Recommended Posts

Hello everyone.

The purpose of this guide is to tell you about my experience (so far) with my Mac Mini. I have had it for 3 hours now and I was quite suprised no one else had posted a review.

It's been quite the rollercoaster ride with regard to actually receiving it though. Let me be brief...

I ordered the Mac Mini (here on after reffered to as MM) on the day Steve Jobs announced it at Mac World. I opted for the following spec:

G4 1.42GHz CPU

512Mb DDR RAM

80Gb Hard Drive

Combo Drive

Airport Extreme & Bluetooth

Apple Wireless Keyboard & Mouse

I also ordered a 512Mb iPod Shuffle and the total bill was a whopping ?620 pounds sterling (after educational discount).

For the last two years i have had the pleasure of owning a iBook G3. It has served me well and got me into the Mac scene. For the time it was also well specified but in contrast cost ?1200 (which i quite upsetting considering todays iBook's are vastly more powerful and cost half as much).

Apple informed me that my order had been processed and would be shipped on or before February 11th. A long time to wait yes but I am a patient person and as the saying goes @good things come to he who waits"

So to my suprise when Apple announced that my order had shipped on January 29th and would be with me in 2-3 business days. And sure enough it was Monday 31st of January the TNT Delivery arrived: 1 Apple Wireless Keyboard, 1 Apple Wireless Mouse, 1 iPod Shuffle... err "where's the mac?"

The driver had not picked it up. Said he would return Tuesday... Bugger...

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday... No delivery, more alarming when I called the TNT Dispatch Centre the lovely girl i spoke to said they werent sure where it was... more than a cause for concern really considering it cost ?500.

But today it finally arrived and i must say... Nice...

Yes there are cheaper Windows boxes, and yes the spec is hardly bleeding edge, but god damn what a beast of a machine. Setup took 5 minutes and they are right, it's whisper quiet. Although im not so keen on the white top of it, the aluminium side casing is a touch of quality. Even the little white LED on the front is something special.

I must also say how impressive the Apple Wireless Keyboard and Mouse are. Apple provide high quality brand name Energizer lithium batteries and its just the little things, like on/off switches to conserve battery life (my logitech wireless kboard and mouse dont have that). Volume control is convenient and the keyboard is a joy to type on, I swear my words per minute has increase:) :)

In anticipation i did aquire a set of Creative I-Trigue 2.0 2200 speakers. For ?35 they are very nice. Look stylish and clean (blue LED's are cool too). They are also suprisingly loud, i personally was expecting a tinny horrid noise from them but I am quite happy to say I was wrong.

Here is a link to a picture i took of the speakers

ALL IMAGES ARE HIGH RES... APOLOGIES 56K'ERS

Speakers

So comparing the MM to the iBook. The G4 @ 1.42Ghz is 'el rapido' in comparison the the iBook G3 @ 800Mhz. Apple also installed DDR 400Mhz RAM as well, which is nice. Unfortunately the Hard Drive is Toshiba MK8025GAS, which i think is only 4200rpm. Ah well, that is the luck of the draw i suppose. I will be purchasing an external firewire Maxtor or Western Digital HDD soon.

Here is a link to a picture i took of the Mac in action

Mac Mini In Action

I did play the included Nanosaur 2 game to get an idea of how the Radeon 9200 would perform. It was smooth @ 1024x768 but I didnt stick around long cause the game is beyond 5hite, I would have been really p!ssed off if I had paid for that.

If i had been a first time Mac user coming from a very quick PC (P4 or Athlon at 2ghz or higher) i could honestly say i would be impressed. It is quick enough. Dont get me wrong i could not live without my PC (gaming on Mac's is not a great idea unless you have a PowerMac G5).

Coming from having had an older Mac tho i must say the MM is awesome. The speed is phenominal in comparison to the iBook. Even if you have a more powerful mac at home this is worth the investment. Its damned small, silent, and with Airport Extreme networking is a breeze, and relatively quick at 54Mbps.

Here is a photo i took of the MM next to the iBook

Mac Mini & iBook

Well review over. Apologies i do seem to ramble on alot. But i hope you enjoyed this review.

Thank you for your time

Daniel

Edited by dan
Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/280714-review-apple-mac-mini/
Share on other sites

OMFG That is tiny!!! There's no way you can get a PC that small. Not with that sort of spec anyway.

Microsoft make great hardware. Why don't they try somthing like this?

585413475[/snapback]

1. There are more powerful x86 based computers built to the same form factor, if not smaller - have been for a while now.

2. Microsoft is not that large of a player in the hardware industry, although they do retail peripherals and input devices commonly enough.

I am actually thinking of getting in to the MAC-scene to, thx to Mac Mini. Seems like a great piece of hardware. And the price is affordable.. The only problem is as describe in the review how to really obtain one :)

Edit: Can someone confirm that normalt DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW can be READ in the default combo drive? All I ever read is DVD-ROM, CD-RW.

Edited by n3Mo
1. There are more powerful x86 based computers built to the same form factor, if not smaller - have been for a while now.

585414556[/snapback]

No there aren't. This has been discussed many times. The best you can do for a mobo/CPU at that size is a VIA chip. And no one seems to be able to rebuild them with an optical drive either.

I hardly noticed the mac mini in that 2nd picture - its so small !!!

n3Mo, I think the best way to get a hold of these things is on the apple website.

I wonder how long these mac mini's will last for??!!? Fan may be the first thing to go...thats my only concern about these due to the compact size.

Edit: Can someone confirm that normalt DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW can be READ in the default combo drive? All I ever read is DVD-ROM, CD-RW.

585417676[/snapback]

DVD?R/RW disks can be read in any DVD-ROM drive - that includes the one in the mini:))

Groovedude: I ordered my shuffle the day it became available.

when did you order yours may i ask ???

