could be buying a mac mini soon...


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Hey All, I may soon be able to afford a mac mini, I'm being given ?400 off my uncle and grandad and then I will have some savings and christmas cash off other family members. I'm interested in the ?499 model + the ?20 mini Displayport to VGA adaptor.

I had an ibook G3 with OS X Tiger up until a few months ago when the HDD failed and the Gfx chip was messing up.

Are the mac mini's pretty fast for their price compared to other mac models?

Will I experience any problems connecting it with the VGA Adaptor to my Acer x173 17.1" LCD monitor @ 1280x1024 75hz? (I hear some screens work, others don't.)

I don't want to buy the mini and then find out it doesn't work with my screen.

will the mac mini run photoshop ok? I'm a heavyish web surfer too

This will pobably be a logish term computer and would be used a good few hours a day... are these good to be left on for long periods of time?

Any tips and advice from mac mini owners?

Thank you in advance,

Ricky.

Edited by Ricksterm
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Mac Mini is a very nice little system, I had the original when it first released, and picked one up for a short period a year or so ago.

Im probably also going to pick up the ?499 model next time I get into town, and use it as an HTPC/light gaming/emulator device.

2.26ghz will be fine for Photoshop, if you're concerned, pick up extra RAM and install it yourself, I think the max on the Minis is still 4gb. The last model I had was the GMA950, it was fine for photoshop and handling my light photography images etc, I even had WoW running on it, although admittedly it was at very low textures etc, Im expecting the 9400M will give it at least a little bit more oomph, although Im really just going to be using a bit of MAME/HD streaming over my network.

Web surfing wont be a problem, 802.11n wireless will be more than adequate if you need it, or you can run it wired.

As for your monitor Im not sure, Ive ran it on my old monitor at that res fine, Ive also ran them at 1680x1050 and no problems either.

They are also very energy friendly, nice small footprint 110w supply and as the site says it idles at 14watts - compared to my 1000w PC, it'll be nice and efficient.

Tips and advice, hmm, max the ram, and give it a bigger hard drive if you think you will need one, but all in all they are great little systems and I dont think they get enough credit these days.

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Thank you forster.

I will get the basic RAM 2GB to start with. although I hear apple made these very hard to upgrade the RAM later on yourself.

I come accross an apple store where I was this week and there were no mac minis what so ever on display. Every other apple product was there on display. I was kinda dissapointed as I wanted to see what they looked like size wise. I know they are small but it's hard to picture it.

Why wouldn't an apple store have mac minis on display? :blink:

14 watts at idle is very good. 110watt under use is excellent! (my parents are the type to moan about electicity usage lol)

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Could be lack of stock, did you ask if they had any in stock?

Couldnt find very many of the new mini's on eBay or resellers, perhaps it's just really limited stock.

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