Man, you'd lose a lot on money making a bet like that. Even my laptop has 728mb. I don't know anyone that doesn't have at least 512mb. Windows 2K and XP need 256mb just to stand upright...
Yeah, but you're a C++ programmer surrounded by C++ programmers. My box has 1GB in it, but I don't claim to represent the general populace.
Look at the stock configurations of retail PCs, or Dell PCs, over the last few years. That's what most people buy and use. Tech-savvy people do tend to have nicer boxes, but that's hardly a surprise.
At any rate, no matter what you have in your PC, 512MB should turn the mini into a very able performer.
Like i said my computer was using 300Mb RAM. Virtual Memory should not have to be used in such a light computer usage.
Every Mac site, every mac expert, suggest 512Mb RAM
Saying your computer is using VM as a reason you need more memory in OS X is pointless. My laptop has a Gig of ram. I'm running Safari, Mail and Activity Monitor right now and I'm using 820 MB or ram and 5.6 Gigs of VM. Does that mean I need more memory??? No, it mean's OS X is doing exactly what it is designed to do.
256 to 512 is going to be plenty for 95 % of what the people the Mini is intended for will use it for. For the other 5% you are going to need to buy more memory, just like you would in EVERY other mac!
Saying your computer is using VM as a reason you need more memory in OS X is pointless. My laptop has a Gig of ram. I'm running Safari, Mail and Activity Monitor right now and I'm using 820 MB or ram and 5.6 Gigs of VM. Does that mean I need more memory??? No, it mean's OS X is doing exactly what it is designed to do.
256 to 512 is going to be plenty for 95 % of what the people the Mini is intended for will use it for. For the other 5% you are going to need to buy more memory, just like you would in EVERY other mac!
Figured I'd do another pricing follow-up since Dell seemed to get a little scared and cut prices about 5 hours after my previous pricing report...
Here's the Mini:
? 512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 DIMM
? 40GB Ultra ATA drive
? Combo Drive
? Wired Keyboard & Mouse Set - U.S. English
? 56K v.92 Modem
? Mac OS X - U.S. English
? 1.25GHz PowerPC G4
Free Shipping
Subtotal $632.00
Dell Dimension 3000 (lowest one I found a FireWire card available on):
? 2.40 GHz
? XP Professional (you get the Professional versoin of OS X).
? 1 Yr Warranty
? 512 MB Ram
? 40 GB Drive
? CD-RW/DVD-ROM
? Record Now Deluxe (gotta try to make it almost as easy as a Mac)
? No Monitor (saved $50) - already have two or three...
? IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
Free Shipping over $599
Subtotal $685 - $50 mail in rebate + postage stamp = $635.37
If you add software on the next page so you can RIP CDs faster, work with pictures and do your finances it jumps to $773-50+.37=$723.37 and we won't even go into the account transfer software you would have to pay for...
Wait, you don't want an integrated Video Card (a lot of people's complaint around here). Similarly configured you are now up to $1016-150+.37=$865.37 and that is still before the Ripping software, pictures and financial...
There's more... You want it in a smaller case so it doesn't take up as much space or looks a little nicer??? $1166-150+.37=$1016.37, again before other software.
So, lets say you want the smaller computer, a 17" LCD Display, DVD burner and the software you need to do half way decent music, pictures, movies, etc... Well, I just hit $1625-150+.37=$1475.37.
Huh, a fairly similar iMac is within $100 of that and it takes up even less space... Or, I can get the following Mini:
? 512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 DIMM
? 80GB Ultra ATA drive
? 8x SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
? Wired Keyboard & Mouse Set - U.S. English
? 56K v.92 Modem
? Mac OS X - U.S. English
? 1.42GHz PowerPC G4
Estimated Ship:
Subtotal $832.00 + $275 ($245 white Acer monitor at MacMall and $30ish shipping) for a whopping total of $1107.
I'd still say Apple did pretty stinking good on the price (and I'm still not planning to buy one, I want a PowerBook but will hold out until something looks like it will be twice what my 1 GHz Ti is).
The optical drive is twice as fast. The hard disk will blow away the laptop drive in the mini. The G4 is not comparable to the P4. Plus you get 6 more USB ports, surround sound and twice the warranty.
If you don't need to login to a domain or have any firewire devices (like most people), Dell gives you the option to take another $109 off the price. Like I said, this expired today, but Dell has sales all the time.
