New to Mac

m0ffm0ff
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Must say ive only messed around with a Mac for a short period of time and never felt justified to go out and buy one.



However the Mac Mini is exactly what im after and is going to be ideal for storing music, photos etc.



Just wanted to fire a couple of quick questions past you:



1.) Im planning on getting the dvd-r option... is it worth upgrading to say 512mb of RAM... maybe more? I know from a Windows XP point of view it would keel over and have a heart attack with 256mb of RAM. Not sure if OS X is the same.



2.) Whats the best alternative to Microsoft Outlook? Is there anything which comes as part of the OS you can use or is it going to be an additional package?



Cheers in advance.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    danosaurdanosaur Posts: 258member
    Yes I would definitely recommend upgrading the RAM. 256 is not enough for serious use (but would be fine for internet surfing, word processing, etc.) I believe OS X uses less RAM than Windows XP, but nonetheless, RAM is a good option.



    And Outlook is available for Mac (or maybe it's called Entourage now). Also there is an email program that comes preinstalled with OS X which is decent. It can import all your old information.
  • Reply 2 of 5
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Welcome to AppleInsider!



    Quote:

    Originally posted by m0ff



    1.) Im planning on getting the dvd-r option... is it worth upgrading to say 512mb of RAM... maybe more? I know from a Windows XP point of view it would keel over and have a heart attack with 256mb of RAM. Not sure if OS X is the same.



    OS X will run OK in 256MB, but it's definitely happier in 512MB. I'd splurge on 512MB.



    Quote:

    2.) Whats the best alternative to Microsoft Outlook? Is there anything which comes as part of the OS you can use or is it going to be an additional package?



    Apple bundles a mail program (called Mail) an address book (called... Address Book) and a calendaring program (iCal). They're solid, and they should work fine for you. There are third-party alternatives as well.



    If you buy Office:mac from MS, they bundle an almost-Outlook client called Entourage. If you need an Exchange client, this is your only option.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    It doesn't look like changing the RAM yourself is going to be a huge problem, IF you don't care about your warrantee. For $75, you could almost let Apple do it. When 1GB dimms are cheap enough, it looks like the operation will be easy to accomplish.



    I'm more concerned about the HDD. I sure hope it's a 3.5" unit and not a notebook drive -- that would needlessly slow the mini and make upgrades more expensive than they need to be. This is the perfect candidate for a 250GB internal HDD...
  • Reply 4 of 5
    kraig911kraig911 Posts: 912member
    i'm hearing from a friend it uses the notebook drives, but i too am not sure. we were discussing the issue in length about upgraging the harddrive manually but concern over temperature came into mind. But i can't say 100% for sure what kind of drive it uses.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    g_warreng_warren Posts: 713member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kraig911

    i'm hearing from a friend it uses the notebook drives, but i too am not sure. we were discussing the issue in length about upgraging the harddrive manually but concern over temperature came into mind. But i can't say 100% for sure what kind of drive it uses.



    Apparently it is a 2.5in drive, but in my experience that is fast enough for the sort of thing which you would use the machine for. If you really want you could probably get away with a 5400rpm drive and it would still be okay, and a bit speedier. Try out the standard drive though - i'm sure you will find it is fast enough.
Sign In or Register to comment.