Mac Mini: The Emperor's New Computer
by Jorge Lopez, MCSE
Technology Insider
©2005 Divisiontwo Magazine
The faithful: A set of praying hands exalts Mac mini to the heavens.
Apple is a master at hype, everyone knows this.* Its founder, Steve Jobs, is well-known throughout the industry for possessing a reality distortion field which makes people crave Apple computers and one-button mice despite their exorbitant price and in the face of all rational logic.* Both the Apple hype machine and Jobs' reality distortion field have kicked into overdrive this year with the recent release of the bold, innovative and affordable G4 Cube...oops I mean the Mac mini.
Ill admit, we were excited at first to get one in the lab to put through its paces.* I had heard about the machine and seen a few clips on G4 of Steve Jobs' keynote at Macworld San Francisco in January.* My curiosity piqued by the pronouncement of a $499 computer from Apple, I checked out Apple.com to look up its specs.* While the hardware is about roughly equivalent to a Windows PC circa 1995, what got me interested were Apples claims about its size, weight and footprint.
If you believe Apples marketing department, the new Mini is smaller than most packs of gum and weighs less than four quarters.* Well, we received our test unit from Apple yesterday, and let me say right off the bat that those claims are a wee bit of an exaggeration.* Far from being Trident-sized, the Mini actually measures about 6.5x6.5x2, about the size of two wonderbread cheese sandwiches stacked on top of each other, or about 50 packs of Bubble Yum.* As for the weight, it feels about three pounds.* Hold a Mini in one hand and four quarters in the other and tell me which one feels heavier.* You could perform this experiment yourself at an Apple store.
As for the style of the unit, its alright.* It reminds me of a ShuttlePC.* But since its sleek look comes at the expense of the parallel port, serial ports, the PS/2 ports and the drive bays, potential Mac mini buyers should ask themselves just how much utility theyre willing to sacrifice for style.* Oh, did I forget to mention that the Mini has no PCI slots either?* And no floppy disk drive?* Well, no wonder they got the unit to be so small.* No keyboard or mouse either.* Sorry, Kayla, daddys got to make another trip to Best Buy before you can play with your new computer.** Hmmm...let's see here...*
...I could get a Mac mini computer for $499 and have no keyboard or mouse, no serial ports, no way to connect a printer, no PS/2 ports, no floppy drive, no 5.25" bays, no PCI slots, no speakers, and no Windows XP...
...or I could grab an equally stylish, full-featured eMachine at the gas station with a bag of chips for less than half the Mini's price, with the added benefit of being able to run Windows XP.* Decisions, decisions.
Back in the lab, we were able to borrow a USB keyboard and mouse from a Tangerine iMac collecting dust in the closet and get the darn Mini booted up at last.* This is where the first noticeable problem with Apple design arises.* While there is a Mac-style donnnnggggg when the Mini is first turned on, during normal operation the unit makes no sound whatsoever.* This could make it very difficult for a novice user to know whether or not the computer is on.* In fact, it took our techs about fifteen minutes before we realized the unit itself was operating normally and it was the monitor that was not plugged in properly.* It turns out the Mini uses a weird kind of display connector on the back that requires a special adapter if you want to plug it into a PC monitor.* We used a 15 Compaq VGA display.
The Mini boots up into a stripped-down operating system which Apple calls OS X, similar to the stripped-down WindowsCE OS found on many handhelds.* The mini OS is going to be a significant hurdle for many buyers who are used to Windows or have favorite Windows software packages they need to use.* Think of it more as a first computer for your daughter or niece than as a machine to get any serious work done and youll get the point of the Mini and its target market.* It might also be the perfect computer for grandmothers or autistic children, for example.
The Mini has got some built-in software for basic computer functions, but it cant do many common things as well as its grown-up brothers in the Windows world can.* The little things can add up to big frustration for someone who might accidentally buy a Mini expecting it to be just like Windows.* For example, there is no Outlook Express for email, but Apple includes a program called Mail, which is like a stripped-down email client that cant execute scripts or open attachments without user intervention.* Personally I find it annoying, but if someone doesnt depend on emailing their coworkers vbscripts like I do, they might be able to get by with it.* Secondly and possibly even more glaringly, there is no antivirus program shipped with the Mac.* In todays climate of non-stop worms, trojans and viruses, releasing a computer with no virus removal software is irresponsible on the part of Apple.* The OS X comes with some system maintenance utilities, but essentials such as a defragmenter or a registry cleaner are notably absent.* I would expect a Mini to get really slow and unstable within a couple months if you cant perform any routine maintenance tasks on it.
To see how much industry support the Mac platform has these days, I did a google to see if there were Mac versions of any of my favorite applications; unfortunately I ended up disappointed every time.* There are very few first-person shooters for OSX.* There is no Mac version of WeatherBug to check the temperature anywhere in the world.* Nor is there a Mac version of helpful web and email enhancers like Hotbar. Or any equivalent of the DealHelper software I use to keep track of my passwords.* My Office 2003 CD would not install, despite claims I had heard from Mac fanboys that OS X is compatible with Office.* Heck, the Internet Explorer icon isnt even out on the taskbar by default, its buried in the c:\applications folder.*
Poor standards compliance: Apple's Safari web browser often fails to render MSN properly.
Dont get me wrong, I am an admirer of Apples iPod and I applaud the company for doing things right when it does.* I am glad to see that they have found a way to cut corners where they can to bring the price of their computers out of the stratosphere and somewhat closer to the price of a Windows PC.* By leaving out a USB keyboard and monitor, two things you may already have if you have an old Mac, Apple can shave some money off the price of its system components and the size and weight of its packaging.* By using cheap Asian child labor to assemble the units, costs have been reduced even further.* I would like to see them continue this trend, possibly strike a deal with China to use inmates to assemble the Mini for even less, like Lenovo does.* Think about it, a Mac mini for $299.* Now that would be an easier price to swallow given the systems limitations.* $499 sounds like a decent price at first, but consumers need to be aware that once they add on the basics like a keyboard, monitor and mouse, plus shell out for some antivirus software, the Mac mini price is scraping the ceiling of $1600, hardly a computer for the rest of us.
So is the mini a maxi value?* For me, clearly, no.* When I consider that a good deal of my time is spent running applications like Disk Defragmenter, Scandisk, Norton AV, Windows Update and Ad-Aware--none of which are available for the Mac platform--it doesn't make sense for me to "switch" to a Mac at this time.* But will Apple's famous marketing team be able to sell the the emperor an invisible computer anyway and turn the mini into a maxi hit?* Thats the question that remains to be answered.
