To get it out of the way, we'll say it quickly -- the Mac Mini is very, very small. There are comparable small form factor PCs out there, but none with the essential style of the Mac Mini's design, which, predictably is in white with a liberal smattering of fruit-shaped logos adorning the top and bottom of the system case. From the front you're greeted with a single slot loading drive -- either the baseline CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive or optional DVD burning SuperDrive (AU$155). The rear of the casing is where things get a little uglier, purely for the reason of needing to fit the various connector slots somewhere. The power switch is also located on the rear of the Mac Mini.
There is a price to pay for all this miniaturisation (besides the asking price) and that's in the power brick, which is external to the Mac Mini itself. It's really no larger than a comparative notebook power supply, but compared to the Mini itself, it seems huge. Naturally, it's all white.
By default, the Mac Mini comes sans everything but power and system, so you'll either have to plump for a big bunch of Apple accessories, or, as we did, plug it into an existing monitor (via DVI or CRT with the supplied DVI-to-VGA dongle) along with keyboard and mouse. It has to be said that the first time you see a monitor normally associated with PC usage boot up to a Mac OS X screen is a distinctly odd experience. In our testing, we were impressed with the fact that the Mac Mini picked up and identified every display, keyboard and mouse we threw at it.
Features
Apple first announced the Mac mini with two base configurations at the Macworld event held in January this year: one with a 1.25GHz processor and 40GB hard drive and a 1.42GHz model with an 80GB hard drive. We tested the former, which sells for AU$799 and comes with 256MB of memory. Put simply, 256MB will run OS X but it won't run it terribly well, especially when you start messing around with multiple applications and memory intensive stuff like iDVD. However, memory can be expanded to 512MB or 1GB, a move that will add an extra AU$120 or AU$520 to the price tag, respectively.
The other feature hook with the Mac Mini is in the application suite that forms part of OS X itself. The Mac Mini supplied to us was rather oversupplied, with additional software packages such as Microsoft Excel and Apple's own new word processing package, Pages. Those you won't find in a vanilla Mac Mini, but what you will find bundled is Apple's iLife 05 suite. The iLife package includes iPhoto 5, iMovie HD, iDVD 5, GarageBand 2 and iTunes 4.7. While iTunes is a free download regardless (even in the PC world), the rest of the suite covers a fair swathe of consumer needs, encompassing picture and video editing, along with musical creation at a fairly advanced level. What does this mean for practical use? Well, while it's pretty easy to take potshots at the Mac world on relative software availability grounds, it's got to be admitted in the same breath that the majority of applications that most users run -- especially those of home users -- come in the same box that the Mac itself does.
Performance
With only 256MB of SDRAM, the Mac Mini predictably struggled when multi-tasking or doing largely intensive processing tasks. For a machine that's meant to appeal to the crowd whose line of thinking has always been pro-Mac but anti-price, it's a curious omission.
It's not normally something we'd comment on under the performance heading, but the Mac Mini is also extremely quiet, something it shares with a lot of Apple hardware. Putting it against a series of notebooks we could always pick the notebook fans spinning, but unless you use the Mac Mini as an impromptu sharp pillow, and thus rest your ear against it, you won't really hear a thing from it in normal operation.
Those using a non-Apple monitor may have to tweak a few settings here or there, as we found out. By default, the Mac Mini we were using would declare a new monitor to be running at 800 x 600 resolution, a touch lower than many OS X apps (including iMovie) will run at. It's trivial enough to change it, but those who struggle may find the screen a little crowded until they do.
The Mac Mini isn't a machine built for expansion, especially when you consider it comes with only two USB ports -- and a need for USB keyboards and mice, although it worked perfectly well with an unpowered USB 1.1 hub for our testing purposes. If your budget stretches further, there are certainly Macs with more oomph, but it's hard to deny the visual and budgetary appeal of the Mac Mini itself. We'd suggest that at a minimum you upgrade the memory to 512MB, and add wireless and DVD burning if you ever think you're going to need them. It's a lot easier to add them as ticked options on an order form than it is to crack open a Mac mini, and a lot more warranty-friendly, too.
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daiei27
10/08/2007, 01:07 PM
rating
10/10
Apple is truly a remarkable company!
I ordered a mac mini last week during tax-free weekend, even though I suspected the mac mini would be upgraded (or dropped) soon.
The other day I got an email saying my order was AUTOMATICALLY upgraded to the new mac mini they released. Intel Core *2* Duo, extra memory, and hard drive. That's amazing since they aren't even marketing the mac mini update!
Since 1 GB memory is standard on the new minis, they removed the charge I was gonna pay for upgrading from 512MB. So I got a MUCH better computer for LESS money!
I've never heard of another company to do such a thing, let alone ones that sell PCs. I bought this mini for my parents, but now I'm tempted to get one myself...
Pros: Cheap, dependable
Cons: Limited expandability
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ebowsys
01/03/2006, 12:39 PM
Mine Died in IRAQ....
I took this mac mini thingy to Iraq along with a iPOD and a HP Pavillion dv 1000. The Mac Mini and iPod both stoped working but my HP dv 1000 notebook worked the entire deployment (flawless) for 11 months plus. I really liked the Mac mini and iPod osx is great. But I do not have a lot of confidence in the reliability of Apple hardware at the moment. The only I have from apple that died of old age was a ibook. everything else i bought from them died rather early.
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albert
14/12/2005, 07:55 PM
Great machine for a fraction of price
I am working as a researcher in IT field. This is for many years my comeback to apple after first mac. I would like to explore this cute little box during Christmas holiday. I bought the top model with superdrive today, and guess..I got a 1.5ghz CPU + 64mb VRAM, a dual layer dvd burner, 80 gb with 8mb cache/5400rpm hdd. How Apple The OS X is much better than current version of MS Windows.Finally, the price is even less than most low cost laptop PC. This is really a product that will fit many users.
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08/12/2005, 09:22 AM
Great Machine
It may basically be an ibook in disguise, but its a great machine, not only for market entry, but also as a media centre with the right stuff.
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Lee
01/12/2005, 06:53 AM
512 megs makes it good out of box
Up the Ram to 1 GB, you've got a powerful little computer. Yes, you could build a barebones PC for that price, but Linux is for techies. Windows is not an option at all, unless you want to spend more time fending off viruses, internet worms, spyware/adware/malware, on and on. If want a computer to actually accomplish tasks with, the MacMini is a good choice.
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22/11/2005, 03:03 AM
It beats Micro $oft windozze hands downs.
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anonymous
14/09/2005, 07:15 PM
awesome buy
i recently bought one of these to replace my old hp every thing was fine, the only let donw is the lack of ports, but i bought a usb hud for $30 and now i have all the ports i need!
this little baby is well worth a look for any one
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Ryan
14/09/2005, 01:22 PM
New upgrades welcome
i recently purchased a new mac min, for $949, it included Tiger,iLife'05 , bluetooth and and airport card built in, i also bought a wireless keyboard and mouse kit, well worth the little bit extra, my old bulky, slow and loud dell just cant compete.
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29/08/2005, 07:34 PM
Cool
Would be great to use for just at home checking emails and stuff and doesnt take up much space.
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divyarao
14/08/2005, 03:33 AM
wud go 4a PC instead
Its a BOX . naaaa i prefer a PC rather than buying this . shud be more sleeker n thin . looks gud but surely it is nothin but a piece of box. Ive used both MAC & PC . But sure didnt like this one .
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