Mac mini opinions? things to know?

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hi guys!

i woke up today bright and early at 130pm to hear my gf on the phone in a panic. Her "beloved" emachine died...pile of crap it was.

specs

800MHZ CELERON
128MB ram
20Gig HDD
8MB video card.

Dumb thing didnt even have an onboard ethernet, nor could i even add one, since it was emachine the PCI slots wer all retarded.

So, they were thinking dell, but after my friend dropped 1600$ on a model, and she cant even run quake 3 or ever add an AGP slot, kinda assumed that was out of the question.

SO i suggest mac mini for the sake of my sanity. otherwise im over there every other month reinstalling windows. Her mom is looking into it, might have to take a trip to the mac store again in a day or so.

I know to upgrade ram, what kind is it? id rather just go to best buy or something and get a stick. What opinions do you guys have on it?

I know it has built in ethernet (so i dont have to figt with their cable modem) Does it come with DVI to VGA? What of the mac keyboards? can they just buy the keyboard and i give them my mouse? (i run a 5 button belkin)

This is mainly for internet surfing, IMing, typing, billing etc...ive wanted my gf to get into photoshop, shes quite artistic with the simple editors that came with her printer, would it run PS CS2 at a decent pace?

Ive never touched a mini. i went right for the dual G5. which i love! Sadly until they can decide or go to the apple store, theyll run my old G3 wallstreet, which runs OS9.2.2 (YUCK) so i hope that doesnt make a bad impression.

Comments? suggestions? Thanks in advance.
 
T

Tel

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The mini sounds perfect for their needs. For browsing, IMing and such, it will be great. As for photoshop, I can run it on my iBook (1..2GHz 768MB) and can easily edit a few RAW photos at the same time while running Safari, iTunes, Adium and Mail.
 
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ok thats good. ive heard with 256MB ram its pretty sluggish. what kind of ram does it take? does it only have one or 2 ram slots?

thanks!
 
E

Ex_PC_Puke

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Get the 1.2GHz with 512MB RAM - It'll be fine and do all the basics and then some ---- if you can afford the faster cpu and bigger drive go for it - will beat a basic PC every day
 
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MadSkillzMan said:
hi guys!

i woke up today bright and early at 130pm to hear my gf on the phone in a panic. Her "beloved" emachine died...pile of crap it was.

specs

800MHZ CELERON
128MB ram
20Gig HDD
8MB video card.

Dumb thing didnt even have an onboard ethernet, nor could i even add one, since it was emachine the PCI slots wer all retarded.

So, they were thinking dell, but after my friend dropped 1600$ on a model, and she cant even run quake 3 or ever add an AGP slot, kinda assumed that was out of the question.

SO i suggest mac mini for the sake of my sanity. otherwise im over there every other month reinstalling windows. Her mom is looking into it, might have to take a trip to the mac store again in a day or so.

I know to upgrade ram, what kind is it? id rather just go to best buy or something and get a stick. What opinions do you guys have on it?

I know it has built in ethernet (so i dont have to figt with their cable modem) Does it come with DVI to VGA? What of the mac keyboards? can they just buy the keyboard and i give them my mouse? (i run a 5 button belkin)

This is mainly for internet surfing, IMing, typing, billing etc...ive wanted my gf to get into photoshop, shes quite artistic with the simple editors that came with her printer, would it run PS CS2 at a decent pace?

Ive never touched a mini. i went right for the dual G5. which i love! Sadly until they can decide or go to the apple store, theyll run my old G3 wallstreet, which runs OS9.2.2 (YUCK) so i hope that doesnt make a bad impression.

Comments? suggestions? Thanks in advance.

It has one RAM slot, which you can upgrade to 1Gig. PC3200 if I recall correctly, maybe even PC2700...it's been a couple of months and I've just been using my Mac rather than tweaking it so I forget ;)

I have a Mini which I now use as my primary computer at home. I've upgraded it to 512 Meg and it runs PS CS (not two yet) quite nicely. It also does all that other stuff just fine, though you will want to upgrade her to 1gig of RAM to really maximize that platform. Also, there are indications that switching to a firewire drive as the primary drive for a Mini makes it a whole lot faster. I have seen a post or two on the MacNN forums that indicate this to be true from a real-world perspective. I have found the people on the MacNN forums to be quite critical of all aspects of the Mac platform, and if one of their number says that their Mac Mini is way faster with a Firewire drive as the primary I am inclined to believe that. Oh, and mine seems to run Unreal Tournament 2004 just fine, and it did even before I upgraded the RAM. It ran it better after I upgraded the RAM, but it still ran it. It has some trouble with a couple of the maps, but for the most part it is quite playable. I mention this because gamers tend to use, uh, well, games as benchmarks. Perhaps UT2004 isn't the latest and greatest of games but then gamers are usually not happy with anything less than the Holodeck. The Mac Mini is no Holodeck, but it certainly runs UT2004.

Bottom line is that a Mac Mini will serve her well. Mine serves me well, and I work with computers for a living. Sure I'd like to have an iMac G5, but then again I'd like to have $1600 in disposable income every month.
 
S

SomaGaze

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MadSkillzMan said:
ok thats good. ive heard with 256MB ram its pretty sluggish. what kind of ram does it take? does it only have one or 2 ram slots?

thanks!
1 slot up to 1GB pc2700
 
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ok...so say we are gonna up it to 512. Would it be wise to do it via apple, or myself? well which is cheapest?
 
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Ex_PC_Puke

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MadSkillzMan said:
ok...so say we are gonna up it to 512. Would it be wise to do it via apple, or myself? well which is cheapest?


Sounds to me like your goal is to get your gf onto a mac ASAP and have it be a good experience ------ my advice is pop the extra $$ to have Apple do it when you buy the box ---- lotta folks here will disagree with this - but opening the mini is not like popping open a white box PC - not amatuer hour stuff. With 512MB it'll run great ------------ some time later when you have some extra $$ you can buy a 1GB stick at a good price and do the upgrade yourself.

Have it done right when you buy it and make your gf happy
 
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MadSkillzMan said:
So, they were thinking dell, but after my friend dropped 1600$ on a model, and she cant even run quake 3 or ever add an AGP slot, kinda assumed that was out of the question.

Your friend got ripped off... If it doesn't have AGP then it probably has PCI-E, which is better...
 
B

Biturbo V12 AMG

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i would buy the ram from apple its worth the extra money. so when you have a problem with it apple will take it back. i have a 1.42ghz mini with 512mb of ram and it works fine even plays Halo pretty good. but get Bluetooth its a must. the only thing i dont like about my mini is it only has 2usb ports and 1 firewire. so the bluetooth keyboard and mouse are a must to free up the usb ports.
 
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Mynameis said:
Your friend got ripped off... If it doesn't have AGP then it probably has PCI-E, which is better...

NOPE, no PCI-E, i looked.

I can do the ram switch, ive done TONS with macs, PCs, laptops...DIY watercooling, etc, so i have no fear ripping one open to add stuff.
 

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