Update to the Mac Mini

After playing with dual booting Ubuntu I have come to the conclusion that dual booting doesn't work as I need a couple of key Windows Apps and can't be bothered to reboot. So mac has it as my choice to move from Windows.

However, the new Mac book models made me wonder; could there be new Mini models before long ans might it be worth waiting? I would really use the Mini as a cheap way of seeing if it will be suitable for the things I do and would consider a more powerful machine if everything works well.

So, should I buy now and hang the future; after all there is always a new model somewhere and one might never, ever buy, or do I wait a couple of months and see what comes. Leopard is due in the Autumn s might be worth waiting for I suppose.

You're going down the exact same road I took.

I bought a Mac Mini to dip my toe in the Mac world. The OS is quite different to Windows and Linux desktops. The Mac interface is more like Gnome and I was always a KDE user. That said, the desktop is a lot more powerful than Gnome.

I bought a Mac Mini, sold it after a couple of weeks, got a Macbook and then an iMac 24 which I returned and got a Mac pro.

I've managed to consolidate two seperate machines (Net and Music) into one by buying a Pro. I used to use Linux online and have a Windows PC for MIDI/Audio.

If you get a Mac Mini from Apple, you can return it within 14 days of delivery for a refund (less shipping). It's one way of trying them out and then being able to get another more expensive model when you are sure.

Yes Leopard is due out this year, but it will take another 6 months for the bugs to get worked out through system updates and for developers to port their applications to 10.5 from 10.4. imo it's not really worth upgrading right away. I'm sure eventually the Mini will get the Santa Rosa update; more likely they will get a speed bump in terms of a Core 2 Duo instead of a Core Duo sooner. If you don't mind modding it yourself, you can turn it into a pretty dang powerful little machine (aside from the graphics chip). Check out my upgrade post over at 123MacMini.com for May 2007:

http://www.123macmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12452