You added a bunch of software as well, which is fine, but not necessary. I can rip music & DVDs, manage & edit photos, burn VCDs, DVDs, music, etc. easily all with free apps, plus a $10 copy of Nero burning Rom.
The mini is a good little box and cheap for apple, but aside from size and OSX, it's not going to compete with a PC.
[i]Originally posted by xmogerThe mini is a good little box and cheap for apple, but aside from size and OSX, it's not going to compete with a PC. [/B]
Save the condescending tone until you can actually come up with an x86 box the average consumer can buy any day with the same amount and quality of software and of the same size.
'Peecees are cheaper' is not a religion, it is a factual proposition.
I think the usual consumer wants a pc to do his work with, and he doesn't like crashes and viruses.
Linux can do a lot, bot it is not yet very user friendly to an average workstation user. And windows, well, it crashes all the time on most pcs, and is quite annoying, because it has a lot of bugs, most of them are already known for years.
So the MacOS-X might as well be the killer application for the mini.
Also, the mini has a fair price. Most people already have monitors and accessories, so they won't want to spent extra money on emac or imac, for its included monitor.
And windows, well, it crashes all the time on most pcs, and is quite annoying, because it has a lot of bugs, most of them are already known for years.
Which year are you living in? Just wondering.
PCs don't crash 'all the time'. I could count the number of times my XP box at home has crashed on the fingers of one hand, and it's a 2 year old machine. Individual apps crash, but they don't take XP with them.
PCs are very stable now, and with a little care and attention (installing McAfee/Norton security suites and a spyware killer, such as Microsoft Anti-Spyware) they will run well day in day out without problems.
Windows is still rather clunky, and certainly not as elegant s OSX, but to say it's unreliable simply isn't true.
As for Mac Mini, it's a cute toy, although I'm personally holding out for a future iMac G5 revision (with a decent GPU). I do wish Apple would let users upgrade their GPUs, even through BTO options. (I know you can with a PowerMac, but I'm not *that* rich).
I run a Shuttle at home with a Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb. Running Doom 3 at my screen's native res (1680x1050) the GPU is really struggling, so an upgrade may be in order. That kind of puts Apple's GPU choices into perspective! A GeForce 5200 indeed. I hear an X800 or X850 calling.
I maintain 2 computers for a customer at his house. He has a new PC and a older G4 Mac.
I spend 3/4 to the entire time working on the PC and almost zero time maintaining the G4.
PCs are so prone to spyware and viruses (and he has both McAfee products) that the PC slows to a crawl quite often. Antispyware software doesnt do a complete job no matter which brand you use.
As far as the OS is concerned OSX is far superior to XP. Theres no comparison, IMHO.
PCs would be a better deal if it werent for these problems but all PCs automatically come with a $80 premium for antivirus and antispyware software. Mac's built in apps are also superior to a PCs.
With all that said, Apple could still put together a tower similar to a PC for just a little more money but Jobs is stubborn. I would still rather have a Mini or even a used Mac than a PC though.
Quote:
Originally posted by kotatsu
Which year are you living in? Just wondering.
PCs don't crash 'all the time'. I could count the number of times my XP box at home has crashed on the fingers of one hand, and it's a 2 year old machine. Individual apps crash, but they don't take XP with them.
PCs are very stable now, and with a little care and attention (installing McAfee/Norton security suites and a spyware killer, such as Microsoft Anti-Spyware) they will run well day in day out without problems.
Windows is still rather clunky, and certainly not as elegant s OSX, but to say it's unreliable simply isn't true.
As for Mac Mini, it's a cute toy, although I'm personally holding out for a future iMac G5 revision (with a decent GPU). I do wish Apple would let users upgrade their GPUs, even through BTO options. (I know you can with a PowerMac, but I'm not *that* rich).
I run a Shuttle at home with a Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb. Running Doom 3 at my screen's native res (1680x1050) the GPU is really struggling, so an upgrade may be in order. That kind of puts Apple's GPU choices into perspective! A GeForce 5200 indeed. I hear an X800 or X850 calling.
