MAC Mini

Lawbag_2

Has anyone managed to get their hands on this little baby from Apple?

Just curious to know how it compares to PC desktops and other Apples.

TheChillPill

I've had one for a while - absolutely amazing piece of kit. It really depends what you do as to whether its going to be suitable for you, but if you just a regular user doing things like surf the internet, create documents etc - its perfect.

On the other level, if you do creative stuff - video, music etc, then the ilife suite that comes with it is brilliant - though you'll want the higher spec model and more ram to make it run smooth.

It really needs at least 512mb Ram, but you can get the base unit and up the ram yourself with (reasonable) ease, which saves you about £30 - you don't invalidate your warranty either doing this, unless you break something.

All in all, I'd highly recommend it - if you've never used OSX before, you're in for a treat!

Lawbag_2

I have a Broadband Connection at home running on Win XP. How does the MAC Mini or indeed any Mac connect to a PC network? Wireless or otherwise. Internet connection and file sharing.

Im looking at using the Mini for graphics/DTP and ipod stuff

TheChillPill

The Mini connects in the same was as a PC - you have ethernet built into it, or you can opt for the optional wireless (which they call airport - but works with any wireless setup).

With the newer versions of OSX (which you would get with a mini), networking has been made significantly easier - you shouldn't have any problems at all. You can share files, printers etc in just the same way.

The Mini is the perfect choice for your needs - for DTP stuff have a look at 'Pages', which is a seperate program but very very good value for money and very powerful.

Lawbag_2

I have a secure network at home using a DHCP server and assigned IP addresses. I assume Mac can handle all this sort of nonsense!

TheChillPill

Yup, in fact it should auto-discover it for you - in my experience it was actually easier than XP