which mac mini is for me

I love mac. but they are so expensive. the mac mini was cheaper so i had a look. I know a little about computer spec. anyway, it will be a family computer. used by my mom, me and my sister. my dad my use it once every so often. it will be running constantly. we all used the internet a lot. it will be used for school. me and my sister being home schooled (and no, were not antisocial nerds). so lots of word documents. over the years it will gain a lot of pictures and photos. we both play mid quality graphics games. i play mine craft (i dont mind tiny render distance. we will not buy a new one for at least 5 years. we get a lot of files, my current 7 year old computer has a 160 gb and still isnt full. and we had 2 more people using it till a few months ago

here are my options

Mac mini, 2.5 GHz dual core, 4gb ram, 500 gb
Mac mini, 2.3 GHz quad core, 4gb ram 1tb
Mac mini, 2.6 GHz quad core, 4gb ram 1tb

I'm going to up the ram with aftermarket to 8gb. i think i can handle it

Since you're just looking at the Mac Mini's, just buy the most expensive one (with the best possible specs) that your budget can afford you. The faster CPU you get, the better your overall experience is going to be and have the 1TB of storage will allow for all of your storage needs without having to resort to an external drive any time soon..

You do not say if you already have a suitable display. If not, look at the iMac range. Suggest you look at Apple refurbished models which will come with the current OS, 4GB of memory you could increase quite simply, faster processors, better graphics and the advantage of either a 21.5" or 27" screen.


http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/imac

All depends on your neds and wants to be honest, I'm a massive multitasker so I tend to upgrade the memory in anything I get.

I picked up a mid 2011 model new about 2 months ago, nice little unit, dual core i5 2.5Ghz with 4Gb of RAM, which wasn't enough for what I wanted to do with it so I sprung for a 16Gb RAM kit by Corsair from their Mac certified line, for a reasonable cost, thing works great however now I'm pining to get a second drive kit for it and install a SSD,

You could conceivably get the low end model if money is tight and then later on, do what I did, upgrade the memory, it's a worthwhile upgrade if you need more.