Apple Releases Mac Mini 1212
cranesan writes "The rumors of Apple releasing a small PC are confirmed. The Mac mini can be found at Apple's website. As expected, the box uses a G4 processor. You can order one today; estimate 3-4 weeks shipping date. Base unit starts at $499."
Old News? (Score:2, Insightful)
No PS/2? (Score:2, Insightful)
g4? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes there are cheaper alternatives, but they're not THAT much cheaper. Paying $200 more for a Mac (using your math from above) is demonstrably better than paying $500+ more for a Mac, and the user experience is going to be pretty much the same for the buyer in either case.
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:5, Insightful)
So you've got to add:
XP-Pro (at least)
DVD-ROM
Quicken 2005
Office
Video editing suite
*then* start comparing prices.
This isn't "isn't" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but when my retired mother wants a new PC and also wants to get one of those digital cameras everyone is buying, guess which one I'm going to suggest? I'm going to suggest the $600 box that won't require me to sit in front of it removing spyware and viruses for an hour every time I visit (which I do now for my in-laws, which has decreased since I put Mozilla on that machine). I look at the mac as a Linux for the rest of them, and if it costs a few hundred more up front, so be it.
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:1, Insightful)
Reasoning for the mini (Score:5, Insightful)
1) From the first paragraph on that page:
2) From the second paragraph:
For the average
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:5, Insightful)
GotApex? has a "headless Dell" on their site for $449.
This is not really a reasonable comparison. This Mac Mini is a super small form-factor PC. Try this:
Mini-itx system with Morex case [logicsupply.com]
After I added the optical drive, upgraded to the 1200 processor/motherboard, upgraded hard disk to match apple, etc, I came in around $730. And that's for a PC with shared video (unichrome) that is still over twice the size of the Mac Mini, running WinXP, and looking about as attractive as a big warm turd. The Cappuccinopc [cappucinopc.com] web site has some PCs that may be a closer comparison, but they are also more expensive and include Intel Extreme video.
If someone out there made a 6.5 by 6.5 by 2 PC with a real video card and slot-loading dvd drive for 499, I would be all over it.
Re:Dupe... (Score:3, Insightful)
overpriced perhaps, but "insanely"? (Score:2, Insightful)
You offer a comparison system that's only 10% cheaper, and depending on the details might not even be as well-equipped as the mini. (svideo out? equivalent out-of-the box software bundle that includes being impervious [for now, at least] to viruses and spy-/ad-ware?)
Feel free to question or mock the zealotry that many of us Mac users exhibit now and then, but give Apple their due on this one: they have, for once, offered a system that is NOT insanely overpriced compared to the competition.
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't tell you which system is the better value for you, but let's for the pure fun of things look at that Mac Mini's software, and then figure out from there what you're paying for the naked hardware, okay?
Let's see -- the Mac Mini comes with (with prices listed at Apple's Online Store [apple.com] in brackets (using all USD prices):
For a grand total of $401.85 if you were to just buy the software alone, leaving the hardware portion costing you only $97.15 . When you factor in the fact you don't need to outfit the system with firewall or anti-virus software, it looks like one damn fine deal to me.
Yaz.
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:5, Insightful)
2. It's not tiny.
3. It's not fanless.
4. It does not run MacOS-X.
Crap. Order Mac mini w/ 512 megs of RAM and you have _fully_blown_ modern computer that everyone can use and that you can carry in your pocket (I'm sure it would fit in my coat's).
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Serious question: who will buy this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Add to this that Apple's target market already owns a malware infested wintel box and subscribe to AOL. So they use their iPod to save their data (check out Apple's switch page) unplug their old wintel crap, put this little box on the desk and in a less than an hour Windows is out of their life.
If my Mum & Sister didn't already have iMacs I'd get them this.
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:3, Insightful)
There are kit cars too. Most people would rather buy a Toyota.
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:1, Insightful)
Expand the pathetic base 256MB of RAM without voiding the warranty, for starters.
