Oscar Castillo
Registered
anerki said:Come to think of it I might buy one and sell it after 2 months for 2/3 the price. Which will mean I rented the machine for 2 months at 300 dollars.
Isn't that 2 months at 166US?
Mac mini
- Thread starter bookem
- Start date
Isn't that 2 months at 166US?
Ok, I was off by a couple. 266.655 USD to be exact. Did the calculation for me, that means in Euros with the prices from the Belgian Apple Store. The exchange rate currently is 1 EUR = 1.31014 USD or 1 USD = 0.763275 EUR.Oscar Castillo said:
Oscar Castillo
Registered
126EUR isn't so bad, but considering it's only been 2 months to lose 1/3 the value is tough. Personally for what I want a Mini, it's cheap and fast enough to have in the bedroom and living room so I can stream music and video from my server instead of getting one of those awful media sharing devices from Linksys and others.anerki said:
I still don't get people who compare the mini to PM G5s and their graphics cards etc... A few months ago, the ATi Radeon 9200 was still pretty much 'good enough', and even if you're a pro (pro what? that depends, you know...), the Mac mini today is still a better machine than, say, a QuickSilver G4 with 733 MHz and some very old ATi or nVidia graphics card.
So for all of those professionals who're still (happily) using those G4 towers, the Mac mini brings more power as well as much less noise at a _very_ good price point. And upgrading to a newer Mac mini in, say, two years is much less expensive than upgrading to a G5 now (which'll be 'old' in two years, too!) and to some G6 in two years.
So what I wanted to say was that compared to an iMac, the Mac mini can be very cost effective because of the screen. If you've followed the benchmarks of the iMac G5, you'd have seen that it doesn't exactly leave the PowerBooks in the dust, and AFAIK those PowerBooks have about the power of a Mac mini (besides the graphics card). And the small performance gain an iMac G5 might have now over a Mac mini will be negligible in two years, when upgrading to a new iMac will probably still involve getting also a new monitor (unnecessary with the Mac mini) and be much more expensive...
Btw. the question of the poll wasn't meant as a _personal_, subjective question. Rather, I wanted to know whether people thought it'd be a market success. Maybe I should have outlined that better...
So for all of those professionals who're still (happily) using those G4 towers, the Mac mini brings more power as well as much less noise at a _very_ good price point. And upgrading to a newer Mac mini in, say, two years is much less expensive than upgrading to a G5 now (which'll be 'old' in two years, too!) and to some G6 in two years.
So what I wanted to say was that compared to an iMac, the Mac mini can be very cost effective because of the screen. If you've followed the benchmarks of the iMac G5, you'd have seen that it doesn't exactly leave the PowerBooks in the dust, and AFAIK those PowerBooks have about the power of a Mac mini (besides the graphics card). And the small performance gain an iMac G5 might have now over a Mac mini will be negligible in two years, when upgrading to a new iMac will probably still involve getting also a new monitor (unnecessary with the Mac mini) and be much more expensive...
Btw. the question of the poll wasn't meant as a _personal_, subjective question. Rather, I wanted to know whether people thought it'd be a market success. Maybe I should have outlined that better...
Oscar Castillo
Registered
fryke said:
It always seems to be that way. If someone needs the power of the G5, they should get it. I know the Mac Mini isn't a the best performer, but it would be the fastest G4 I've ever had. And I started out with a Graphite 400, Quicksilver 800, and MDD Dual 867 before I bought the G5 so a 1.25 or 1.42 G4 should be a very decent system for most. And as for the graphics card, few people even on the PC spend the bucks for a true gaming card like 6800GT or Ultra and just end up buying some lower end spec of the same family.
The Mini is going to be plenty good for me as a media client so my media server doesn't have to sit alongside my home theatre.
Ceroc Addict
Registered
I've almost certainly convinced myself to get a Mac mini. Here's what I intend to do with it:
Here's what I intend to do with it:- I'll transfer all my audio content (music, audible books, podcasts, etc) to it. That'll free up 10GB or so on my Powerbook's hard drive.
- It'll also give me a convenient way to transfer music to my iPod shuffle (my PB only comes with USB1.1 ports)
- I'll get a Griffin RadioShark and leave it recording radio programs on the Mac mini throughout the day. I might get an EyeTV as well.