MacCentral review basically confirms everything I have brought up here, at least about its shortcomings:
One surprise in our testing appeared when we tested the hard-drive access speed by duplicating 500MB of data. The 1.25GHz Mac mini beat the faster 1.42GHz model by 10 seconds. Upon further investigation, we found that the 1.25GHz model actually contains a 5,400RPM drive, despite Apple?s claim that it contains a 4,200RPM drive. The 1.42GHz model, does contain the slower 4,200RPM drive.
The other components worked as expected, with good AirPort reception and quiet operation, except for the somewhat loud robotic whir of the optical drive as it was accessing a disc. Not surprisingly, the Mac mini?s built-in speaker is weak, so you?ll want to connect external speakers or headphones to listen to music or watch movies. In our many hours of testing, the Mac mini did not heat up our desk much at all, probably due to its well-designed venting system and power supply located outside the case.
We have three words about the 256MB of RAM included with the Mac mini: it?s not enough. (Unfortunately, most of the standard consumer-level Macs only come with 256MB.) We used the mini with 512MB of RAM for hours, and were very happy with its speed and responsiveness, but once we removed that DIMM and put in the stock 256MB DIMM, it seemed a bit sluggish, and wasn?t such a pleasure to use anymore. As we?ve noted in other Mac reviews, 256MB RAM simply isn?t enough memory for OS X, especially if you are planning to use the iLife ?05 applications, which require a moderate amount of horsepower. At least it?s possible to upgrade the mini. But there?s only one DIMM slot, so if you get the standard mini with 256MB of RAM, you?ll need to buy a 512MB DIMM and replace the 256MB one.
MacCentral review basically confirms everything I have brought up here, at least about its shortcomings:
<snip>
We have three words about the 256MB of RAM included with the Mac mini: it?s not enough. (Unfortunately, most of the standard consumer-level Macs only come with 256MB.) We used the mini with 512MB of RAM for hours, and were very happy with its speed and responsiveness, but once we removed that DIMM and put in the stock 256MB DIMM, it seemed a bit sluggish, and wasn?t such a pleasure to use anymore...
After using my mini for about a week, I'd even go so far as to say 512MB isn't enough, depending on what you do. Moving from a 1.33Ghz PowerBook with a gigabyte of memory to this 1.42Ghz mini with 512MB, I have to keep watch on open applications or face a very noticeable slowdown. My gigabyte stick is already on order. It's amazing how much memory the OS and just a few applications use these days.
After using my mini for about a week, I'd even go so far as to say 512MB isn't enough, depending on what you do. Moving from a 1.33Ghz PowerBook with a gigabyte of memory to this 1.42Ghz mini with 512MB, I have to keep watch on open applications or face a very noticeable slowdown. My gigabyte stick is already on order. It's amazing how much memory the OS and just a few applications use these days.
I have a little more than 512 and I find myself restarting the computer after a while. 256 Mb is a joke
PCs don't crash 'all the time'. I could count the number of times my XP box at home has crashed on the fingers of one hand, and it's a 2 year old machine. Individual apps crash, but they don't take XP with them.
PCs don't, but Windows does. I have experience with windows since 1992, and it crashes all the time. Over the years, I just managed to get one XP Box and one ME box to run smoothly for a few days.
Also, I got some linux pcs and some windows pcs, I spent almost all time of maintainance on the windows pcs.
My notebook crashes about 2 to 3 times a day, when working the hole time (XP Home), which is Windows' fault because it runs smoothly on SuSE Linux.
Also, my workstation at my office crashes about 3 to 5 times a day (W2k).
WinXP is an improvement against Win9x, but it still can't be considered stable. At least not, if you are used to work with Linux, Epoc, etc..
Also, you need a virus scanner and a firewall and an adware scanner, all of which are obsolete when using windows.
While Linux replaced virtually all my server apps, it is now time for MacOS-X to replace my desktop apps. Since it is based on bsd I have high hopes.
Also, Windows window-manager is quite annoying sometimes (switches application windows without user command, has annoying popups to remind to clean up desktop, install updates etc.), the console hasn't been really much improved since DOS (ok, the TAB function is new in XP, and it also has an nslookup and a route tool finally), and memory management is quite stupid. It worked better on DOS because the user had more control.
I still didn't figure out how to disable swapping in XP, limit Cache size etc.
First off, the Mac mini is not intended for power users.
Second, the Mac mini is not intended to last the user 5yrs like a PowerMac would (average user upgrade cycle...).
The Mac mini IS intended to lure curious people to start playing with OS X and iLife.