Re:Serious question: who will buy this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? Because I've wanted a Mac for a while now, but havent been willing to part with the cash for one. Now there's a nice one in my price range. Will it be top of the line? No. But that's not the point. It will be good enough for me to get the Mac experience, and maybe from there I'll decide that a real high-end mac is worth it.
Re:Not Politically Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Ironically enough, a phrase coined by Apple.
Before that they were "microcomputers".
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:3, Insightful)
Verdict: true
Right-click.
100% INCORRECT. OSX supports right-click right out of the box. Its just that Apple mice dont have two-buttons. Actually, you can hit the option key and click with an apple mouse to get the right-click functionality. But note that the mini mac DOES NOT SHIP with an apple mouse. So go out and get a MS optical wheel mouse or use your current usb/ps2 mouse and you will have right-click. Verdict: false
Start-R For Run.
Your joking, right?
You shouldnt even need to do that. In OSX I can start any OSX App using only the keyboard in 3-5 keystrokes. Do this COMMAND+Shift+A (open apps folder) then type the first letter of the App, OSX highlights it, now COMMAND+Down (or +O) to run it. You may need the second letter of the name too is many apps are similiarly named. Naturally, you can also use the Terminal to open unix apps as fast or faster than Start-R.
Verdict: True, but Mac's can accomplish the same goal quicker
Upgrade. The above were attacks on Mac's. This is about the Mini Mac and iMac's. The MiniMac's have memory upgrade ability only. This machine is geared at people as a "My first Mac." If you like, it Apple hopes you will by an iMac (that would be your upgrade).
Things you cant do on a Wintel PC:
- See all you app windows with a single-keypress (expose)
- Flurry screensaver
- Open
- Run X app's natively.
- Terminal. enough said.
- Turn on fully configured FTP, HTTP, SSH and file sharing servers by simply checking a check-box.
- Setup virtually any bluetooth device in 4 or fewer click's
- Once click internet connection sharing between wireless and wired lan that doesnt involve complex bridging and an hour of clicking.
- Tons of well-made and stable productivity applications bundles
and finally, - type ls
There's no point in including PS/2 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mod up (Score:2, Insightful)
And 1 GB stick is $299.99, which admittedly is a lot less than the $400 something Apple wants. But realistically, why would you need 1 GB in a low-end machine? Sure, you [i]could[/i] do Photoshop or Final Cut Pro or (insert professional app here), but the other (more expensive) Macs are better suited to those tasks.
Re:On the off chance someone hasn't mentioned this (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sitting here on a laptop - non-upgradable (I hear they're selling quite well nowadays...). All my PC boxes are being migrated to shuttles (which aren't very upgradable, TBH, but I don't care).
*most* people don't keep the same box going for 5 years. They upgrade. Slashdotters are more likely to do it bit by bit, but I bet the average slashdotter has spent a lot more than $1000 on hardware in the last 12 months.
The things that I upgrade most (memory, hard drive) are still upgradable on the mini, albeit with a little work... but you get that with laptops too.
99.99% of the 'real world' never upgrade. Heck, they never even run Windows Update let alone upgrade their hardware. This is the market these boxes will fly off the shelves in.
A Real Dell compare: to a laptop. (Score:3, Insightful)
I configured a low end dell laptop with 40G drive/ CD-RW/DVD combo drive/256 MB ram/Celeron 2.6./90 day warranty (7.5 lbs) Price $852
I configure the mac Mini with standard 1.25 G4/ 40G drive/ cd-RW/DVD combo/ 256ram/ 90 day warranty. 2.9lbs mac mouse and keyboard combo. Price $552
CMV 15" LCD Monitor 5.3 lbs $179 newegg.
Total Price: $731
So one is luggable on the other true portable. But you have similar power and price/size/mass. Upgrade capability and pricing also similar.
Those comparing the price performance to a off the shelf standard PC are out to lunch. This is not a power users box. It is not the best price peforming box on the planet.
