Thinking of switching to Apple- Mac Mini good starting point?

DuncyBoy

DuncyBoy

DuncyBoy

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Been using PC's for about 8 years now. Learned from the outset how to build one and install Windows myself. The past 6 months with different versions of Windows have been a nightmare. Between that and the fact I've found a big change in my PC habits I've been thinking it's time for a change. I need peoples opinions- as unbiased as possible, please :D

I have 3 PC's at the moment. One is an HTPC running XP Media Centre which I want to keep. Installation issues aside, this does everything I need. No worries there.

But my other 2 PC's I think could be replaced with a Mac Mini. I used to do a lot of 3D work in Vue, along with games, video editing and DVD authoring as well as the usual Internet, Email, photos, movies etc. But nowadays it's just the simple stuff. I can't remember the last PC game I installed and played and I never do the "heavy CPU" stuff anymore. I basically listen to tunes, go on the Net, send email, download 3D and car pics, get trailers and stuff.

The 3rd box is an Always-On machine running uTorrent and that's it, made out of old, near silent parts.

Could I use a bottom-spec £400 Mini to do
Web
Email
Torrents
Viewing photos and movies (with OCCASIONAL photo editing- a little touch-up of red eye or a scratch on an old scan, for example- nothing heavy)
Burning DVD's
Putting movies on my iPod from DVD

What's the noise output like on a Mini? It'd be in my room and if it's running overnight I'd need it to be fairly quiet.

£400 for a Mini, with OSX included, already got an iPod, then £20 - £30 for a keyboard with a bog-standard USB mouse isn't a huge investment and I could always sell it if, for some reason, it doesn't take my fancy. I have an existing network using a wired Router. And I can use my 17" monitor for display.

If it does work out, I could buy external HDD caddies and use the two SATA drives from my main PC for extra storage.

Another thing that bugged me about my recent reinstall, was the amount of maintenance/protective programs I install on XP- anti-virus, anti-spyware, defrag programs, CCleaner- it's a pain! What's it like on OSX?

So:
Do you think this is the right way to go for getting started on a Mac?
Would a 2GB RAM option be a good move?
Any problems having Windows PC's and a Mac on the same Network? I currently use Shared Folders to organise my HTPC from my desktop- can I do that with a Mini?
How reliable is OSX? As honest opinion as possible, please :)
I've just gone through a hellish reinstall of XP Pro- what's it like reinstalling/resetting OSX? Do you even have to do that on a Mac?

Sorry for such open-ended questions, but any advice would be gratefully accepted.
 
DuncyBoy said:
Could I use a bottom-spec £400 Mini to do
Web -Yep, cause. I recommend using Safari that comes with all Macs. Kick Firefox's ass!
Email - Again, using the built in Mail app is brilliant.
Torrents - Yep, try Transmission, until uTorrent for Mac is released soon.
Viewing photos and movies (with OCCASIONAL photo editing- a little touch-up of red eye or a scratch on an old scan, for example- nothing heavy) - You can view movies and photos in Front Row or just with the built in DVD player app and Preview app for photos. To do some light editing, you can use iPhoto which all Macs come with.
Burning DVD's - Yep, built in DVD burner.
Putting movies on my iPod from DVD - Off cause, take a look at Handbrake and Visual Hub.

What's the noise output like on a Mini? It'd be in my room and if it's running overnight I'd need it to be fairly quiet. From what I've heard (excuse the pun) you can't here them.


If it does work out, I could buy external HDD caddies and use the two SATA drives from my main PC for extra storage. Yep, but remember if you want to use the external HDDs on Mac and Windows then it will have to be formatted in FAT32 as Mac can only read NTFS, not write.

Another thing that bugged me about my recent reinstall, was the amount of maintenance/protective programs I install on XP- anti-virus, anti-spyware, defrag programs, CCleaner- it's a pain! What's it like on OSX? Tbh, non existent on OS X. You may need to run maintenance scripts in Terminal every so often if you feel it slows down a bit, or Onyx to clean up some stuff, but that's it. The Mac itself automatically defrags itself after installs so no need to defrag it all the time like in Windows.

So:
Do you think this is the right way to go for getting started on a Mac? Definitely
Would a 2GB RAM option be a good move? For what you want to use it for, then yes you might feel it lacking without it.
Any problems having Windows PC's and a Mac on the same Network? I currently use Shared Folders to organise my HTPC from my desktop- can I do that with a Mini? No problems with that, they get along on the same network.
How reliable is OSX? As honest opinion as possible, please :) Honestly, very reliable. As many people have said, once you go Mac you never go back. Everything just works.
I've just gone through a hellish reinstall of XP Pro- what's it like reinstalling/resetting OSX? Do you even have to do that on a Mac? Reinstalling is easy and takes about 20 minutes at the most if you want to do it. I doubt you will ever need to as if you use Time Machine and anything goes wrong, you can just go back to the stage when it was working.
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Any more questions, i'm happy to help. Or add me to MSN. :)
 
You sound like nearly any Windows user on the verge of ditching Windows lol :).