By looking at the specs, it's obvious that a power user wont be satisfied, but Grandma Jones will be. In a year or two when she has a bunch of little Jimmys photos and a few videos packed into iPhoto and iMovie, she'll start thinking about how her experiance with OS X and iLife has been so great. Then she may decide to buy a new iMac or replace her mini with a new one.
The argument that OS X is supperior to XP is debatable. I work in IT and deal with users Windows problems all day long. For me, at the end of the day, I dont want to go home to a computer that had problems... I want to go home to my PowerMac, it just works
I really don't know what you guys do to Windows boxes to make them crash so much. I use on all day at work with 3DS Max and I can't remember the last time it crashed. Months if not years ago.
My home XP system I push more (it's my gaming rig), but even then it virtually never crashes.
Maybe you're running dodgy software on them? I dunno.
I'm not arguing Windows is better than OSX, as of course it isn't, but when I read people claiming that Windows crashes daily, in my experience at least, that's far from the truth.
I also have no problems with spyware now. Since moving to Firefox I haven't had any at all.
PCs don't, but Windows does. I have experience with windows since 1992, and it crashes all the time. Over the years, I just managed to get one XP Box and one ME box to run smoothly for a few days.
Also, I got some linux pcs and some windows pcs, I spent almost all time of maintainance on the windows pcs.
blah blah blah
David
It sounds more like operator error than anything else. I am not a big fan of Windows myself, but it certainly isn't as unreliable as you make it out to be. You're spouting FUD more than anything else.
It sounds more like operator error than anything else. I am not a big fan of Windows myself, but it certainly isn't as unreliable as you make it out to be. You're spouting FUD more than anything else.
Yes, the average home user is sooooooo prone to not have operator errors.
Comments
Boy, theres a lot of crying going on in that house!
But at least the screaming from using NT is absent.
Originally posted by jsimmons
Man, you'd lose a lot on money making a bet like that. Even my laptop has 728mb. I don't know anyone that doesn't have at least 512mb. Windows 2K and XP need 256mb just to stand upright...
Yeah, but you're a C++ programmer surrounded by C++ programmers. My box has 1GB in it, but I don't claim to represent the general populace.
Look at the stock configurations of retail PCs, or Dell PCs, over the last few years. That's what most people buy and use. Tech-savvy people do tend to have nicer boxes, but that's hardly a surprise.
At any rate, no matter what you have in your PC, 512MB should turn the mini into a very able performer.
Originally posted by steve666
Like i said my computer was using 300Mb RAM. Virtual Memory should not have to be used in such a light computer usage.
Every Mac site, every mac expert, suggest 512Mb RAM
Saying your computer is using VM as a reason you need more memory in OS X is pointless. My laptop has a Gig of ram. I'm running Safari, Mail and Activity Monitor right now and I'm using 820 MB or ram and 5.6 Gigs of VM. Does that mean I need more memory??? No, it mean's OS X is doing exactly what it is designed to do.
256 to 512 is going to be plenty for 95 % of what the people the Mini is intended for will use it for. For the other 5% you are going to need to buy more memory, just like you would in EVERY other mac!
Originally posted by Tomahawk
Saying your computer is using VM as a reason you need more memory in OS X is pointless. My laptop has a Gig of ram. I'm running Safari, Mail and Activity Monitor right now and I'm using 820 MB or ram and 5.6 Gigs of VM. Does that mean I need more memory??? No, it mean's OS X is doing exactly what it is designed to do.
256 to 512 is going to be plenty for 95 % of what the people the Mini is intended for will use it for. For the other 5% you are going to need to buy more memory, just like you would in EVERY other mac!
512 is, 256 is not
Here's the Mini:
? 512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 DIMM
? 40GB Ultra ATA drive
? Combo Drive
? Wired Keyboard & Mouse Set - U.S. English
? 56K v.92 Modem
? Mac OS X - U.S. English
? 1.25GHz PowerPC G4
Free Shipping
Subtotal $632.00
Dell Dimension 3000 (lowest one I found a FireWire card available on):
? 2.40 GHz
? XP Professional (you get the Professional versoin of OS X).
? 1 Yr Warranty
? 512 MB Ram
? 40 GB Drive
? CD-RW/DVD-ROM
? Record Now Deluxe (gotta try to make it almost as easy as a Mac)
? No Monitor (saved $50) - already have two or three...
? IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
Free Shipping over $599
Subtotal $685 - $50 mail in rebate + postage stamp = $635.37
If you add software on the next page so you can RIP CDs faster, work with pictures and do your finances it jumps to $773-50+.37=$723.37 and we won't even go into the account transfer software you would have to pay for...
Wait, you don't want an integrated Video Card (a lot of people's complaint around here). Similarly configured you are now up to $1016-150+.37=$865.37 and that is still before the Ripping software, pictures and financial...
There's more... You want it in a smaller case so it doesn't take up as much space or looks a little nicer??? $1166-150+.37=$1016.37, again before other software.
So, lets say you want the smaller computer, a 17" LCD Display, DVD burner and the software you need to do half way decent music, pictures, movies, etc... Well, I just hit $1625-150+.37=$1475.37.
Huh, a fairly similar iMac is within $100 of that and it takes up even less space... Or, I can get the following Mini:
? 512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 DIMM
? 80GB Ultra ATA drive
? 8x SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW)
? Wired Keyboard & Mouse Set - U.S. English
? 56K v.92 Modem
? Mac OS X - U.S. English
? 1.42GHz PowerPC G4
Estimated Ship:
Subtotal $832.00 + $275 ($245 white Acer monitor at MacMall and $30ish shipping) for a whopping total of $1107.
I'd still say Apple did pretty stinking good on the price (and I'm still not planning to buy one, I want a PowerBook but will hold out until something looks like it will be twice what my 1 GHz Ti is).
Dell Dimension 4700
? 3.2 GHz P4 800Mhz FSB
? XP Professional
? 2 Yr Onsite Warranty
? 512 MB Ram
? Radeon X300 128MB PCIe
? 40 GB 7200RPM Drive
? CD-RW & DVD-ROM
? Record Now Deluxe
? No Monitor
? IEEE 1394
? Fax modem
? Mouse & keyboard
? Free shipping
$906 - 30% off coupon - $100 mail-in rebate. + stamp =
$541.57
The optical drive is twice as fast. The hard disk will blow away the laptop drive in the mini. The G4 is not comparable to the P4. Plus you get 6 more USB ports, surround sound and twice the warranty.
If you don't need to login to a domain or have any firewire devices (like most people), Dell gives you the option to take another $109 off the price. Like I said, this expired today, but Dell has sales all the time.
You added a bunch of software as well, which is fine, but not necessary. I can rip music & DVDs, manage & edit photos, burn VCDs, DVDs, music, etc. easily all with free apps, plus a $10 copy of Nero burning Rom.
The mini is a good little box and cheap for apple, but aside from size and OSX, it's not going to compete with a PC.
Originally posted by xmoger
a $10 copy of Nero burning Rom.
Where do you get that?
Ahead Nero has it at $99.99 + $9.99 shipping cost.
[i]Originally posted by xmogerThe mini is a good little box and cheap for apple, but aside from size and OSX, it's not going to compete with a PC. [/B]
Save the condescending tone until you can actually come up with an x86 box the average consumer can buy any day with the same amount and quality of software and of the same size.
'Peecees are cheaper' is not a religion, it is a factual proposition.
In the case of the mini, it is false.
Originally posted by xmoger
The mini is a good little box and cheap for apple, but aside from size and OSX, it's not going to compete with a PC.
You had me at OSX.
I think the usual consumer wants a pc to do his work with, and he doesn't like crashes and viruses.
Linux can do a lot, bot it is not yet very user friendly to an average workstation user. And windows, well, it crashes all the time on most pcs, and is quite annoying, because it has a lot of bugs, most of them are already known for years.
So the MacOS-X might as well be the killer application for the mini.
Also, the mini has a fair price. Most people already have monitors and accessories, so they won't want to spent extra money on emac or imac, for its included monitor.
I think the mini hits its target consumer.
David
Originally posted by Incoming
And windows, well, it crashes all the time on most pcs, and is quite annoying, because it has a lot of bugs, most of them are already known for years.
Which year are you living in? Just wondering.
PCs don't crash 'all the time'. I could count the number of times my XP box at home has crashed on the fingers of one hand, and it's a 2 year old machine. Individual apps crash, but they don't take XP with them.
