macbook

the reason I go with mini instead of imac is after reading the review for imac, the glossy screen does not meet my son's graphic needs. so if you are a photographer, it will be better to get a display yourself.It does have no user-serviceable parts inside according to apple, so upgrading it yourself may void the warranty as David says. I did a little research on apple forums before I opened mine and found that the general consensus is if you break something, you void your warranty. If you don't break anything, you may or may not void your warranty depending on the apple authorized retailer's decision. For me the risk was worth it, as I have been working on macs for years, but definitely take this into consideration when installing yourself. I still recommend buying the low-end model as you can always upgrade it later if/when you want. If you are uneasy about upgrading yourself, you can always buy a larger hard drive and/or ram from OWC or another third party and have an authorized apple retailer install it for you. This will save you a considerable amount of money and still fully protect your warranty.I just ordered 4GB of ram for around $65 after tax and shipping. Just read on a few forums that once you put another gig of ram into the new lower end mac mini, the NVIDIA 9400M graphics card automatically allocates another 128MB of VRAM, making it have a total of 256MB VRAM (instead of 128MB in which it is originally configured with)!

For another $90 or so you can plop a 320GB 7200RPM hard drive into it. A faster drive then the higher end model comes with.

This makes it virtually pointless to pay another $200 for the $800 model, when you can pay a total of $760 for a model that is better:

- 4GBs of ram vs 2GB
- 320GB 7200RPM hard drive vs 320GB 5400RPM hard drive
- with the same NVIDIA 9400M 256VRAM

So whats the only draw back? You have to pop the baby open and install the ram and hard drive yourself.

Is that so bad? Not at all for me, but it may be for some. However there are already forums that contain detailed instructions with pictures and videos for doing so, and as long as you can follow instructions it should not be too difficult at all. It is also somewhat less difficult to deal with than previous models, in terms of installing ram and hard drive.

Oh, I forgot to mention that you can (at the moment, 3/9/09) also get a $6 rebate for sending the 1GB ram chip from your stock mac mini to OWC if you are planning to buy the 2x2GB modular set from them. Another good buy is a $30 USB2 sata enclosure to plop that extra 120GB hard drive into for a little extra storage.

Hope this helps in you purchasing decision.

Oh forgot to mention the computer itself. I upgraded from a 1.42 DP Powermac G4 (FW800) to give you a perspective. First off it is much, much quieter and runs very cool. I have now left it on for 3 days straight and it is still cool. Leaving it on all night while processing video and other processes no longer keeps me up due to the absence of loud oscillating fans. I also like the idea that it uses very low power for a desktop, since I'll keep it on most of the time.

The main reasons for jumping to the mac mini bandwagon for me was because of its FW800 and better video card (two things you will never be able to upgrade on a mac mini without swapping out the entire logic board, which is basically a new computer anyway).

Although it has FW800, I was a little leery to make the upgrade from my Powermac G4 because I have an external 16x DVD burner that uses FW400, an external hard drive with FW400, and a RAID drive with FW800. All of which I wanted to use with my mac mini.

Due to its only 1 FW800 port, I was left to speculate whether daisy chaining all of my external drives together via one FW800 port would actually work properly and efficiently. (FW400 HD to FW400 DVD-R to FW800 RAID HD to one Mac mini FW800 port?).

Seems like a stretch, but all the drives have their own power source, and I am not going to use the FW400 HD much, so I figured what the heck, if it didn't work, I'd have to shell out the extra cash to update my external drives to USB 2 if I wanted to keep the same configuration I'd been using for years.

Anyway to get to the point... It works! I can burn a DVD at 16x from the external burner with media from the RAID drive while watching video, editing photos, and swapping files all from the RAID drive in which the burner is daisy chained to with no hiccups. (Don't know that my old G4 would have been happy with this set up, but it had 2 FW400 ports along with a FW800, so I needn't try.)

For those of you I have lost... this means that the new mac mini is a solid performer and although it has less expandability than my previous mac (less ports, no PCI expansion slots, no upgradeable video cards and processors), it still gets the job done at a faster rate and at a lesser price than upgrades.

So far it has saved me processing time, space, and the utter sound of a power hungry loud fanned G4 buzzing in my ear!

One more thing. I use "PC only" software for work, so having a mac that can boot up in windows was a definite plus for me, and another large factor in my upgrading/buying decision.

Yet another great addition is dual display support for those of you who want to hook up a couple displays at once. And to comment on another review, the mac mini does support a VGA monitor (or 2!), you just have to pay an additional $20 for the adapter from apple (as it only comes with a Mini-DVI to DVI Adapter in the box). And although the quality is going to be better with a DVI monitor, you may want to hold onto your VGA until it poops out (especially if you are low on cash like me) because by that time DVI monitors will be even cheaper and better in quality. Just a thought! (Not to mention the difficulty and expense to recycle those old VGA's).