Do you think this is the right way to go for getting started on a Mac?

Yes, it's a pretty cheap way to try out something new and over time you can upgrade the Mac Mini or buy a new mac.

Would a 2GB RAM option be a good move?

I would only upgrade when your sure that your going to keep the Mac Mini. If your planning on using a lot of programs at one then yes I would upgrade but for the price Ram can be had off overclockers theres no reason to to upgrade as its only £30 for 2GB

Any problems having Windows PC's and a Mac on the same Network? I currently use Shared Folders to organise my HTPC from my desktop- can I do that with a Mini?

Yes, you can see all the shared folders on a windows PC as I have a similar setup.


How reliable is OSX? As honest opinion as possible, please
I've just gone through a hellish reinstall of XP Pro- what's it like reinstalling/resetting OSX? Do you even have to do that on a Mac?

OSX is really reliable, its very fast a lot faster than a windows machine in my opinion and a lot more stable. If you do decide to reinstall OSX its quite simple. You get some reinstall DVD's load the first DVD up inside OSX and click "Reinstall OSX" or something like that and it restarts your mac and starts loading files up ect then it asks you what hard drive you want to install too just select that and then your off and it will install at some point during in the setup it will ask you for the second DVD. One its installed you get a flashy intro then you just input your country name ect. Its really simple to reinstall OSX.

Trust me when you have used OSX you will not want to go back to windows I think this is for 99% of people who have used a Mac. I would happily replace my main Windows rig with a Mac Mini but I currently need Windows for school work and things plus I don't have enough cash but I hopefully will buy a Mac Mini this year and use it as my main Rig I love my MacBook though it's a great machine :).
 
Justin and 1337z0r, thanks for the replies- that's a massive help :)

I've just been reading up on Mini's, Bootcamp and other stuff- it sounds exactly what I'm looking for.

The actual idea of swapping two full-size PC's- one of which is in the tackiest pre-mod case you've ever seen :p - for a little Mini is tempting in itself.

I'm not worried about switching to a completely new OS- I've tried an iMac in an Apple Store for about 30 seconds, that's the depth of my OSX experience! But I'm good at picking up new things and, as I said earlier, it's time for a change I think.

My only thoughts are swapping my HDD's from NTFS to Apple's format (as said above, FAT32 or I've read about HFS too?) but I'll work it out one way or another. Even if it means copying files to DVD.

Thanks again, no doubt you'll read a "My new Mac Mini" thread in the near future... overtime pending!
 
Justin said:
Any more questions, i'm happy to help. Or add me to MSN. :)
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Just want to correct something you said; the base-spec Mac Mini, rather absurdly, doesn't come with a DVD writer, you need the £500 one for that. Obviously the move to a Mac is based on more than just tech specs, but £500 gets you a far better PC (with a good display) than a simple Mac Mini with 1GB of RAM.
 
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TheVoice said:
Just want to correct something you said; the base-spec Mac mini, rather absurdly, doesn't come with a DVD writer, you need the £500 one for that. Obviously the move to a mac is based on more than just tech specs, but £500 gets you a far better PC (with a good display) than a simple Mac Mini with 1GB of RAM.
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But the main reason for him switching is so he can try out OSX as he is tired of Windows PC's and if he did buy a PC for £500 then he would have to use Windows.
 
I realise that, hence why I said:
"Obviously the move to a Mac is based on more than just tech specs"

£500 is still a lot of money for a fairly average system, with no display or peripherals and only 1GB of RAM; doesn't matter what OS it runs.
 
Hope your switch goes well, loving OSX and my Macbook after 18+ months of ownership.
DuncyBoy said:
My only thoughts are swapping my HDD's from NTFS to Apple's format (as said above, FAT32 or I've read about HFS too?) but I'll work it out one way or another. Even if it means copying files to DVD!
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HFS+ is the regular format for Apple disks, FAT32 is probably the best choice for external drives as it's the one format that both OSX and Windows can read AND write to.
1337z0r said:
I have been using it constant for 3 days now and I have not run into any problems.
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I'm getting Kernal Panics on my (once rock solid Tiger running) Macbook, I hear it might be caused by Azureus so going to give another client a try.
 