What it is is a very small cool, REASONABLY priced mac.
I never used a mac before but I could see KVM'ing one of these into my current setup. I could meet 90% of my computing needs in blisfully quiet operation, keeping the PC for powerhouse/legacy tasks the other 10% of the time.
I think they are going to sell all they can build. I would have ordered one already if it came with digital audio outputs.
While not everything to everyone, this machine has an interesting niche to occupy and represents one of the few chances to get an Apple without paying a significant premium IMO. I wish them well. Hopefully they will be successful and release a mini2 that is more suitable for media center usage.
Re:And here are the more interesting posts: (Score:2, Insightful)
can != must
Nothing in the blurb you quoted about voiding warrenties.
Re:Reasoning for the mini (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, this Mac mini has a processor almost twice as fast, double the hard disk space, and DDR memory (my laptop uses SDRAM)... for 500 bucks. I would hardly call it a crappy machine. Your post makes no sense to me, but obviously a few people find you insightful.
So, let me get this straight.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:not just 499 (Score:5, Insightful)
USB-PS2 adapter, Fry's, something like $2. Seriously. Basic USB keyboards/mice aren't much more if you feel like an upgrade.
2)If I had an old computer I would have to by all new input and output devices to hook up to this thing because older computers are less likely to have usb mouse keyboards and VGA/DVI monitors.
It comes with a VGA-DVI adapter in the box. Moot point - oh, and RTFA.
3)I went to the apple site to "buy" one and I don't even see monitor as an option to add to this computer. Sure I can buy a 20inch LCD from apple but then its not "just" $499 anymore is it?
If you add extra parts it gets more expensive? Er, yeah, you're right there - although I don't really see what your surprised about. If you want a monitor, add one to your cart. If you don't, don't. If you want the whole package, spend more and get an eMac or an iMac. Or don't. Is this really rocket science?
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you mean to suggest that Open Office (which I'm guess is what you're saying should be downloaded from openoffice.org) is comparable to Office? Golly. Remember that "you're comparing a first-class ticket to" analogy? We're back in that territory again.
AppleWorks is fairly shoddy software by 21st-century standards, but at least it supports new, cutting-edge technologies like "cut" and "paste."
You're either a jackass, you've missed the whole OSS movement, or you haven't been on
If OSS means Office of Strategic Services, then just one out of three. If it means anything else, then I guess it's two out of three.
GTFOH.
Your guess is as good as mine here.
It seems as though you misunderstood the meaning of HEAVY VIDEO EDITING.
It seems as though you misunderstood the definition of iMovie. It is, in fact, capable of moderately sophisticated, multi-track, non-linear video editing in either standard or high definition. And it's bundled with the Mac mini.
your DV cam (which probably COMES with the software to do so now)
Software that (1) has to be installed, (2) has to be learned and (3) doesn't work with anything else on your computer. Sounds like a poor substitute for iMovie.
burning them to a dvd (DVD burner probably comes with software to create videos as well)
Software that (1) has to be installed, (2) has to be learned and (3) doesn't work with anything else on your computer. Sounds like a poor substitute for iDVD.
Otherwise you can use movie maker or some other little bullshit program that just gets the job done.
Software that (1) has to be installed, (2) has to be learned, (3) doesn't work with anything else on your computer and (4) is a "bullshit program." Sounds like a poor substitute for iMovie and iDVD.
No, every parent in america DOES NOT have a mini dv camcorder.
Literally? No. It's a figure of speech. Mini-DV cameras are ubiquitous.
every parent in america does not want to use Photoshop (an image editing suite) to edit pictures
Which is why Apple bundles iPhoto. We keep coming back to the main point here, don't we? Which is that the software bundled with the Mac mini makes your life easier instead of harder, and that no comparable software is available for the PC at any price.
By the way, there is maybe 1 family out of 10 who actually does record all of little timmy's events with a dv cam and tries to back them up on DVDs.
Let's say it were one family out of ten. That would still be 10 million families in the United States alone. Nice market.
