Mac mini?

bouncydog1

Need to replace very old desktop still running windows XP professional which there will be no support for from Feb? 2014.

DD has a mac book pro, but as I have an ok monitor and an ipad for FaceTime wondered about the mini as entry to the world of mac without spending a fortune. The system I have at the moment drives me insane as it takes ages to start up and freezes at various times. Have done speed up stuff etc and ok for a couple of days then back to square 1.

Mac rumours suggest mini due for an upgrade but no doubt this will put price up and currently get sub £400 as no VAT to pay. Thoughts please. Tks,

InsideInsurance

Mac Mini's are very expensive, even for mac, considering the spec/ whats included -v- iMac but of cause you dont have the price of a Mac monitor included so the headline price is much lower. Remember to add in the price of a mouse and keyboard which isnt supplied with the mini and is £120 if you want the official Mac ones.

Unless you have some crazy 4k monitor (in which case the mini wont drive it properly) then I'd look at getting an iMac instead as well as upgrading to either a SSD or Fusion drive - couldnt go back to a traditional HD these days having had seen what speed difference it makes

bouncydog1

Thank you. I did look at an iMac but the lowest spec one will add £500 to the cost and just not sure at the moment whether I could justify this. Love the ipad which is also one reason why I think Mac will be better for me than windows.

Thought that the mini would be a good way of trying out mac and if I don't like it would easily be able to sell on?

prowla

I have an older Mac Mini as my DVD player (sadly it's a 32-bit one, so won't take the latest OS update); it plugs into my plasma screen's VGA port.

I've been thinking of getting a new one as my office machine, but I'd need to run it via a KVM switch (to share screen/keyboard/mouse with other computers).

As I see it, it's a good little desktop machine with a higher screen res capability than most monitors (so fine for standard 1080p), a current viable CPU, easily added memory (up to 16 GB), a decent hard disk, and sufficient connectivity.

So long as you aren't into gaming, it should perform fine.

The latest model has an integrated power suply so it's not doing the trick of pretending to be a small box but really you have to hide a power brick somewhere. However, I think the power supply can adversely affect high-end hi-fi systems, so if you're an audiophile, don't plug it into the same mains socket.

As I see it' it's a good option.

InsideInsurance

bouncydog1 wrote: »

Thank you. I did look at an iMac but the lowest spec one will add £500 to the cost and just not sure at the moment whether I could justify this. Love the ipad which is also one reason why I think Mac will be better for me than windows.

Thought that the mini would be a good way of trying out mac and if I don't like it would easily be able to sell on?

Its more expensive but it is a step on on all components as well as having their great screen.

Macs are stupidly good (for a computer) at retaining their price and are always easy to sell on afterwards. Obviously you'll make a loss but nothing in comparison to other brands of PC

Stratus

wondered about the mini as entry to the world of mac without spending a fortune

The mac mini makes a lot of sense to achieve this.

As InsideInsurance says, they hold their value very well for when you want to trade up. The current model occasionally appears on the refurb store site

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/specialdeals/mac

None there just now but before Christmas they had some for £419 inc VAT and 12 month warranty.

Some used models were selling on eBay for more than that at the same time.

prowla

Hmmm - I've been looking at the Mac Mini, with a view to getting one, but it does have a fundamental issue...

The current model has a shared graphics card, which ain't great; shared graphics means (a) some of your system memory (default 4 GB) is used as graphics memory, and (b) performance may not be so great, and (c) if you run VMs (eg. in Parallels) they may think that they have a low-grade graphics capapbility.

I'm now having doubts.

almillar

I doubt that prices will go up upon upgrade (no idea when this would happen), they usually stay the same.
Graphics - look at it! It's not a gaming powerhouse. Intel graphics have never been great, but they're FAR better these days than they used to be. I've got one of the older slot drive ones, and it'll stream 1080p all day long without hiccup. That means web browsing etc is also a cinch. What else do you need?
Gamers look elsewhere. VM? It'll run as well as an Intel PC with integrated graphics. You'll have 3.7GB of RAM or something with the shared graphics memory. This is not a fundamental issue. It's a compromise you have to make for the form factor. And I don't think it's much of a compromise these days for most uses. The price is though...