585417619[/snapback]

I ordered the Mac Mini (here on after reffered to as MM) on the day Steve Jobs announced it at Mac World. I opted for the following spec:

I really want one of these. I saw them the Apple store when I was trying to buy an iPod shuffle (sold-out before I got there) and it's reallly small and not too bad in terms of speed. You can run about 6-7 apps (iMovie, iDVD, safari, etc..) simutaniously.

No there aren't. This has been discussed many times. The best you can do for a mobo/CPU at that size is a VIA chip. And no one seems to be able to rebuild them with an optical drive either.

585417787[/snapback]

Of course there have been, Logisysus and CappuccinoPC are two manufacturers who supply models with optical drives that are of smaller dimensions.

I would still take a Mini Mac over either though. :happy:

DVD?R/RW disks can be read in any DVD-ROM drive - that includes the one in the mini:))

Groovedude: I ordered my shuffle the day it became available.

585418801[/snapback]

Thx. I had to be sure before buying a computer I really don't need. :cool::

Will the Mac mini work with a KVM?

This is the one I'd like to get: 2-Port KVM Switch with Audio Support and Built-In Cabling, USB

585413774[/snapback]

I'd stay away from a Belkin if I was you.. http://www.nonliteral.com/lawson/weblog/ar..._switch_review/

Damaged my LCD -- and others' as well.

Dude i'd rather have GF with me on holiday than a mac... I hope you enjoy yourselves

585413278[/snapback]

id rather go on holiday with a guy than have a mac. :pinch: ;)

anyway, i admit, it is pretty small and pretty cool looking. i want to see if that freeminimacs.com thing works, although i wish they had a freepowerbookg5.com :p

has anyone tried that website and have experience with it?

i need quiet computer and hey, free is free. i can live with a mac for basic internet stuff. my pc is giving me a headache(from the noise, not from linux):p

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • We need a game update frequency setting. * Right now your recent games will be auto updated overnight, and your unrecent games won't be updated. The bifurcation of recent and unrecent is fine, but we should be able to control the update frequency for both, with any of the following options: 1. Don't auto update 2. Auto update weekly 3. Auto update overnight 3. Auto update immediately (push) i.e. When I'm playing a lot, I want my recently played games to have push updates, so if a dev releases an update at 4pm, it's already downloaded on my Xbox by the time I get home. The current overnight cadence leaves a lot of wasted time waiting for updates on slow connections. My infrequently played games in ok with deferring to overnight, or maybe weekly, but let the users control their frequency. Basing it on data and last played sounds smart but ignores the human reality that often when I'm busiest and have the least time for games is when it sucks the most to come home and find a huge update list waiting for you.
    • Genocide is intent to exterminate and both the Israeli government AND its people openly declare, even boast about their intent to exterminate Arabs. This society of sick psychopaths has even made songs about it. Zionist means believing Israel should exist as an religious ethno-state where only Jews have rights and everyone else is second class citizen. As for the blood libel thing, we already know zionists get off on killing children. We also know Israel is a safe heaven for all the pedophiles and rapists of the world. Honestly, after what we saw in the Epstein files, I wouldn't put anything past this depraved death cult. Of course all atrocities committed by tHe wOrLds mOsT mOrAl aRmY are always "unproven or taken out of context". Unfortunately for them, their soldiers are dumb enough to leave a trail of their war crimes all over social media. Then again, when you live in a society that's obsessed with death and destruction, posting videos of yourself in the act of ransacking homes and desecrating religious monuments earns you brownie points I guess. Israel is the only society in the world where people come out on the roads for the right to **** prisoners. Also claiming that the BBC said this and AP said that without so much as a link has gotten me curious. Are all zionists this dumb? I really hope you aren't getting paid for this because this is some low effort propaganda.
    • Microsoft is bringing big performance improvements to OneDrive on Mac by Taras Buria Microsoft has announced a major update for the OneDrive client on macOS. Today, the company released version 26.098, promising significantly faster sync, optimized CPU usage, a smaller memory footprint, and better energy efficiency. In a newly published blog post, Microsoft acknowledged that changes implemented in OneDrive for Mac in 2022 brought some unwanted side effects. Due to architectural changes and the need to keep the OneDrive sync engine unchanged, Microsoft created a hidden cache folder. With time, it would cause reliability and performance issues for customers. Now, Microsoft is ditching the old engine for native sync, delivering a faster, more reliable experience. As a result of this change, OneDrive for Mac now integrates more deeply into the operating system, offers about two times faster sync performance, and uses fewer system resources. While the hidden folder still exists, the app only uses it to store files that have not been uploaded yet, link file types, and macOS-related packages. In total, even when holding hundreds of files, the temporary folder does not take more than a couple of megabytes on the drive. Besides optimizations, the new sync engine enables external drive support, allowing you to keep your OneDrive folder on a removable drive (it should meet all the requirements). Microsoft is now rolling out the updated OneDrive client for Microsoft 365 Insiders. To check if your Mac has the new sync engine, go to the About tab and check the app version. If it ends with something like 26H, you are on the new engine. If not, you are on the old one. Microsoft says it will take a few weeks to complete the rollout to Insiders, but it won't say when to expect the update in the stable channel. Big performance updates for OneDrive on Mac came right after Microsoft confirmed it would soon kill document editing in Office 2019 for Mac due to expiring certificates. This change will force users to look for alternatives or switch to Microsoft 365.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      StaticMatrix earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Rookie
      lamborghiniv10 went up a rank
      Rookie
    • One Month Later
      pinnclepd earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • First Post
      X-No-file earned a badge
      First Post
    • One Month Later
      johnjacobb40 earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      517
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      211
    3. 3
      +Edouard
      147
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      92
    5. 5
      ATLien_0
      82
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!