Mac Mini Good?

[koolpc]

Thinking of buying a Mac Mini. Probably a 2.26 and putting 4gig in it.

Are they powerful enough for everyday use plus using windows (bootcamp) for some special programs etc?

Quite like the look of them and the apple software has always appealed to me after trying it out a bit.

I don't game that much on the pc these days.

Seen Hackintosh but not sure if that can be mentioned here! Looks complicated to me anyway!! lol

[hobbsy]

I use a mac mini for my media centre, I've stuck 4 gig ddr3 in there and it will quite happily play 1080p mkvs, and I use parallels for special things that allow to watch to footy online.

I'd never go back to using a PC, they are way too much hassle!

[KevinC]

Dont listen to hobbsy its all lies :P I have to constantly remind him at work too!

[sniperdude]

I hear it all the time Mac this and Mac that Mac is better for music production
yada yada yada

cousin got a Mac latop this is great you can do this and that

takes it on a gig club was full to bursting 15 mins into his set with all going well
it totally froze up had to laugh when he told me cos I don't like apple stuff anyway

ended up doing his set with CD's instead of on ableton live

same guy gets a 3G phone rings me I can't bluetooth files to another phone only other iphones lol

friend of mine is a pro photographer all his photo taking mates telling him get a mac great for editing pays 1200 for one said to me the other day what's the big deal I go into photoshop and its just the same as windows ??? LOL

[hobbsy]

A well configured PC with a fresh install of windows is just as good as a mac, and a lot cheaper.

But until you've all used a mac for a while you won't realise how much easier they are for the everyday things, no messing around with firewalls, anti virus progs, spyware progs, driver issues, stupid windows updates that cause all sorts of problems, they just work! unless you install wierd stuff on them (which is what people who switch fro pc to mac tend to do) then they can do some odd things.

Why do you think the iphone is so popular????? it's not just because they look nice, it's because they work well! like all Apple products....rant over :)

[DTX]

Windows 7 makes Macs pretty much obsolete for me. It installed literally all my drivers for me, and thats 64 bit. Runs smoothly, so easy to use.

As for messing around with firewalls and antivirus, I never have any problems with them in windows, even back in the XP days. Windows firewall doesn't need much attention tbh, works fine, and NOD32 updates itself. Plus I've never had a virus in years anyway.

Windows updates are annoying though I do admit, "restart to finish installation" etc. although updates generally help with keeping things, well, up to date.

[mark574020]

Nice to see the window fanboys around again. They all seem to pop up when apple gets talked about.

[sniperdude]

Nice to see the window fanboys around again. They all seem to pop up when apple gets talked about.


as do the Mac fanboys

the fact that you have POPPED UP proves this

Feb 2006... 49 posts :D

[DTX]

Nice to see the window fanboys around again. They all seem to pop up when apple gets talked about.

Well, there is "fanboys" and then there is "I-use-windows-and-it-works-absolutely-fine-with none-of-the-issues-mac-users-always-bring-up people" like me.

I appreciate very well that macs do have big advantages particularly in the recording industry, and if you've been using a mac for a while then its obviously the thing for you.

[Mr. Pineapple]

I use imacs and school and I hate them, my custom windows 7 based pc blitz the **** out of them. Also being very slow mouse compaired to my razor mouse I've even changed the settings to max on the macs and still being slow.

To all them people who say macs never crash, they crash all the time for me when i double click something on them.

The pc I've got for around 700 last year baring in mind and now for a imac today its 950 for one around my specs only my hdd is 640gb and my graphics is ati 4850.

One of my ict teachers always goes on about how great they are and never crash yet is crashed when he was showing us imovie and I had to lol at him.

I just don't see the appeal of macs, they just not for me, baring in mind I use both linux and windows and also macs in school, they just don't compair to windows and linux imo

[Jack-Havoc]

From my perspective as a fairly average competent computer user, i still have to go with PC. I use windows and haven't had a virus scanner for over a year now. I installed one recently and the only spyware and "viruses" it detected were harmless cookies and a couple of false positives. I don't see how so many people can mess up with pc's? Mac fanboys (not accusing anyone here) always seem to claim mac's safer but if you look around then there was a mac virus circling around recently.

Getting back on track to the op:

I suppose it all depends on your budget and what you want from the system. I wouldn't always say Mac's were even better quality now. Both my friends mac laptops suffer from over heating and busted cd drives. One of my friends claims it's because he never used the drive so it collected dust, lol. Not to mention his bookcamp sucks big time. It took so much effort getting everything working i just kept wondering why he didnt get a pc :rolleye: Speaking of hassle, sure pc's can be hassle, but that's only when you start pileing things up. You've got so much choice of software out there you're bound to get clashes. Keep it clean and it will work. Simple.

If you're tech-savy then i would say why not shop around? There's plenty of systems out there that can handle media stuff and may even look nicer doing. Also do you have stuff stored on your pc that you want to access over a network? I've found transfer's to mac's to be pretty awkward. They don't like ntfs so if you have an external drive for your pc then the mac can read it but you'll have to look around to write to it.

