Mac Mini for desktop.Whats your opinion

[thespeakerbox]

I dont game anymore and am using my MBP a lot more than I used to. I have no problems paying to try new apps, and really enjoy having an app store for desktop stuff now. I do alot of office 2010 / outlook / internet multitasking and have never done a SFF. I'm sure c2d would be fine powerwise, but am more worried about heat issues, being constantly on etc...

What do you think?

 

[Patranus]

Perfectly fine.

Its over due for a refresh so if you can, you might want to wait it out.

Should be seeing new iMacs and Mac Minis any day now.

 

[Eug]

Yeah, fine.

I predict there will be a new Mac mini within 3-4 months. Hopefully it will get an i3.

 

[Patranus]

Yeah, fine.

I predict there will be a new Mac mini within 3-4 months. Hopefully it will get an i3.

I am going less.
According to this http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac_mini it is already 1 month beyond the average.

 

[Eug]

Perhaps, but not guaranteed. Apple sometimes waits a year or longer between updates, and it's only been 9ish months so far.

Personally I predict Q2, but that could mean in a couple of weeks, or over 3 months from now.

 

[postmortemIA]

mac mini has one of longest wait times for upgrades. even there was speculation during one long cycle that apple was giving up on them. perhaps because profit margin is lowest on them, making them best buys..

 

[speg]

Man, I remember when they were announced at $499. Somehow they've creeped up 40%!

 

[GhettoFob]

My Mac Mini has been on 24/7 since I bought it last summer. I upgraded to 8 gigs of because I'm running a Windows VM as well. It does everything I need and I can even play some of the games I've bought on Steam.

 

[prism]

Right now I have a Phenom X3 720 at 2.8ghz, 4g of DDR2, and a Radeon 4850. I've pretty much given up gaming, except for an occasional RPG or something on Steam. If I switched to a Mac Mini (let's assume current-gen just to be safe), would I notice a big hit in performance in games and day-to-day browsing?

Also, I don't currently do any video editing, but I may in the near future as a hobby. How would you guys estimate my experience would change?

 

[MotionMan]

I am not sure what you are asking. Is a Mac Mini a good desktop computer? Isn't that was it is?

In any event, I have two Mini's running 24/7, as do my parents (2) and my uncle (1). No issues, run great (including Windows in Parallels), very happy.

MotionMan

 

[Emulex]

its like a squashed version of my mac pro. the only thing i'd say is get the dual drive server version (no internal dvd), attach an external blu-ray and throw an SSD and large 2.5" drive on it.

or get a mac pro for a steal (they are out there!) and don't have to worry about upgrading for 5-6 more years

 

[sourceninja]

I recently bought a mac mini as a htpc. I'm impressed and I now also use it as a desktop instead of getting my macbook out.

 

[gus6464]

You can stick 8gb of ram on the newer mac mini? I really want one for iOS development. Don't know if I should wait for the new one to be announced and pick up the old one at discount. Dont really want to pay more then 500 bucks for something that is just going to see xcode and other IDE's.

 

[Anteaus]

I recently bought a mac mini as a htpc. I'm impressed and I now also use it as a desktop instead of getting my macbook out.

How is it as a HTPC? I initially thought about Apple TV, but then I read about the resolution and file compatibiliy limitations so I stayed away. Does the Mac Mini have those problems? Most of my videos are in h.264 high profile.

 

[sourceninja]

The mac mini can do 1080p content without issue, it plays everything I've thrown at it. I use plex to handle the interface and created links to netflix and hulu desktop. I've thrown blueray rips at it in h2.64 without issue.

As a plus it's also dead silent and can play minecraft on my TV lol.

 

[Anteaus]

The mac mini can do 1080p content without issue, it plays everything I've thrown at it. I use plex to handle the interface and created links to netflix and hulu desktop. I've thrown blueray rips at it in h2.64 without issue.

As a plus it's also dead silent and can play minecraft on my TV lol.

Nice. I'm going to start looking into it again.

 

[dmw16]

Apple offers a mac mini as a server, so I don't think you should be too concerned about having heat issues with the mini being on all the time.

 

[Eug]

The server comes with the server OS. Whether or not that's an issue I'm not entirely sure, but it could be.

However it's also quite expensive. Then again, a decent non-server version is also expensive. The base model comes with 2 GB RAM, which I think is insufficient for a Mac desktop. To get it with 4 GB RAM, you have spend $799, or else $999 for the baseline server model with 4 GB RAM.

At that price I'd rather just get an iMac which has the i3 processor.

I think think most of these problems will be solved with the next Mac mini update.

Core 2 Duo --> Core i3
2 GB --> 4 GB
Thunderbolt

 

[sourceninja]

I thought 2 gig wasn't enough, but honestly it is.

Any (this is a must) you never buy ram upgrades from apple. You can get 4G ram from newegg for way less then 100.00 and installing it in a mac mini is the easiest thing ever.

 

[Eug]

For very light usage, 2 GB is OK. I have 2 GB on my MacBook Pro. But I think for a desktop it's extremely limiting.

I have 8 GB in my desktop, because 4 GB wasn't enough for that machine (although I do stuff like run Aperture on that 8 GB iMac, and was running Parallels on it too for a time).

Safari for example is a memory hog.

 

[jalaram]

I have a mini and I love it. One thing the mini can't do that other Mac can is Facetime. Logitech makes a mac webcam, but I don't know if it's Facetime compatible.

 

[Emulex]

you can rock 8gb in most macbooks since 2008 so i hope the mac mini can do likewise lol.

the windows EVC cams are software driven. OSX has no drivers (it runs at 640x480 mostly except for the new macbooks). so auto focus, facial tracking, etc all are mostly broken. The Logitech cam is okay.

what you really want is an old sony TRV firewire camcord with CARL ZEISS lens. and night vision. This will rock out because the glass is quality unlike plastic lenses on the webcams. a dead one say the tape portion is broken might sell for $20 which is far cheaper.

just saying HD facetime looks like butt compared to SD facetime because it's all in the sensor/glass combo. think about that

 

[mmntech]

Right now I have a Phenom X3 720 at 2.8ghz, 4g of DDR2, and a Radeon 4850. I've pretty much given up gaming, except for an occasional RPG or something on Steam. If I switched to a Mac Mini (let's assume current-gen just to be safe), would I notice a big hit in performance in games and day-to-day browsing?

Also, I don't currently do any video editing, but I may in the near future as a hobby. How would you guys estimate my experience would change?

You have a pretty powerful rig there. For day to day use, no. It will also handle SD video editing. AVCHD is another story.

 

[Emulex]

the hard drives in those mac mini's are awefully sloooooow.

 

[lokiju]

I'm running a 2ghz 4gb mini with an external jbod USB enclosure with 4 1tb drives that's acting as a sftp, http, and calibre/ebook server for external usage and a dlna server on my internal network for streaming blu-ray rips (mkv) to my ps3. in was doing all of this before on my Mac pro but wanted to reduce the footprint and power consumption somfigured I would give the mini a try. To my surprise it runs great. I haven't noticed any huge difference between the two with how I use it.