- I'll connect it to my Powerbook either via ethernet or wireless (and get an AirPort Express), when I'm at home, so I can use Xgrid to take advantage of the extra processor
Arden
Where mah "any" keys at?
Recall a Macworld Expo twelve moons into history, when Apple introduced another product named mini. Recall the beratement it received from many (including yours truly) about the price vs. what it offered. Recall sales statistics from Apple throughout these twelve moons, showing the mini outselling the full-sized brethren. Grasshopper will do well to assume a similar circumstance for the fledgling mini.fryke said:
Ceroc Addict
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It'll be an interesting comparison a year from now.Arden said:Recall a Macworld Expo twelve moons into history, when Apple introduced another product named mini. Recall the beratement it received from many (including yours truly) about the price vs. what it offered. Recall sales statistics from Apple throughout these twelve moons, showing the mini outselling the full-sized brethren. Grasshopper will do well to assume a similar circumstance for the fledgling mini.
From my memory, the only reason that the iPod mini was put down was that most people thought it was too expensive.
I haven't heard anyone say the Mac mini is too expensive. Plus, in less than 6 months from now, it should come with Tiger installed.
Kap
Arden
Where mah "any" keys at?
Of course, the rumor mills said the iPod mini would be anywhere from $100-200, so when Apple actually introduced it at $250, it was halfway between what people expected it to be and what they already could get. This time around, the Mac mini was rumored to be priced at $500, which turned out completely true.
Fryke: Good call. Note, I didn't say everyone, I just said many (including myself). And no, my foot doesn't taste that great.
Fryke: Good call. Note, I didn't say everyone, I just said many (including myself). And no, my foot doesn't taste that great.
Hopefully once Tiger comes, people can use CoreVideo to decode the MPEG2. That seems to be the biggest problem now is that you don't have hardware acceleration of the decoding so it's quite slow and you need a pretty fast G5 to do it.
Darkshadow
wandering shadow
Arden said:
Just to be pedantic, there's 13 full moons in a year.
I think the Mac minis are going to make a killing in sales.
andychrist
devil's plaything
Darkshadow said:Just to be pedantic, there's 13 full moons in a year.
No, only rarely are there 13 full moons in a year, thus the phrase "a year of thirteen moons" as in that Fassbinder movie.
But yeah, the new minis are already flying off the shelf... and they're not even on the shelf yet!
Ripcord
Senior Lurker
Do we know for sure whether the RAM will or won't be user-installable?
If not, I'm not sure how people will react to having to add $425 to bring the RAM to 1GB.
I'm worried that many people will buy the system thinking that 256MB is "enough" for general home use. Personally, I just went through a day of 256MB and found it unusable. My system is slow enough to start with (it's a 1.8Ghz G5, for cripe's sake, but the iMacs appear to be especially slow for some reason), but at 256MB it's swapping *constantly*, even with just Mail and Firefox open, which makes it drag terribly. If so, I'm afraid people will get a feeling that OS X and the Mac platform is just plain slow.
If not, I'm not sure how people will react to having to add $425 to bring the RAM to 1GB.
I'm worried that many people will buy the system thinking that 256MB is "enough" for general home use. Personally, I just went through a day of 256MB and found it unusable. My system is slow enough to start with (it's a 1.8Ghz G5, for cripe's sake, but the iMacs appear to be especially slow for some reason), but at 256MB it's swapping *constantly*, even with just Mail and Firefox open, which makes it drag terribly. If so, I'm afraid people will get a feeling that OS X and the Mac platform is just plain slow.
andychrist
devil's plaything
"Memory, AirPort Extreme and internal Bluetooth upgrades must be performed by an Apple Authorized Service provider; fees may apply."
I completely agree with you Ripcord; but at least the 512 MB RAM upgrade is only $75 and may be enough for most users of this machine. Time will tell...
Wonder if this is Apple's scheme: making the miniMac super-attractive on the low-end side, but too expensive to compete with even the eMac for any heavy lifting requiring over 512 MB.
I completely agree with you Ripcord; but at least the 512 MB RAM upgrade is only $75 and may be enough for most users of this machine. Time will tell...
Wonder if this is Apple's scheme: making the miniMac super-attractive on the low-end side, but too expensive to compete with even the eMac for any heavy lifting requiring over 512 MB.