Current Mac Mini good starter Mac?

[Raduque]

A couple members of my (extended) family have purchased Macs. The last Apple OS I used was still running on the old-school PowerMac - the one's that used System 7, IIRC.

So yea, that was a long time ago. I was thinking of getting the cheapest Mac I could find that runs OSX, and it looks like it's the Mac Mini - it has the double benefit that it's very small and easily tucks into a spare corner of my desk.

Is the current C2D 1.8ghz, 1gb ram, 80gb HD Mac Mini for $599 a good deal? Should I look at trying to buy one used maybe? I won't really do anything with it except use it to train myself on OSX and it's BSD underpinnings.

Thanks.

 

[GhettoFob]

If you're willing to spend a little more, you could get one of the new MacBooks. I don't think the Mac Mini's been updated in a while. Otherwise, you could always go the Hackintosh route.

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: GhettoFob
If you're willing to spend a little more, you could get one of the new MacBooks. I don't think the Mac Mini's been updated in a while. Otherwise, you could always go the Hackintosh route.

Personally I wouldn't go the hackintosh route if its a Starter OSX system. Granted, you can plan out most issues by picking the right parts, but if your not too familiar with the whole system, it can get kinda annoying getting the bugs out.

As for the OP, keep an eye every early morning (5am EST) for a good Mac Mini refurb. They are basically brand new, come with the same warranty, and are usually found at a pretty decent discount.

 

[Raduque]

The new MacBooks are nice, but they're about $600-700 more than I'm willing to spend. A Hackintosh is way way more effort than I want to put into it.

Aphex, I didn't even think about the refurbs. I'll keep an eye out, thanks.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Raduque
The new MacBooks are nice, but they're about $600-700 more than I'm willing to spend. A Hackintosh is way way more effort than I want to put into it.

The Mac Minis are great starter Macs, but keep in mind they are very expensive to upgrade since they use laptop parts. With that said, I've had several myself and set them up all the time for friends and they're really great little machines. Very quiet, fairly quick, tiny size, and cool-looking.

As far as a Hackintosh goes, are you experienced with building computers? If so, you can always get an EFI-X chip. Just buy a compatible motherboard, video card, and processor, then plug the chip in and install Leopard. No hacks, no patches, no funny Hackintosh mumbo-jumbo. EFI-X is nice because it gives you an EFI environment to work in on hardware of your choice, so you can start out with a basic machine and upgrade it at your leisure. A quick price check gave me about $400 shipped for a nice starter rig (Rosewill case, Gigabyte motherboard, 2ghz Dual-Core CPU, 2GB RAM, DVD burner, 160gb 7200rpm HDD, 7300GT video card), plus $170 for an EFI-X chip, plus another $110 for a copy Leopard, so about ~$680 for a machine that's a bit better than the Mini. You can upgrade to a Quad-Core CPU, up to 16 gigs of RAM, as many hard drives as you want, various video cards, etc., plus dual-boot to Vista, XP, or Linux, run virtual machines, etc. So that's a pretty nice low-effort route to go. The only issue right now is that the EFI-X chips are heavily backordered, so you'd have to wait a bit to snag one.

 

[silverpig]

The only vote against a mac mini is that they haven't been updated for a long time and people think that they are due.

 

[Raduque]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Raduque
The new MacBooks are nice, but they're about $600-700 more than I'm willing to spend. A Hackintosh is way way more effort than I want to put into it.

The Mac Minis are great starter Macs, but keep in mind they are very expensive to upgrade since they use laptop parts. With that said, I've had several myself and set them up all the time for friends and they're really great little machines. Very quiet, fairly quick, tiny size, and cool-looking.

Here's the main reason I wanted one. I can simply put it off to the side of my already-cluttered desk and throw it on a KVM - and just switch my secondary display between my main rig and the Mini.

As far as a Hackintosh goes, are you experienced with building computers? If so, you can always get an EFI-X chip. Just buy a compatible motherboard, video card, and processor, then plug the chip in and install Leopard. No hacks, no patches, no funny Hackintosh mumbo-jumbo. EFI-X is nice because it gives you an EFI environment to work in on hardware of your choice, so you can start out with a basic machine and upgrade it at your leisure. A quick price check gave me about $400 shipped for a nice starter rig (Rosewill case, Gigabyte motherboard, 2ghz Dual-Core CPU, 2GB RAM, DVD burner, 160gb 7200rpm HDD, 7300GT video card), plus $170 for an EFI-X chip, plus another $110 for a copy Leopard, so about ~$680 for a machine that's a bit better than the Mini. You can upgrade to a Quad-Core CPU, up to 16 gigs of RAM, as many hard drives as you want, various video cards, etc., plus dual-boot to Vista, XP, or Linux, run virtual machines, etc. So that's a pretty nice low-effort route to go. The only issue right now is that the EFI-X chips are heavily backordered, so you'd have to wait a bit to snag one.

I'm well experienced with building PCs, I just didn't want to do it. It's too much effort for something I'd barely use after I learn the OS and how to fix problems on it.

 

[Zaap]

$600+ for something you'll barely use??

