I'd love to be Belkin, Griffin, la CIE, etc, at this time.
This naked Mac can be transformed into anything, pilling things up ;-)
A powerful (full of pilled drives) headless server (accessed with Remote Desktop), a TV recording/burning device, an iTunes express station, one can built a VESA stand (to put upon the Mini) for its Cinema Display...
Even with the brick and the fact that RAM is installed at the store or by a tech person I still think Apple have hit the nail on the head with this one. The demographic that will buy this probably wont be interested in installing ram or want to bother doing so if they had too.
Wait a sec there's no little flap to install ram like on PBs? Hmm bad. Then again most people don't know what RAM is so probably a non-issue for the target market.
Anyway they made one HUGE mistake I hope they'll correct within a month or two.
Where are the COLORS !?
That's a huge selling point for the iPod mini. Especially for girls, and fashion conscious guys like me.
Seriously I hope they correct this. And it makes me miss the rainbow logo. So cold looking. A lump of metal.
I think that this is a very, very good move by Apple. Get set to watch their marketshare make significant gains now that they have a truly affordable entry level PC. This puppy is $629CND ($600 with educational discount)!!! Perfect for a web surfing, word processing, etc., not so wonderful as a gaming box, but at that pricepoint (and size), who really cares?
When Apple says that an Apple Authorized Reseller is needed to install the RAM, do you think that means that it would be impossible for anyone but that Reseller to install it or that it is possible, but you'll void your warranty?
When Apple says that an Apple Authorized Reseller is needed to install the RAM, do you think that means that it would be impossible for anyone but that Reseller to install it or that it is possible, but you'll void your warranty?
Was wondering that myself. If they use thermal paste, like the iMac 2, it would make it difficult to add RAM yourself.
Anyone know about the speed of the included hard drives?
I'm about to pull the trigger and order one. Can't decide which.
this is like the perfect machine for me. i'm graduating high school next year, and i'm gonna buy a new PB for college, but my iMac 450 DV+ is getting on the pokey side... so now i have a good option for cheap. certainly a lot better than what i've got... and for the most part it should run a lot of games decently, like UT 2K4 and Halo... at least at moderate resolutions. good enough for me!
Hrrmmm. Ok, I guess. No G5, that's pretty lame but for the price understandable. Apple really crippled this computer by the paucity of ports; without a fully functional set of audio and video ports, how can anyone use it as their home server for audio/video entertainment? Ooops, sorry, they can't. Is there a Mic-in port? No. Might be useful in businesses and at home, particularly since every POS Wintel computer has this port.
Lack of upgradeability is pathetic, and totally negates the "cuteness" of this product. At least the original Cube had a real AGP slot and CPU socket, and even could take a HD upgrade. This Mini might take a new HD, but the rest of it is landfill fodder. With a G4 processor, these Minis will be hitting the landfills real soon, I'd say in <5 years we'll see these models become totally and utterly obsolete to the point of being unusable.
Once again, Apple fucks up a potentially awesome product by being too damn cheap. As if it would have killed them to add a couple extra ports and cut their profit margin from 33.6% down to 32.9%.
Yeah for $499 and $599... i want the world too. i don't get steve or you. I have a powermac and i bought one of these today for exactly what it's intended for. Surfing the net, email, itunes, and ilife stuff in general. if you want a powermac, then pay the price, but don't bitch about what you get for $499.
I'm sorry, but you and steve are way off base on this machine. You want prosumer in a freaking cheapsumer price range.
Very cool machine at a very attractive price. Just wish they would include an audio in port as I am sure many PC users will be confused by the lack of it. Guess we'll all have to get an iSight to get that function....hehehe
This thing is cool, it's going to make a perfect Yellow Dog Linux workstation. Will probably make it a dual boot and try NetBSD for PowerPC. $600 is a deal, I couldn't build built a PowerPC system for less then a grand. Thank you Apple, guys made my New Years, maybe I'll take two or three.
... Apple really crippled this computer by the paucity of ports; without a fully functional set of audio and video ports, how can anyone use it as their home server for audio/video entertainment? Ooops, sorry, they can't. Is there a Mic-in port? No. Might be useful in businesses and at home, particularly since every POS Wintel computer has this port.
