Mac Mini worth it as a proper desktop?

craptakular

craptakular

craptakular

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Getting used to the Mac OS after 2 years lol (I have a macbook)... I think I maybe able to use it, the problem... I am not ready to give up gaming on windows yet :p

I play Arma2 and the mini simply will not handle this game. So I will need to keep my existing PC alongside the mini.

I also have a nice 24" monitor and I already own a mac wired keyboard.

All I really do is encode a moving with ilife once a week, showing my weekly arma exploits and use dreamweaver, light photoshop work, surf the web and e-mail.

I was thinking of buying an external 2TB firewire drive for backup, is the mac backup tool good? I don't wanna lose data if OSX breaks or a HDD blows in the mini.

Is the mini a good buy at £580? I don't have the deskspace for an imac and a PC monitor. The extra £200 for an imac isn't exactly pocket change either...

Any comments?
 
Which mini you looking at oxy?? (the £580 sort of depends which revision you can get your hands on)

The back up tool (urm time machine I think) is a BEAST! I used to to change my hdd to an ssd in my mbp and it knew exactly what to copy, save and how to restore it all for me :) (just forgot to run it when I started the upgrade so I lost half a seasons good work in FM)

Ooo and a WOOP WOOP for getting there with OSX :p (good things come to those who wait)
 
It's the new one, but £580 is the price of the new one with HE discount.

All the reviews seem to say the same thing, i.e. it's to expensive, needs 4GB ram and is the same spec as a macbook.

The imac is £300 more, better cpu, more ram, bigger HDD, monitor, proper graphics card etc etc...

but it's still £300 more and I dont have the space for 2 x monitors and a 42" plasma along the same wall :p

is the mac mini really that bad value?
 
Oh so it is with the HE discount!!

On a personal opinion level id agree with the reviews that it is a bit expensive for just the internals of the base spec macbook... It does look amazing (it's impressively small) and the ram can be upgraded pretty simply, there's a round hatch at the bottom that makes it look an easy process...

I wish Steve Jobs listened to my thoughts on the mini (after getting the air nearly spot on) and just jammed in a better graphics chip and/or tried to keep the price down a little.

The imac's are also very very nice... ;) (you never know you could abandon the pc and get a massive imac with bootcamp for windows...) :D
 
pingwing said:
Oh so it is with the HE discount!!

On a personal opinion level id agree with the reviews that it is a bit expensive for just the internals of the base spec macbook... It does look amazing (it's impressively small) and the ram can be upgraded pretty simply, there's a round hatch at the bottom that makes it look an easy process...

I wish Steve Jobs listened to my thoughts on the mini (after getting the air nearly spot on) and just jammed in a better graphics chip and/or tried to keep the price down a little.

The imac's are also very very nice... ;) (you never know you could abandon the pc and get a massive imac with bootcamp for windows...) :D
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hehe I could get an imac but... it really couldn't handle arma 2 at all. I only just bought this monitor as well. I don't really need the fastest machine in the world or the biggest HDD as I have a 4TB linux homeserver for all that :D

Infact I probably dont need a backup drive as I can get the linux server to backup shares anyway...

I would need a ram upgrade for the mini... it is expensive, but I dont have the space for both an imac and a PC.

I suppose I could try source a second hand machine for cheap...
 
Both my iMac and MBP have 4GB, I really don't do anything that requires any more than that, so can't really comment on whether or not you would need more.
 
Oooo arma looks fun! :D (been out of pc gaming proper for a year or so now sadly) but the specs do indicate needing a more expensive imac... And it might be a little ott running an imac and another screen on the basis you could...

The linux home server should be fine for the back ups (there's a thread in here somewhere on how to do it I think) which should take a little worry out of it.

Now 8gig of ram sounds over the top there :p (and will be the price of an imac as the mini only will have 2 ran slots) plus what could you use that much ram for?? (out side of looking awesome!)
 
hhhmmm so it's £880 for an imac..... lol if only I had the space, well I would need to buy the 27" as I couldn't use a 21" screen anymore so the imac is double the cost....

hhhmmm nah defo mac mini for me
 
Personally i dont think the mini macs would be any good for gaming. have had a few at work, upgraded them both to 8GB ram as their used by our Marketing department.. and it is VERY easy to upgrade!

but i'd steer away from mini mac if possible (from a gaming PoV). best just sticking with PC for gaming or replace with a higher end imac... but then! tis 'spensive!
 
I have the previous model, 2.53GHz - 4GB and a 500GB Seagate 7200rpm drive I installed my self.

I love it, the monitor I have completely matches the Mini totally.

I have Windows 7 installed with Steam, and I play MOH & MW2 on it.

FW800 to a Drobo with 4TB and viola I'm sorted.
 
I have the 09 model, and Steam games run fine at 1080p.

Newer games would struggle (obv.) but then I primarily use it as a media centre and surfing machine.
 
It handles Creative Suite 5 alright. I edited a friends wedding photos on it, with no problems.

Look at the refurbs on the store if you can't stomach the cost.
 
EVH said:
It handles Creative Suite 5 alright. I edited a friends wedding photos on it, with no problems.

Look at the refurbs on the store if you can't stomach the cost.
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yeh there doesn't appear to be any mini's atm. Are they usually a lot cheaper than the HE discount?
 
Looking at the refurb MBP its cheaper to get new on HE, how ever the Imac 27 is a hell of a lot cheaper getting a refurb.

Although consider you may not get the 3 year warrenty you usually would, although i could be wrong you may still get this.
 
haz_pro said:
Looking at the refurb MBP its cheaper to get new on HE, how ever the Imac 27 is a hell of a lot cheaper getting a refurb.

Although consider you may not get the 3 year warrenty you usually would, although i could be wrong you may still get this.
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You get one year limited warranty I think but you can always get Apple Care at well. ;)
 
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