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TheVoice said:
Just want to correct something you said; the base-spec Mac Mini, rather absurdly, doesn't come with a DVD writer, you need the £500 one for that. Obviously the move to a Mac is based on more than just tech specs, but £500 gets you a far better PC (with a good display) than a simple Mac Mini with 1GB of RAM.
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Didn't read the specs on the Apple site correctly- thanks for pointing that out- I'll go for the £500 model.

I've already got a good monitor for my PC's, so that's not a consideration. I could build a corking PC for £500, you're right- but I'm fed up of Windows and I want to try a change (I know there's a 3rd option of Linux, but I don't think that's for me)

£500 is a lot of money for a simple-spec computer but it is a compact, tidy unit, is fairly capable from the benchmarks/reviews I've read and don't forget that includes the OS and a lot of software :)

If I had to factor software into building a £500 PC, that would take say £70-ish for Vista?
 
DuncyBoy said:
£500 is a lot of money for a simple-spec computer but it is a compact, tidy unit, is fairly capable from the benchmarks/reviews I've read and don't forget that includes the OS and a lot of software :)
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Yep they certainly are, it's an impressively quick machine considering its tiny size, I'm sure it'll be more than capable. :)

DuncyBoy said:
If I had to factor software into building a £500 PC, that would take say £70-ish for Vista?
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Probably, but all I did was compare an equivalent Dell 530. £500 with a 20" widescreen monitor, 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, 320GB HDD and a Radeon 2400XT. But then, obviously it's a significantly bigger box than the Mini! But like I said, it's not just tech specs that need to be considered so I do completely understand your choice; not criticising it in any way, shape or form.
 
TheVoice said:
Probably, but all I did was compare an equivalent Dell 530. £500 with a 20" widescreen monitor, 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, 320GB HDD and a Radeon 2400XT. But then, obviously it's a significantly bigger box than the Mini! But like I said, it's not just tech specs that need to be considered so I do completely understand your choice; not criticising it in any way, shape or form.
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Cheers for the input- appreciated.

Interestingly, my current "Main" PC is a C2D 6400, 2GB RAM, 320GB (over two HDD's), Audigy 2 and an AGP 7800 GS!!! Pretty similar to the above specs! :p
 
Comparing a Mac Mini to a normal PC desktop isn't quite right though. A Mac Mini uses mobile components to achieve a 20 watt power draw compared to 160 watts from a normal PC. It all depends on what you want and with HE discount you can get the £500 Mac Mini for around £448 :) Although have you considered a MacBook @ £600 with HE discount?

BeatMaster :D
 
DuncyBoy said:
If I had to factor software into building a £500 PC, that would take say £70-ish for Vista?
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Yeah thats about right for an OEM copy, but don't forget if you plan to Bootcamp you'll need to pay that anyway. If done properly.

You're really comparing Apples (hah) to Oranges when it comes to Mac vs PC in terms of bang per buck. I know, I do it myself. But at the end of the day you just have to accept the fact you're gonna get ripped off on the hardware.
 
BeatMaster said:
It all depends on what you want and with HE discount you can get the £500 Mac Mini for around £448 :) Although have you considered a MacBook @ £600 with HE discount?
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I take it H.E. is the Higher Education discount for students? I don't qualify for that unfortunately! I do consider myself a student of life- I just never learn my lessons :p Nah, I'd prefer a desktop to a laptop- haven't got WiFi and not much point having a lappy in a single room.

theheyes said:
You're really comparing Apples (hah) to Oranges when it comes to Mac vs PC in terms of bang per buck. I know, I do it myself. But at the end of the day you just have to accept the fact you're gonna get ripped off on the hardware.
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Fair enough, mate- I am "downsizing" my power requirements anyways so the Mini being a bit less capable is no problem. My main reason for change is the OS- I'll let you's know how I get on.

Thanks again for all the advice :)
 
I was in a similar position to you - I have a couple of mac savvy friends who helpfully let me spend hours and hours mucking around with their hardware (leave it!) And i was torn between a mini and a macbook.

I decided that as I was getting rid of my pc fully, I would prefer a portable (i'm just starting out with my first 'proper' digital camera and that also informed my choice)

As work gave me a laptop to use at home, I decided to sod it and went for the macbook - its everthing in one little box - which is great!

The mac mini is a fantastic concept and you wont be disappointed with Mac OS X - just make sure you run the updates when you turn it on - as pointed out 10.5 was a bit buggy - but 10.5.1 has fixed a large proportion of it!

Whatever you decide - you'll enjoy using mac os - not to come over as a the biggest mac fan boy ever - it just works!

Have fun with your mac!

Tom*
 
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