Of course, it's not one out of ten. It's much, much higher.
Everyone else is content with video tapes or just hooking the fucking camera up to the A/V inputs on the TV and going with it.
Oh, I see. Because that's the way we did it in 1989, that's how we should do it today. Got it. Great plan you've got there.
In case you're wondering, this is why Apple's profits for the quarter ending 12/25 quadrupled over the previous year's. This is why they're growing like a house on fire: because they don't say, "You should be satisfied with doing it the old, clumsy, hard way."
Your philosophy is, "It should be hard," so you're okay with things that are hard. Apple's philosophy is, "It should easy." So they make it easy.
Re:And here are the more interesting posts: (Score:2, Insightful)
Magnum-Moss was designed for cars, but as I understand it, it is not limited to cars.
Re:And here are the more interesting posts: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe you're a troll, or maybe you just aren't quite catching the sarcasm here, but let me say it flat out. Supporting your brother, father, and grandfather is not the same as working a helpdesk professionally. I understand you think it is. I did too, when I was 17 and had never worked professionally as a tech.
The first mistake you're making is that you cannot rely on your users to have the common sense or the will-power of a lemur. You don't want your users to do something, you pretty much have to make it impossible, and even then, some exec who could fire you on a whim may very likely disapprove of the fact that his favorite joke sites are blocked.
Does user education help? Sure. Will it actually stop spyware infestation? No. Does any of this excuse MS from making the monumentally bone-headed decision of giving their web-browser the ability to install random apps without asking? No.
Re:And here are the more interesting posts: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think I prefer my system to actually check (you know, in that POST portion of boot where it's supposed to check the RAM) that the RAM is at least reasonably sound and bail immediately than to just merrily chug along with a bad stick and bomb out later at a random time.
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:3, Insightful)
It "keeping its value" means you can re-sell it, making your replacement less expensive. With a PC, you have to pay someone to recycle it.
Answers to frequently mentioned complaints (Score:5, Insightful)
1) 2 USB ports. What do you do after mouse / keyboard and you want to plug in a printer?
A USB HUB. I can't believe people on
2) No Audio In - external firewire devices, which have been mentioned in many other posts with links, are readily available. If you're serious about gargeband you won't want a crappy minijack audio in anyway. You'll want a breakout box with a 1/4 or optical line in.
3) No Optical Audio out - again the reverse of the above.
4) Harddrive space, not enough for today's digital media. Same as an Ipod.
Again, external firewire drives, which are very important to the Mac in general. I use my G5 primarily for heavy duty HD editing. Guess what I use for storage? No SCSI or Raid array - an off the shelf LaCie Terabyte external Firewire 800 drive. I took it out of the box, plugged it in, copied files over from the SATA drive that came with the system, and within 15 minutes my setup was complete with now a terabyte to work with. Hell, you could plug one of them into a Mac Mini if you had that much porn to archive and were going to hack the thing to be a video server.
5) What hardware you're getting for that price.
You're also getting OSX and iLife '05. I skipped iLife 04, but I am rushing out the day '05 hits, because it is just incredible what you're getting for 79$. That cost is part of the Mini Mac.
Ultimately it's not even about the hardware. Granted I'm spoiled with a dual G5 processor, but when push comes to shove what made me fall in love with my Mac wasn't the sheer power of my system - it was the OS environment, the software, the interface, the stability, the lack of virus and spyware and adware and malware.
That to me is easily worth $500, which is why this is a product that should be for two ends of the market. Clueless newbies who expect - rightly so - that things should work, and hardcore techies who can now afford to keep a second box. What I think you'll find is that under Jobs' second tenure the Mac has become a device for your life, and it's all to do with the exceptional software made for it.
Most of us here shell out at least 1000 for a good PC system even if we build from scratch cause that's often the price for the best thing out there. Wouldn't you gladly pay $500 extra if you knew that WinXP would never crash, never present
6) No DVD Burner. Not enough RAM.