Sorry for the long read but you asked for opinions :xwink:

[hobbsy]

Guess it all comes down to what your familiar with really. The reason I switched to a mac was because i find them easier to use and less flakey than the average PC. Saying that though, the last PC I owned was running XP, I've heard nothing but good things about Windows 7, so it seems as though Bill has finally released a good/stable operating system.

There's also no doubt, that for the price of a new mac you'll get a much better specced PC, but you can't really compare them in that way, Apple write their own operating system and design their own hardware (which is what costs the extra £££) therefore you'd expect them to run better.

I think thats partly the problem with Windows, you can install it on anything, and there is no way on earth Microsoft can test every little bit of hardware so you WILL get problems, and the average home user doesn't understand how to fix driver issues etc (6 years working on customer service has taught me this)

Jack-Havoc has got in spot on though, there is way too much software out there, and people who don't know what they are doing love to install shareware, adware and all the other **** you can download for free, you cannot do this on a mac, which in turn makes them more reliable.

So.....if you know how to use and look after a PC properly then stick with a PC, if your not so good with a PC and find Windows a bit of a chore, buy a mac.

[f12f12]

so what hobbsy said there was that a mac will limit what you can do. now to compare this to some thing ells its like dell they limit what you can do and then they have no hardware failers, but then what happens when i want to over clock it i can't but then because i can't it is more reliable?

[IainK]

imo macs are good for the masses who havn't a clue how to use a PC properly and keep it running smoothly, however for people like me who like the hardware, gaming and upgrading it has to be Pc all the way. I would never buy a mac, purely because i can't bring myself to knowingly get ripped off for the hardware, same reason i will never buy a prebuilt PC, the only difference is i can build my own PC, I can't build my own mac (legally) so this is the deciding factor for me....

Linux FTW

[Lambda]

Apple sell design products, not just computers.

[thehitmen]

If you work in Media or want to, you will most likely use a mac...

Some media journalists have the mac for BATTERY LIFE and build quality as i found out when a photographer gave a talk to our group.

They like the idea of, my macs broke, ring apple, same day repair...

But to OP, i would say yes get one, OSX is a great learning curve, and i like to be able to use both.

[Baggpuss]

Agreed on the battery life, my missus has a macbook at its battery beats my laptop several times over for battery life and its a higher spec than mine. Plus spec for spec the macbook at least isnt that much more than a decent branded laptop with windows, even less if you get the education discount.

[TankJon]

Thinking of buying a Mac Mini. Probably a 2.26 and putting 4gig in it.

Are they powerful enough for everyday use plus using windows (bootcamp) for some special programs etc?

Quite like the look of them and the apple software has always appealed to me after trying it out a bit.

I don't game that much on the pc these days.

Seen Hackintosh but not sure if that can be mentioned here! Looks complicated to me anyway!! lol

The Macbook spec in my sig is roughly the same spec as the Mini and it runs Win7 perfectly. I don't really use it for gaming but if I fancy it the Macbook runs Left4Dead, CS:S, DoD:S and It plays HD movies full screen when outputted to my TV without any problems.
I mainly run the Macbook under OSX though for 3D modelling which it excels at. I can happily leave it for days on end running large renders or animations without any issues. Win7 is good but OSX is just so super stable and I can honestly say (touch wood) that it hasnt crashed once in the 6+ months I've been using it. I thought my usage would be 50/50 between OSX and Win7 but I haven't booted Win7 for the last 8-10 weeks, mainly due to the fact that OSX is such a great OS.
Apple hardware is more expensive but it does work exceptionally well and is far less frustrating than running a Windows OS and its so much quicker.
People that say Mac sucks have rarely, if ever, actually tried to use one and instead form an opinion based on what they think they know about Mac. I used to be the same but once I had spent some time (less than a few hours with a friends Mac) I was totally convinced that using a Mac is much more enjoyable than using a PC, hence why I use one now instead of a PC :)

[koolpc]

Be nice to try it out.

[steelfish]

I just got one to complement my late 2009 MacBook. It's a great little machine for general surfing iTunes and generally faffing about with UNIX stuff. I prefer Mac OS X as I can run Office and iWorks, otherwise I'd have gone with a Ubuntu laptop.

It's pap for gaming on really, but as I have a PS3 for that, the MacMini ticks all my boxes! Hope that helps.

[cpezzer]

I have a mac mini 2.0 with 4gb ram and 500gb hard drive. It runs windows 7 very well, ableit slower than a £500 pc world. However be ware you need a paint scrapper to open the case (get a plastic one). Also the hard drives are 4200/5200 due to heat limitations. Overall though 7/10.

[Lorem-Ipsum]

While everyone is discussing mac and windows the sneaky penguin ( tux ) is nibbling your wires.

LINUX!!!!!

To go back to subject the mini mac is great, not high spec but perfect for the mac OS.
You can mount it on the back of many monitors as well.

And I think I will explode if I don't say it so......
linux can run on it......

[Superewza]

No, Mac Mini Bad!