PCs are very stable now, and with a little care and attention (installing McAfee/Norton security suites and a spyware killer, such as Microsoft Anti-Spyware) they will run well day in day out without problems.
Windows is still rather clunky, and certainly not as elegant s OSX, but to say it's unreliable simply isn't true.
As for Mac Mini, it's a cute toy, although I'm personally holding out for a future iMac G5 revision (with a decent GPU). I do wish Apple would let users upgrade their GPUs, even through BTO options. (I know you can with a PowerMac, but I'm not *that* rich).
I run a Shuttle at home with a Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb. Running Doom 3 at my screen's native res (1680x1050) the GPU is really struggling, so an upgrade may be in order. That kind of puts Apple's GPU choices into perspective! A GeForce 5200 indeed. I hear an X800 or X850 calling.
I spend 3/4 to the entire time working on the PC and almost zero time maintaining the G4.
PCs are so prone to spyware and viruses (and he has both McAfee products) that the PC slows to a crawl quite often. Antispyware software doesnt do a complete job no matter which brand you use.
As far as the OS is concerned OSX is far superior to XP. Theres no comparison, IMHO.
PCs would be a better deal if it werent for these problems but all PCs automatically come with a $80 premium for antivirus and antispyware software. Mac's built in apps are also superior to a PCs.
With all that said, Apple could still put together a tower similar to a PC for just a little more money but Jobs is stubborn. I would still rather have a Mini or even a used Mac than a PC though.
Originally posted by kotatsu
Which year are you living in? Just wondering.
PCs don't crash 'all the time'. I could count the number of times my XP box at home has crashed on the fingers of one hand, and it's a 2 year old machine. Individual apps crash, but they don't take XP with them.
PCs are very stable now, and with a little care and attention (installing McAfee/Norton security suites and a spyware killer, such as Microsoft Anti-Spyware) they will run well day in day out without problems.
Windows is still rather clunky, and certainly not as elegant s OSX, but to say it's unreliable simply isn't true.
As for Mac Mini, it's a cute toy, although I'm personally holding out for a future iMac G5 revision (with a decent GPU). I do wish Apple would let users upgrade their GPUs, even through BTO options. (I know you can with a PowerMac, but I'm not *that* rich).
I run a Shuttle at home with a Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb. Running Doom 3 at my screen's native res (1680x1050) the GPU is really struggling, so an upgrade may be in order. That kind of puts Apple's GPU choices into perspective! A GeForce 5200 indeed. I hear an X800 or X850 calling.
One surprise in our testing appeared when we tested the hard-drive access speed by duplicating 500MB of data. The 1.25GHz Mac mini beat the faster 1.42GHz model by 10 seconds. Upon further investigation, we found that the 1.25GHz model actually contains a 5,400RPM drive, despite Apple?s claim that it contains a 4,200RPM drive. The 1.42GHz model, does contain the slower 4,200RPM drive.
The other components worked as expected, with good AirPort reception and quiet operation, except for the somewhat loud robotic whir of the optical drive as it was accessing a disc. Not surprisingly, the Mac mini?s built-in speaker is weak, so you?ll want to connect external speakers or headphones to listen to music or watch movies. In our many hours of testing, the Mac mini did not heat up our desk much at all, probably due to its well-designed venting system and power supply located outside the case.
We have three words about the 256MB of RAM included with the Mac mini: it?s not enough. (Unfortunately, most of the standard consumer-level Macs only come with 256MB.) We used the mini with 512MB of RAM for hours, and were very happy with its speed and responsiveness, but once we removed that DIMM and put in the stock 256MB DIMM, it seemed a bit sluggish, and wasn?t such a pleasure to use anymore. As we?ve noted in other Mac reviews, 256MB RAM simply isn?t enough memory for OS X, especially if you are planning to use the iLife ?05 applications, which require a moderate amount of horsepower. At least it?s possible to upgrade the mini. But there?s only one DIMM slot, so if you get the standard mini with 256MB of RAM, you?ll need to buy a 512MB DIMM and replace the 256MB one.
Originally posted by steve666
MacCentral review basically confirms everything I have brought up here, at least about its shortcomings:
<snip>
We have three words about the 256MB of RAM included with the Mac mini: it?s not enough. (Unfortunately, most of the standard consumer-level Macs only come with 256MB.) We used the mini with 512MB of RAM for hours, and were very happy with its speed and responsiveness, but once we removed that DIMM and put in the stock 256MB DIMM, it seemed a bit sluggish, and wasn?t such a pleasure to use anymore...
