Thinking of switching

feelintherage

feelintherage

feelintherage

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Joined
28 Mar 2007
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455
Right dudes ive only been a pc user for a few years well 5 to be exact and my gf is thinking of getting a new pc and i said what about a mac mini and she seemed interested but i got some Qs

im not very sure about the super drive tbh, just because she doesnt even burn cds lol so a dvd rewriter doesnt seem appropriate but say in the future she started to what external drives are good to get?

Next up is that 1gb of ram enough would she need more?, it would only be for surfing and using word on and maybe some football manager if im around (so 1gb is required for that)

As for HDD size she hasnt even filled the 40gb she has on her pc lol so stick with standard

what you guys think and i have read this forum a lot and it seems from what you guys say is that they are easier to use, nicer, more secure. What other reasons are they to change and is there anything to worry about in regards to compatibility etc we are thinking of getting a new digital camera and printer so they need to be compatible

thanks Gary
 
Printer and camera are virtually guaranteed to be compatible, things just work :) I'm a future Mac convert, when Leopard comes out I'll be getting a Macbook and my parents a Mac Mini. Think it'll be easier for them. And I've heard 1gb RAM is good for a Mini, 512 is not enough and 2gb is generally not necessary.

Can any Mac-boys approve this? :p
 
gumbald said:
Printer and camera are virtually guaranteed to be compatible, things just work :) I'm a future Mac convert, when Leopard comes out I'll be getting a Macbook and my parents a Mac Mini. Think it'll be easier for them. And I've heard 1gb RAM is good for a Mini, 512 is not enough and 2gb is generally not necessary.

Can any Mac-boys approve this? :p
Click to expand...

512 in a mini is certainly not enough, 2gb is enough. I've not used mine with 1gb, but 2gb's definitely not 'unnecessary'. On the other hand I do use photoshop a fair bit and other stuff, for some mac mini users (very casual market) 1gb would no doubt be fine. I just wanted as much pep as I could get out of it :)
 
Yeah 1GB is good enough unless you are getting into significant multiapp, or anythng running under Rosetta, which at this point is really only Microsoft Office. Even with that my Macbook is fine on 1gb, hell 512 was tolerable for a massive iTunes library library, Entourage (mac office outlook), Firefox, Messenger and Azureus.
 
I'd suggest 2GB myself, I the stock 512 in my MB and it felt quite slow, with 2GB it flies though.

If you considering doing any programming on it, again 2GB is probably the way to go.

Must say OS X certainly likes RAM!

Davem
 
Hi,

I'm using an Intel Mac Mini 1.83Ghz with 1GB Ram. It's mainly used for e-mail, Internet browsing etc. and seems fine. I've also used Eclipse and Apache for doing some Java stuff and that seems to run OK too.

There again, I've heard that Minis are quite difficult to upgrade so you'd probably best getting everything you want now.

I'd never had a DVD writer on a PC but bought the model with the SuperDrive, and as it was there I now use it for DVD writing every now and again. And as I plan to start using the machine to record TV that's going to be pretty useful.

But is it a good time to buy the Mini? Is a new version just around the corner?

Jim
 
JIMA said:
There again, I've heard that Minis are quite difficult to upgrade so you'd probably best getting everything you want now.
Click to expand...

Not really, opened my brothers a couple of times with a putty knife easy peasy

feelintherage said:
and say we didnt get a superdrive what dvd rewriter would anybody suggest?
Click to expand...

the superdrive in the mini is probably a Pioneer drive, so you would be looking for an external solution most likely
 
Don't buy the extra RAM through Apple - buy it at [any number of companies which sell the RAM but I can't mention due to forum rules :p] and it'll almost certainly be a lot cheaper. And if you buy 2x1Gb sticks, you'll have the 512Mb stick from Apple spare to sell/keep :)

I ran with 512Mb on my MBP for a week, and it was rubbish. I'm a demanding user though - my time is money. I upgraded to 1Gb and that was fine, and I've only gone to 2Gb because my colleague was getting a mac and found some sticks of RAM on the bay for a good price.

It does seem slightly quicker, and it's definitely now possible to run multiple Parallels VMs whereas before it did get a bit slow. But I don't think 2Gb is essential :)
 
I have had my MacBook for about 6 months, and am very pleased with it.

It came with 512Mb of RAM, so I increased that immediately to 2Gb for about £80, mainly to run Parallels. Just bought a 160Gb hard drive as I had filled up the 60Gb drive it shipped with. I like the ability to boot off my Firewire and USB2 drives.

I did not bother with a SuperDrive, so I bought an external LG GSA-E10L (16x DVD+R/-R, 10x DVD+R DL, 12x DVD-RAM). Pity it's USB2 not Firewire. :(

My twin Zeon PC is now nearly 3 years old, and I shall be replacing it with an iMac (probably the 20", if the wallet can handle it).
 
I was a big gamer on my desktop machine (AMD X2 @ 2.5Ghz) 2Gb Ram, x1800XT etc. etc.

I got a good deal on a macbook pro as I sold my entire desktop machine and got a good discount on a 15" base spec Macbook Pro.

I haven't looked back. I have had cravings for tinkering and messing around with hardware in my old PC.

But as it is I have XP installed on bootcamp.

I use XP for gaming and OS X for everything else.

Have to say it is the most amazing piece of technology ever, it is my first portable and my first Mac, and never been happier.

You get the best of both worlds, a capable gaming machine (ok no AA/AF and low gfx settings, but I play for fun not gfx :)) and an absolutely awesome OS X with everything it offers. I found having a .mac helps me immensly, I have all my bookmarks, contacts, diaries, calendars, emails all stored centrally so it always updates and is always there, no more losing bookmarks or important emails.
 
Rambaud said:
I have had my MacBook for about 6 months, and am very pleased with it.

It came with 512Mb of RAM, so I increased that immediately to 2Gb for about £80, mainly to run Parallels. Just bought a 160Gb hard drive as I had filled up the 60Gb drive it shipped with. I like the ability to boot off my Firewire and USB2 drives.
Click to expand...

what are parallels?

and does it take normal ddr2 ram? im not very teched up on macs tbh lol
 
right well i ran out of monies when building this comp i went abit overboard with the gcard tbh and im going to upgrade my ram

could i put my 1gb of pc5300 corsair value select ram into the mac?

as ive said before im not really teched up on this so if im wrong dont flame me ;)
 
feelintherage said:
right well i ran out of monies when building this comp i went abit overboard with the gcard tbh and im going to upgrade my ram

could i put my 1gb of pc5300 corsair value select ram into the mac?

as ive said before im not really teched up on this so if im wrong dont flame me ;)
Click to expand...

I doubt it mate.

Use the Crucial Memory Advisor tool to find out exactly what memory you need, then shop around for the best deal.

http://www.crucial.com/uk/
 
I do quite a lot on my Mini which only has 1GB of RAM and the disk chugging is pretty minimal, really. For 'basic' office-like uses I'm sure 1GB would be absolutely fine :)

If you're interested in more detailed impressions of a recent switcher, take a look at my 'Arty's Mac Week' thread in this forum where I've noted down the occasional rambling comment about how I'm getting on, pretty much from when I first decided to spend a week on my Mini rather than my PC. The week turned into 'always' ;)

arty
 
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