Update - April 12, 2009

Mac Mini is still great, I am just updating this review due to an important issue that was brought up by another reviewer in regards to upgrading Mac Minis.

Mac Minis have no user-serviceable parts inside according to apple, so upgrading it yourself may void the warranty. I did a little research on apple forums before I opened mine and found that the general consensus is if you break something, you void your warranty. If you don't break anything, it should not void your warranty, but ultimately depends on the apple authorized retailer's decision. If they can find that the defect was possibly caused from you opening it up, they may not uphold your warranty. For me the risk was worth it, as I have been working on macs for years, but definitely take this into consideration when installing yourself. I still recommend buying the low-end model as you can always upgrade it later if/when you want. If you are uneasy about upgrading yourself, you can always buy a larger hard drive and/or ram from OWC or another third party and have an authorized apple retailer install it for you. This will still save you a considerable amount of money and protect your warranty, as a money saving hassle free solution.

I would not like to be responsible in any way for people accidentally screwing up while installing their own ram/hard drive and possibly voiding their warranty. Sorry for not mentioning this issue previously in my review. Could you advise on the pros/cons of the mini vs the imac? Regards.
nice post, I was also debating going with lower end model. I'm glad to here upgrading ram also increases video ram as well. Good to know, you've just helped me make my decision easier.
The iMacs are good, but I simply don't like the idea of having a built-in monitor on a computer system and never have. Once the monitor goes you are screwed, you have only a few options and none are good. You can either hook it to an external monitor and have a big dead screen constantly in the way, or replace it which would cost nearly as much as getting a new computer. Whereas with a mini you can upgrade your monitor at anytime with whatever brand you want (apple monitors are very nice, but also very expensive and in the past I have had a cheap generic monitor outlast an apple studio display).

That said, it all depends on how long the monitor lasts. They continue to get better, so it may last for years to come, but for me it's not worth the chance of even a single dead pixel occurring sometime after the 3 year extended warranty.

If I were willing to spend as much as the low end iMac (and don't already have a laptop), I would rather have the White Macbook (essentially the same specs as the new mac mini, but with FW400 instead of 800) for more mobility and versatility.

If you truly want a desktop and don't already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, the iMac is a really good deal (a 20" monitor of that quality is going to be at least $300 alone). Plus, most people probably don't mind if/when the screen eventually goes out, because by that time they will want a newer faster computer anyway. I on the other hand am going to try and squeeze as much life out of the mini as I can (which will likely be longer than an iMac due to the display alone).

The new iMacs are considerably faster than the Mac Mini as well:

- Twice the L2 cache (6MB vs 3MB)
- 2.66GHz C2D (vs. 2.0GHz)
- Up to 8GB ram (vs 4GB)

Plus built in iSight camera if you plan on doing any skype.

I didn't necessarily need the extra processing boost, and 8GB of ram seems to be a little overkill for my average uses (plus already having a 2.5GHz Macbook Pro made it unnecessary for me on the processing end).

So, to sum it all up it depends on the amount of money you are willing to spend, whether you already have a monitor, and your computer processing needs.for someone getting a new Mac, buying a new iMac vs a new Mac mini is a whole different ball of wax. 1st a new iMac price starts out at $1200. true you get a LCD monitor with the iMac. And yes I will admit even the base model iMac has a lot to offer.

For me, and others I think, a new Mac mini is appealing because I would be able to use my current Monitor and other peripherals. More people (even switchers) will look at the $595 price (if you buy from Amazon) and think Wow is that all it is for a New Mac?

the new Mac mini is finally a speedy alternative with decent graphics and makes me really think about upgrading from my old workhorse a MDD Dual 1.25GHz G4 I got new back in 2003.Be careful following all this upgrade 'advice'. Nothing inside of the Mini is considered user-serviceable and therefore opening a Mini yourself will void your warranty.the reason I go with mini instead of imac is after reading the review for imac, the glossy screen does not meet my son's graphic needs. so if you are a photographer, it will be better to get a display yourself.It does have no user-serviceable parts inside according to apple, so upgrading it yourself may void the warranty as David says. I did a little research on apple forums before I opened mine and found that the general consensus is if you break something, you void your warranty. If you don't break anything, you may or may not void your warranty depending on the apple authorized retailer's decision. For me the risk was worth it, as I have been working on macs for years, but definitely take this into consideration when installing yourself. I still recommend buying the low-end model as you can always upgrade it later if/when you want. If you are uneasy about upgrading yourself, you can always buy a larger hard drive and/or ram from OWC or another third party and have an authorized apple retailer install it for you. This will save you a considerable amount of money and still fully protect your warranty.
Thank you David for bringing up this important warranty issue. I would not like to be responsible in any way for people accidentally screwing up while installing their own ram/hard drive and possibly voiding their warranty. Sorry for not mentioning this issue previously in my review.