After using my mini for about a week, I'd even go so far as to say 512MB isn't enough, depending on what you do. Moving from a 1.33Ghz PowerBook with a gigabyte of memory to this 1.42Ghz mini with 512MB, I have to keep watch on open applications or face a very noticeable slowdown. My gigabyte stick is already on order. It's amazing how much memory the OS and just a few applications use these days.
Originally posted by iDave
After using my mini for about a week, I'd even go so far as to say 512MB isn't enough, depending on what you do. Moving from a 1.33Ghz PowerBook with a gigabyte of memory to this 1.42Ghz mini with 512MB, I have to keep watch on open applications or face a very noticeable slowdown. My gigabyte stick is already on order. It's amazing how much memory the OS and just a few applications use these days.
I have a little more than 512 and I find myself restarting the computer after a while. 256 Mb is a joke
Originally posted by kotatsu
[B]Which year are you living in? Just wondering.
PCs don't crash 'all the time'. I could count the number of times my XP box at home has crashed on the fingers of one hand, and it's a 2 year old machine. Individual apps crash, but they don't take XP with them.
PCs don't, but Windows does. I have experience with windows since 1992, and it crashes all the time. Over the years, I just managed to get one XP Box and one ME box to run smoothly for a few days.
Also, I got some linux pcs and some windows pcs, I spent almost all time of maintainance on the windows pcs.
My notebook crashes about 2 to 3 times a day, when working the hole time (XP Home), which is Windows' fault because it runs smoothly on SuSE Linux.
Also, my workstation at my office crashes about 3 to 5 times a day (W2k).
WinXP is an improvement against Win9x, but it still can't be considered stable. At least not, if you are used to work with Linux, Epoc, etc..
Also, you need a virus scanner and a firewall and an adware scanner, all of which are obsolete when using windows.
While Linux replaced virtually all my server apps, it is now time for MacOS-X to replace my desktop apps. Since it is based on bsd I have high hopes.
Also, Windows window-manager is quite annoying sometimes (switches application windows without user command, has annoying popups to remind to clean up desktop, install updates etc.), the console hasn't been really much improved since DOS (ok, the TAB function is new in XP, and it also has an nslookup and a route tool finally), and memory management is quite stupid. It worked better on DOS because the user had more control.
I still didn't figure out how to disable swapping in XP, limit Cache size etc.
David
Second, the Mac mini is not intended to last the user 5yrs like a PowerMac would (average user upgrade cycle...).
The Mac mini IS intended to lure curious people to start playing with OS X and iLife.
By looking at the specs, it's obvious that a power user wont be satisfied, but Grandma Jones will be. In a year or two when she has a bunch of little Jimmys photos and a few videos packed into iPhoto and iMovie, she'll start thinking about how her experiance with OS X and iLife has been so great. Then she may decide to buy a new iMac or replace her mini with a new one.
The argument that OS X is supperior to XP is debatable. I work in IT and deal with users Windows problems all day long. For me, at the end of the day, I dont want to go home to a computer that had problems... I want to go home to my PowerMac, it just works
My home XP system I push more (it's my gaming rig), but even then it virtually never crashes.
Maybe you're running dodgy software on them? I dunno.
I'm not arguing Windows is better than OSX, as of course it isn't, but when I read people claiming that Windows crashes daily, in my experience at least, that's far from the truth.
I also have no problems with spyware now. Since moving to Firefox I haven't had any at all.
Originally posted by Incoming
PCs don't, but Windows does. I have experience with windows since 1992, and it crashes all the time. Over the years, I just managed to get one XP Box and one ME box to run smoothly for a few days.
Also, I got some linux pcs and some windows pcs, I spent almost all time of maintainance on the windows pcs.
blah blah blah
David
It sounds more like operator error than anything else. I am not a big fan of Windows myself, but it certainly isn't as unreliable as you make it out to be. You're spouting FUD more than anything else.
Originally posted by jsimmons
It sounds more like operator error than anything else. I am not a big fan of Windows myself, but it certainly isn't as unreliable as you make it out to be. You're spouting FUD more than anything else.
Yes, the average home user is sooooooo prone to not have operator errors.