OS X profit or Mac Mini profit.

Re:Imagine...

[bblazer]

The GUI interface for all of the server functions is exactly what I am after.

Re:PC competition for the Mini-MAC?

[Bastian]

In talking to PC users about this, I think what it comes down to is that a lot of PC users primarily stick with PCs because they are familiar with it. They don't Macs because they are unfamiliar, do things differently, and the people wear too damn many black turtlenecks. [msn.com] (Well, honestly, I see nothing wrong with this last reason.) More than that, they see the Mac as a toy.

But when it comes down to it, most PC users I have met who talk about how silly Apple computers are either haven't really even used a Mac, or have only used it for a few days or a week. Most of them don't seem to even realize that Mac OS supports multi-button mice and scroll wheels. Oftentimes, the criticisms aren't researched (I know this because they are wrong). Other times, the criticisms seem to be based on the idea that everyone should have a l33t0 gaming machine or a weather modeling workstation. I am always amused by people who complain about the lack of games available for OS X when the only two games they own are The Sims [apple.com] and Civ3 [apple.com]

I suppose it's popular among Mac users to offer a complete psychological breakdown as to why PC users like to rip on Macs so much, but I won't bother. I'll just say that it seems that while I have met a few people who have seriously considered and tried both and ended up choosing Windows because they just prefer the platform (people who need to play Half-Life 2 aside), it was definitely just a few of them.

On the other hand, I know it's not too uncommon for PC users to wonder at how devoted Mac users are to their platform - a column on it shows up in some PC magazine a couple times every year. Here's a hint: it has absolutely nothing to do with SPEC benchmarks, application support, shooting demons with shotguns, or even aesthetics. [lowendmac.com]

Re:Imagine...

[hcdejong]

Right. Who could possibly want a server they can administer using their existing skill set, instead of having to spend time learning arcana.
People who choose a Mac as a server typically do this because it's easy to use.

Re:Where's the PS/2 connector?

[hcdejong]

You're missing the point. This is supposed to be a bare-bones machine. Include both adapters and you'd have a $530 base configuration instead of $499, adding expense for items not everyone will need. You don't want to know how many unnecessary adapters, cords, etc. I've gotten over the years. All wasted money.
I'd rather have the adapters separate.

Re:PC competition for the Mini-MAC?

[daviddennis]

Well, I was being polite, of course, but you could also say I was focusing on the root cause - because they don't understand each other, they think the other side is stupid. It's almost like they're different cultures.

Once upon a time, a computer was not a commodity, and the various brands of computer were truly unique and special things. I miss those days, and of course Apple Computer is now the sole heir to that tradition.

Digital camera makers also package Photoshop Elements in that way. And when I bought Macromedia Flash/Education Edition (I'm working on multimedia projects for education nowadays and was eligible), it was also Mac+PC. I don't know if the regular (non-education) CD was Mac+PC, but the education one certainly was.

D