- Joined
- Oct 30, 2010
- Messages
- 321
- Reaction score
- 3
- Points
- 18
- Location
- Blackburn, Lancs, North West England
- Your Mac's Specs
- Mac Mini Aluminium running at 2.4 GHz.
Hi Guys,
I have come to the conclusion that I bought the wrong Mac a couple of months ago. It was my first real look at owning a Mac as a first-line desktop PC and it simply isn't fast enough for my needs. If truth be told, I was also ruled by my wallet at the time which meant that I bought the Mac over on the left under my name.
Don't get me wrong here. I think that the concept of the Mac Mini is brilliant and I want another one but this time I'm going to play it smart and ask you guys which is the better option. Obviously you guys would only be giving an opinion and when all said and done it is my final choice which one I buy (So no comebacks, is what I'm saying)
OK, I still can't go overboard and spend £1,000 (I'm in England which is why I count in funny money) and the prices of Mac minis of the same kind of spec may vary based on which country they are in. I plan to buy off eBay from a reputable seller who regularly deals with Mac computers. I also plan to buy from a seller within driving range so that I can go and collect it.
So, to the basics.
I have been watching a few Mac Mini auctions and they seem to fall into 3 categories.
First are the ones where just the Mac Mini, power lead and the little dvi to vga adapter are being sold. These have software installed but no discs.
Second are auctions that include the above and also the mouse and keyboard.
Lastly we have the full monty including the original discs.
Obviously there are a couple that slip through the net with various combinations of the above but given the choice, i think I would be better off with the third option. One reason being that if I buy a Mac Mini with a wired mouse and keyboard, it won't add much to the auction price but it means that I have a mouse and keyboard to sell along with my Mac Mini when I get the new one. That's because I would prefer to keep my Bluetooth keyboard and Magic mouse.
What are the realistic options within my £300 budget?
1 ..... 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1Gb RAM, 80Gb Hard Drive with a Combo drive.
2 ..... 1.66GHz Core Duo, 60GB hard drive, 2GB RAM, combo drive,
3 ..... 1.6 Core Duo, 512 MB Ram. 80GB HDD. Combo drive.
I suppose that a lot depends on what I want to do with my Mac and my needs are few. I need to be able to watch movies, full screen, on a 52" plasma screen. These movies would be either original DVDs or ones downloaded from the web from such places as the BBCi Player website. I would need to do web surfing and Office type work but I'm not much into multi tasking and as for hard line video editing and other power hungry stuff, forget it.
Sorry for the long rant but my thinking on this gets complicated when I start thinking that the higher speed is better even if the RAM is less because I can easily add RAM but then I found that some models only have one RAM slot and some have two.
Anyway, thanks for any advice.
Steve
I have come to the conclusion that I bought the wrong Mac a couple of months ago. It was my first real look at owning a Mac as a first-line desktop PC and it simply isn't fast enough for my needs. If truth be told, I was also ruled by my wallet at the time which meant that I bought the Mac over on the left under my name.
Don't get me wrong here. I think that the concept of the Mac Mini is brilliant and I want another one but this time I'm going to play it smart and ask you guys which is the better option. Obviously you guys would only be giving an opinion and when all said and done it is my final choice which one I buy (So no comebacks, is what I'm saying)
OK, I still can't go overboard and spend £1,000 (I'm in England which is why I count in funny money) and the prices of Mac minis of the same kind of spec may vary based on which country they are in. I plan to buy off eBay from a reputable seller who regularly deals with Mac computers. I also plan to buy from a seller within driving range so that I can go and collect it.
So, to the basics.
I have been watching a few Mac Mini auctions and they seem to fall into 3 categories.
First are the ones where just the Mac Mini, power lead and the little dvi to vga adapter are being sold. These have software installed but no discs.
Second are auctions that include the above and also the mouse and keyboard.
Lastly we have the full monty including the original discs.
Obviously there are a couple that slip through the net with various combinations of the above but given the choice, i think I would be better off with the third option. One reason being that if I buy a Mac Mini with a wired mouse and keyboard, it won't add much to the auction price but it means that I have a mouse and keyboard to sell along with my Mac Mini when I get the new one. That's because I would prefer to keep my Bluetooth keyboard and Magic mouse.
What are the realistic options within my £300 budget?
1 ..... 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1Gb RAM, 80Gb Hard Drive with a Combo drive.
2 ..... 1.66GHz Core Duo, 60GB hard drive, 2GB RAM, combo drive,
3 ..... 1.6 Core Duo, 512 MB Ram. 80GB HDD. Combo drive.
I suppose that a lot depends on what I want to do with my Mac and my needs are few. I need to be able to watch movies, full screen, on a 52" plasma screen. These movies would be either original DVDs or ones downloaded from the web from such places as the BBCi Player website. I would need to do web surfing and Office type work but I'm not much into multi tasking and as for hard line video editing and other power hungry stuff, forget it.
Sorry for the long rant but my thinking on this gets complicated when I start thinking that the higher speed is better even if the RAM is less because I can easily add RAM but then I found that some models only have one RAM slot and some have two.
Anyway, thanks for any advice.
Steve