Lack of upgradeability is pathetic, and totally negates the "cuteness" of this product. At least the original Cube had a real AGP slot and CPU socket, and even could take a HD upgrade. This Mini might take a new HD, but the rest of it is landfill fodder. With a G4 processor, these Minis will be hitting the landfills real soon, I'd say in <5 years we'll see these models become totally and utterly obsolete to the point of being unusable.
Once again, Apple fucks up a potentially awesome product by being too damn cheap. As if it would have killed them to add a couple extra ports and cut their profit margin from 33.6% down to 32.9%.
That's the one thing that may keep me from buying one. Is there a firewire-to-toslink converter out there, anyone?
I have a USB to toslink converter (m-audio's sonica) which, after they got the drivers sorted, worked perfectly until my Airport Express arrived and now it's gathering dust in a cupboard (along with a 10m optical cable).
Will it work for me? as a PC guy I dont know mutch about the g4 proformance wise, all I have plaid with is g5 towers...
My workload would be all of the iapps (sans imovie and idvd - no vid cam, MS ofice x (I get it for $5 as a college student) and tons of web surfing, and of cource watching DVDs in my room. I think it will work just peachy with 512 mb ram but I would like some feeedback from users with real world g4 experiance
And to developors with hands on experiance, how will a system like this handle tiger?
Will it work for me? as a PC guy I dont know mutch about the g4 proformance wise, all I have plaid with is g5 towers...
My workload would be all of the iapps (sans imovie and idvd - no vid cam, MS ofice x (I get it for $5 as a college student) and tons of web surfing, and of cource watching DVDs in my room. I think it will work just peachy with 512 mb ram but I would like some feeedback from users with real world g4 experiance
And to developors with hands on experiance, how will a system like this handle tiger?
I've got a G4 800Mhz iMac with 512mb and I can say that surfing is a breeze, iApps work extremely well and DVD is pretty sweet so the Mac mini (having a faster processor) should be a joy to work on and performance will be more than good enough for exactly your needs.
Dunno much about Tiger but I'm sure it will run very smoothly on an iMac mini.
I've done just short of a ton of work on my lil ol titanium Powerbook G4.
1 GHz worked just fine for all of my Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and occasional Flash needs. But I'll step in line with all the others who cry out for more RAM. I had a gig in my Powerbook and I think that made a huge difference.
The iApps worked fine for me as well. iPhoto stayed snappy up untill I got around the 1500 photo mark but at that point I just began breaking my libraries up into smaller libraries using iPhoto Buddy. The only times I had any trouble with iTunes was it would skip when saving a 200 meg or so Photoshop file or when a cd was beginning it's burn session. Smaller Photoshop files were no prblem, just the biggies.
As far as Office goes, I hardly ever used it. I am teaching my mom to use it along with her 1.25 GHz iBook with 256 RAM and thus far I haven't run up against any real slowdowns while laying out the odd excell worksheet or word doc. On her computer she does very well with speed if only running 2 or 3 apps at a time, any more than that and we get spinning beach balls for a second or two. Get more RAM and you will likely not face them much at all with what you describe as your needs.
Just my experience, I hope others can provide you with more if you need it.
Comments
I want to ask anyone who has one, what about the noise? Most of the time small computers make a lot of noise because of bad ventilation.
thx!
I'd love to be Belkin, Griffin, la CIE, etc, at this time.
This naked Mac can be transformed into anything, pilling things up ;-)
A powerful (full of pilled drives) headless server (accessed with Remote Desktop), a TV recording/burning device, an iTunes express station, one can built a VESA stand (to put upon the Mini) for its Cinema Display...
The possibilities are huge ;-) That's cool !
They will make it, or break it...
This is The Cube V 2.0 - Without the price mistake ;-)
Anyway they made one HUGE mistake I hope they'll correct within a month or two.
Where are the C O L O R S !?
That's a huge selling point for the iPod mini. Especially for girls, and fashion conscious guys like me.
Seriously I hope they correct this. And it makes me miss the rainbow logo. So cold looking. A lump of metal.
Originally posted by Mpmcquinn
When Apple says that an Apple Authorized Reseller is needed to install the RAM, do you think that means that it would be impossible for anyone but that Reseller to install it or that it is possible, but you'll void your warranty?
Was wondering that myself. If they use thermal paste, like the iMac 2, it would make it difficult to add RAM yourself.