You can add Ram without violating the warranty yourself. Apple is charging way too much for it. And you can add a Superdrive for about $100 if I recall right. Giving you the option to burn DVDs. This I believe is a cost everyone should upgrade to, especially once they see the ease of iMovie and iDVD.
7) No VGA / S VIdeo out
Well it comes with a DVI to VGA adapater - if you're hooking up to an HDTV then use DVI for the love of god. And you can get a SVIdeo out for 19$
Did you also remember this is fanless and whisper quiet and smaller than a lunchbox? That they've liberated you from having to pair up with their overpriced (but absolutely phenonmenal) displays?
Every bit of commentary I've seen about this computer has completely missed the point or just been rife with ignorance. Every single major gripe is addressable, and the price point is absoutely amazing, again, for the software. Most of the readers here do get it - they can afford to have one to play with, and I wouldn't be surpri
Re:Dupe... (Score:4, Insightful)
The bottom line - the Mini Mac isn't for people looking for an affordable PC, it's for people looking for an affordable Mac.
The distinction is bigger than it sounds.
Re:And here are the more interesting posts: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dupe...(Kind of) (Score:3, Insightful)
For heaven's sake, why? Just a couple of years ago, I was designing cutting edge storage over IP systems. I'm telling you, a gigabit is really, really, fast. There are *very* few computers with i/o architectures and protocol stacks that can even begin to approach gigabit speeds.
Don't fall for the marktdroid hype - GigE on a MiniMac will never be missed - even the big Macs and Powerbooks that come with GigE have no prayer of actually being able to use it. It's a bit like a nice Pontiac V-6 (the rest of the computer) powering a Ferrari look-alike (the GigE NIC)- it's just not going to be able to live up to the promise - don't be fooled, it's still a Fiero GT under the skin.
In real life, unless you're building a storage backbone in a data center, or are doing *serious* workstation-type work on huge datasets (like terabyte CFD simulations or siesmic processing), you will NOT be able to use much more than 100 Mbps anyway, since the bottlenecks will be in your i/o paths and disk controllers. You need *very* serious RAID controllers to keep a gigabit wire full. I know: The system we built was 3x faster than IBM's high-end Shark storage server, and it took a year of hard work optimizing, tuning, and even waiting for Syskonnect to build a GigE card that could really deliver gigabit performance before we could fill that pipe. There are many more bottlenecks there than you would expect.
Granted, hardware has gotten faster in the last two years, but unless you're doing the sort of stuff mentioned above (and are using high-$$$ network controllers, RAID adapters, etc.), you'll never miss it if you don't have gigabit.
Re:Headless Alternative for Less (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't it amazing? People have been complaining forever that Apple only has a 1-button mouse, why can't they sell a Mac with the option of not buying their mouse so you can use your own 2- or 3-button mouse. Apple does so, and now those same people complain that Apple isn't selling them a mouse!
One big point of this machine is that many, many people have a perfectly good USB keyboard and/or mouse sitting around, along with a display. Apple is finally giving people the choice of not buying any of those. When you buy one of those RealCheap Dell machines, do you get the option of not getting a keyboard and mouse? I didn't think so. You get a $45 credit for not getting a display (from Dell, anyway)...but you do get WordPerfect included!
So the memory upgrade option is slightly more expensive - to go cheaper, you have to find a way to sell the one that comes with it, and even then you're only saving a little bit.
Also, note that Apple has free shipping on it (at least, right now)!
After looking around at Dell and Gateway, this thing is a good deal. Not stunningly great, but good enough that people who can afford an iMac G5 or a PowerMac G5 are still going to have good reasons to get one of those instead. But good enough that they might even get one in addition. Can you build-your-own for less? Of course you can. Can most people build-their-own for any amount? Do most people want to buy a no-name box built by Joe Random at the local computer shop? No, and no.
If you really want to go cheap, Sam's Club has a $157 box with no hard drive, no monitor and it comes with a Linux install CD. Still has a keyboard and mouse, though.