Help a n00b spec a MAC

nahwiseup

nahwiseup

nahwiseup

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Joined
22 Jul 2007
Posts
54
Hi Guys,

Long time lurker here... think I'm ready to try the dark side. I need some information to nudge me in the right direction.

My current desktop usage and spec:
22" wide-screen driven by this deal-of-the-week from competitor
Vista Home premium. Apart from a slow starter it is fine.

80% Web browsing FF3 and now mostly Chrome.
10% Working with digital pictures from my canon ixus or S3
10% Music all WMA files created from CDs - so no DRM. Will flip4mac play?

Sky broadband so using the wireless on this, although I have optional Ethernet over Power if I cannot use wireless. Also have 80211n draft 2 d-link router which i can use as a wireless access point

Would plan on vmware fusion to sort out any windows peculiarities i need.

In particular some advise around suitable specification and support.

I like the price point of the mac mini (in a try before you buy sort of thing) but it looks sort of weak to me... again used to Windows, am I right? How heavy is OS X?

However mac mini price seems almost like a sucker punch to me, add on the extra 1GB or RAM and mac kb/mouse and price jumps from 399 to 522.

If it worked out I would have to buy a new decent monitor at about 150 quid which creeps into iMac price range. (in order to free my PC to be used elsewhere in the house)

I like the form factor of the iMac - so whatever happens there I would be happy with it if I had to put Vista on it.

However whenever I get to the point of settling on mac mini/iMac/Mac Pro (yes I have been thinking of treating myself) I can't help but feel I am cleverly upsold to a model by a clever sales man.

Apple care- is this as useless as a competitor fix it all plan to cream the masses of money or is it actually worth it?

Thoughts?

Read the FAQ
 
I have the top spec mini, plugged into my 26' HDTV on my desk, and it is perfect for my needs. It has wireless, 1GB of RAM is plenty, it isn't slow but its very fast. From boot to having all my usual programs open (Firefox, iTunes, MSN) it usually takes about 1 min 30 seconds.

If you could, I would get the iMac, much more powerful and includes everything for the money (I think keyboard/mouse is included, but the Mighty Mouse supposedly isn't very good, so any USB mouse can do).
 
I currently have an iMac and its great, but that doesn't mean that the mac mini is rubbish. Like you said by the time you add a kb+ mouse and a monitor the price soon starts to jump up so If you can afford it I would defiantly get an iMac for the better spec and the fact that its all built into the one unit.

Apple care is great as it is just an extension to your warranty and phone support, my dealings so far with the support has been great.

Oh and if you can afford a mac pro, you MUST get one of those. :D
 
I would definitely go for the iMac for your first full on OS X experience.

The iMac has so much to offer and you'll not regret spending the extra on it! All the things you have described it will work. iTunes on a mac is totally different to a PC, it actually runs well and is an excellent library for all your music. Safari is great for an internet browser, very fast. I use webkit myself which is an extension of safari and is about 3 times faster and is basically on the stuff that is put into the official safari by Apple but i get it about 6 months before.

Only think i would say is get 2GB of RAM at least.
 
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nahwiseup said:
I like the form factor of the iMac - so whatever happens there I would be happy with it if I had to put Vista on it.
Click to expand...

24" iMac it is then. If you are cunning you can get the Higher Education Discount as well.

However, a kitten will be killed if you put Vista on it. Why would you need to?
 
Thanks for the replies guys. Think I will get an iMac soon.

Sorry about the competitor references!

Only thing stopping me from going Mac Pro is the wife... however if I can prove the mac via an iMac purchase I can swing that over to her, and get the beast for myself!
 
Other thing about going through higher education discount is that you get standard 3 year warranty rather than just 1 year.
 
LordSplodge said:
24" iMac it is then. If you are cunning you can get the Higher Education Discount as well.

However, a kitten will be killed if you put Vista on it. Why would you need to?
Click to expand...

I would need to put Vista on it if it does not work out for some reason. It should not, and I will put every effort into learning this new OS.

I am a realist however. I spent a year at uni on SuSE, writing and compiling code, and wrote my thesis in OpenOffice. That journey was both fun and frustrating at the same time. But I had the safety net of dual booting into XP.

I even worked for a couple of weeks on a self compiled Gentoo install.

Since then it has been XP and Vista all the way - its just now I'm willing to diversify at home.

However nowadays with VMware fusion and its unity technology (I use Workstation 6.5 with a XP virtual on my Vista work laptop for some apps that don't play nice on Vista) the risk is taken out of a Mac purchase IMO

The only Risk I see is not keeping your Wife onside on your "expensive PC" (not my words, I'm not flame proof!!)

Bottom line, is I want to try OS X, and can be bother hackintoshing it. At some point in the near distant future I want to build a monster of a machine or get a Mac Pro... depends on my experiment here.
 
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