You could just install OSX to a VMware virtual machine and get enough knowledge of the OS. Otherwise, someone experienced building PCs could build a sub $300 Hackintosh at the bareist min stats (a dual core Atom board + CPU is less than $90 and makes a system as small as the mini) and install it in less than 30 minutes or so. To each his own.

 

[silverpig]

Well one nice thing is you can probably buy the mini, use it for a few months, then sell it for almost what you paid. Check CL.

 

[Raduque]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Well one nice thing is you can probably buy the mini, use it for a few months, then sell it for almost what you paid. Check CL.

This, or it could easily be an HTPC my mother wouldn't get offended by, being that it's smaller than my parents' cable box.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Raduque

Originally posted by: silverpig
Well one nice thing is you can probably buy the mini, use it for a few months, then sell it for almost what you paid. Check CL.

This, or it could easily be an HTPC my mother wouldn't get offended by, being that it's smaller than my parents' cable box.

That's exactly what I plan on doing when the mini gets updated. Mac mini + plex + my big desktop with a few new 1TB drives in it...

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: Raduque

Originally posted by: silverpig
Well one nice thing is you can probably buy the mini, use it for a few months, then sell it for almost what you paid. Check CL.

This, or it could easily be an HTPC my mother wouldn't get offended by, being that it's smaller than my parents' cable box.

That's exactly what I plan on doing when the mini gets updated. Mac mini + plex + my big desktop with a few new 1TB drives in it...

Pssh! 1TB, you are in the stone age... get 1.5TB drives! No seriously, the price on the 1.5TBs is ridiculous. If i actually had use for all the space, I would definitely be looking at it more seriously.

 

[Raduque]

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: Raduque

Originally posted by: silverpig
Well one nice thing is you can probably buy the mini, use it for a few months, then sell it for almost what you paid. Check CL.

This, or it could easily be an HTPC my mother wouldn't get offended by, being that it's smaller than my parents' cable box.

That's exactly what I plan on doing when the mini gets updated. Mac mini + plex + my big desktop with a few new 1TB drives in it...

Pssh! 1TB, you are in the stone age... get 1.5TB drives! No seriously, the price on the 1.5TBs is ridiculous. If i actually had use for all the space, I would definitely be looking at it more seriously.

Wat? 1.5tb drives are like $200. 1tb drives are ~$100-120, depending. For just a bit more than a 1.5, you could have 2tb.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: Raduque

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: Raduque

Originally posted by: silverpig
Well one nice thing is you can probably buy the mini, use it for a few months, then sell it for almost what you paid. Check CL.

This, or it could easily be an HTPC my mother wouldn't get offended by, being that it's smaller than my parents' cable box.

That's exactly what I plan on doing when the mini gets updated. Mac mini + plex + my big desktop with a few new 1TB drives in it...

Pssh! 1TB, you are in the stone age... get 1.5TB drives! No seriously, the price on the 1.5TBs is ridiculous. If i actually had use for all the space, I would definitely be looking at it more seriously.

Wat? 1.5tb drives are like $200. 1tb drives are ~$100-120, depending. For just a bit more than a 1.5, you could have 2tb.

That is true, but lets say you are using the $120 price point which is what I saw most centered around on newegg (some were much more) and you wanted 3TB of space. You would need $360 and 3 drive bays with 1TB drives. Or, you can do it for $20 more and in 2 drive bays with the 1.5TB drives. I was looking at the physical space saving characteristics of the drives, rather than monetary savings. Sure, you can get .5TB more for about the same amount of money, but you sacrifice a drive bay for it.

 

[Raduque]

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: Raduque

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: Raduque

Originally posted by: silverpig
Well one nice thing is you can probably buy the mini, use it for a few months, then sell it for almost what you paid. Check CL.

This, or it could easily be an HTPC my mother wouldn't get offended by, being that it's smaller than my parents' cable box.

That's exactly what I plan on doing when the mini gets updated. Mac mini + plex + my big desktop with a few new 1TB drives in it...

Pssh! 1TB, you are in the stone age... get 1.5TB drives! No seriously, the price on the 1.5TBs is ridiculous. If i actually had use for all the space, I would definitely be looking at it more seriously.

Wat? 1.5tb drives are like $200. 1tb drives are ~$100-120, depending. For just a bit more than a 1.5, you could have 2tb.

That is true, but lets say you are using the $120 price point which is what I saw most centered around on newegg (some were much more) and you wanted 3TB of space. You would need $360 and 3 drive bays with 1TB drives. Or, you can do it for $20 more and in 2 drive bays with the 1.5TB drives. I was looking at the physical space saving characteristics of the drives, rather than monetary savings. Sure, you can get .5TB more for about the same amount of money, but you sacrifice a drive bay for it.

Saving money is more important to me than drive bays. My old fileserver had drive cages from other cases sticky-taped to the bottom of the case - there's always room for more drives 😀

 

[Injury]

I would suggest upping the ram in the thing.

2GB at least if you want a good experience with it.

As previously suggested, see if you can hunt down a refurb or used unit. It'll save you a few bucks (almost literally.) but it can't hurt unless you have money burning a hole in your pocket.