Anyone know about the speed of the included hard drives?
I'm about to pull the trigger and order one. Can't decide which.
Lack of upgradeability is pathetic, and totally negates the "cuteness" of this product. At least the original Cube had a real AGP slot and CPU socket, and even could take a HD upgrade. This Mini might take a new HD, but the rest of it is landfill fodder. With a G4 processor, these Minis will be hitting the landfills real soon, I'd say in <5 years we'll see these models become totally and utterly obsolete to the point of being unusable.
Once again, Apple fucks up a potentially awesome product by being too damn cheap. As if it would have killed them to add a couple extra ports and cut their profit margin from 33.6% down to 32.9%.
I'm sorry, but you and steve are way off base on this machine. You want prosumer in a freaking cheapsumer price range.
Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg
Hrrmmm.
... Apple really crippled this computer by the paucity of ports; without a fully functional set of audio and video ports, how can anyone use it as their home server for audio/video entertainment? Ooops, sorry, they can't. Is there a Mic-in port? No. Might be useful in businesses and at home, particularly since every POS Wintel computer has this port.
Lack of upgradeability is pathetic, and totally negates the "cuteness" of this product. At least the original Cube had a real AGP slot and CPU socket, and even could take a HD upgrade. This Mini might take a new HD, but the rest of it is landfill fodder. With a G4 processor, these Minis will be hitting the landfills real soon, I'd say in <5 years we'll see these models become totally and utterly obsolete to the point of being unusable.
Once again, Apple fucks up a potentially awesome product by being too damn cheap. As if it would have killed them to add a couple extra ports and cut their profit margin from 33.6% down to 32.9%.
Uhh...the dwag is barking, again
Originally posted by smatanovic
That's the one thing that may keep me from buying one. Is there a firewire-to-toslink converter out there, anyone?
I have a USB to toslink converter (m-audio's sonica) which, after they got the drivers sorted, worked perfectly until my Airport Express arrived and now it's gathering dust in a cupboard (along with a 10m optical cable).
My workload would be all of the iapps (sans imovie and idvd - no vid cam, MS ofice x (I get it for $5 as a college student) and tons of web surfing, and of cource watching DVDs in my room. I think it will work just peachy with 512 mb ram but I would like some feeedback from users with real world g4 experiance
And to developors with hands on experiance, how will a system like this handle tiger?
Originally posted by pierr_alex
I really think accessories are the key.
They will make it, or break it...
agreed, when will we see the apple kvm switch
Originally posted by a_greer
Will it work for me? as a PC guy I dont know mutch about the g4 proformance wise, all I have plaid with is g5 towers...
My workload would be all of the iapps (sans imovie and idvd - no vid cam, MS ofice x (I get it for $5 as a college student) and tons of web surfing, and of cource watching DVDs in my room. I think it will work just peachy with 512 mb ram but I would like some feeedback from users with real world g4 experiance
And to developors with hands on experiance, how will a system like this handle tiger?
I've got a G4 800Mhz iMac with 512mb and I can say that surfing is a breeze, iApps work extremely well and DVD is pretty sweet so the Mac mini (having a faster processor) should be a joy to work on and performance will be more than good enough for exactly your needs.
Dunno much about Tiger but I'm sure it will run very smoothly on an iMac mini.
1 GHz worked just fine for all of my Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and occasional Flash needs. But I'll step in line with all the others who cry out for more RAM. I had a gig in my Powerbook and I think that made a huge difference.
The iApps worked fine for me as well. iPhoto stayed snappy up untill I got around the 1500 photo mark but at that point I just began breaking my libraries up into smaller libraries using iPhoto Buddy. The only times I had any trouble with iTunes was it would skip when saving a 200 meg or so Photoshop file or when a cd was beginning it's burn session. Smaller Photoshop files were no prblem, just the biggies.
As far as Office goes, I hardly ever used it. I am teaching my mom to use it along with her 1.25 GHz iBook with 256 RAM and thus far I haven't run up against any real slowdowns while laying out the odd excell worksheet or word doc. On her computer she does very well with speed if only running 2 or 3 apps at a time, any more than that and we get spinning beach balls for a second or two. Get more RAM and you will likely not face them much at all with what you describe as your needs.
Just my experience, I hope others can provide you with more if you need it.