So, which iPod (or PC) users are considering the $500 Mac?
 

So, are any iPod/PC users considering picking up the new mini Mac? With travellers so tied to their iPods (and their iPods tied to them), will this have an impact on your other purchases as you construct your distributed office?

http://ct.com.com/click?q=e5-9ZLOQgy...BrKGFHoUartGaF

From Apple:

http://www.apple.com/macmini/

Timothy

Of course, you still need a monitor, mouse and keyboard, but you'll still have those after you throw out your Windows machine. ;)

The mac mini will (finally) replace my B&W G3 as my video editing station, though I expect to buy the cheapo and upgrade the memory and disk myself.

Quick query, I'm considering buy a Mac mini from the States while I'm over there next month as they're £75 cheaper.

Question is, would I be able to use it back here OK, and what would I need to do regarding power supply as I don't really what to just use a travel adapter permantly.

Definitely check before buying (in fact, I'll look now and see what I can find while still at work). Not every machine Apple makes handles 110 and 220 both by default.

stay tuned...

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update
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Electrical and environmental requirements
Meets ENERGY STAR requirements
Line voltage: 100-240V AC
Frequency: 50Hz to 60Hz, single phase
Maximum continuous power: 85W

From the photos being posted from the MacWorld people, the power brick and cables for this one look a bit unique. It's a shame that they couldn't just use the standard iBook/pBook bricks. Being a hopelessly ignorant American, I'm not sure what sorts of dongles you'd need for this to work based on the specs above, but perhaps you'll know.

The most you'll need is a US->UK plug adapter for the end of the cord. They're *really* cheap.

Let's see, $499 will get you (among other things): a 40GB hard drive, 256K RAM, integrated graphics with 32MB DDR SDRAM, a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, one firewire port and 2 USB ports. I think I'll pass! :p

I want one for the cute factor, but with the fact that upgrading the memory MUST be done by an apple tech, and the fact that if I want to put in the memory I want and a superdrive I might as well just buy an Ibook...not unless someone gives me one...*hint* Anyone wanna give me one? :-)

After adding a mouse, keyboard, more ram and airport express I think I'd be better off getting a regular Mac. It's cute but it might be a tad underpowered for me.

Other things:

iLife '05, which includes...
iPhoto, which now has greater photo editing capability and can accept RAW and MPEG 4 formats
iMovie, which now edits HD video
Garage Band, which now records 8 tracks of audio and writes sheet music as it is recorded
iDVD, with additional menu themes and, not sure, but I thought Steve said it'll burn HDVDs as soon as the burners are out
iTunes
All 5 apps work together, so you can pull media from one into the other seamlessly.

iWork, which includes...
Keynote 2, which is as good, and in some ways better, than Powerpoint. (can import and export powerpoint formatted docs also)
Pages, a brand new word processing app. Looks pretty decent for a first version. It should eliminate the need to purchase MS Office for many.

Mac OS X, including...
Mail
iChat
iCal
Safari
Address Book
All of which work together

Then you have the geek apps, like...
xCode
Just about anything out there for Unix
AppleScript

This is where the true value of a Mac lies. Yes, there are equivalent products available and even bundled with comparable Wintel boxes, but they suck. All of the above apps can be learned within 5 to 30 minutes with no rtfm necessary.

If you compare the Mac Mini to the cheapest machines at Dell or Gateway, they're about the same, maybe $50-$100 cheaper accounting for the fact that they include keyboard, mouse and display. Keep in mind, though, that Dell and Gateway both add a $99 charge for shipping to every desktop order, whereas shipping is always free at the Apple Store. It costs both companies nowhere near $99 to ship their computers, so this is really just a way to hide some of the cost.

So in the end, Apple has brought the Mac to, conservatively, within $50-$100 of a Wintel system.

Would you pay $100 to not have to worry about viruses and spyware? That alone would be worth it to most users, not to mention being able to actually use and, in fact, enjoy the bundled media apps that come loaded on their machine.

And all in a very tidy package: 6.5" on each side, 2.5" tall, 2.5 lbs. :)

I can't give you one, but I can make it a little less painful on the bank account. ;) PM me if you want to take the plunge. :D

OUCH, the configuration I'd like:

512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 DIMM
• 80GB Ultra ATA drive
• SuperDrive
• Internal Bluetooth + AirPort Extreme Card
• Wireless Keyboard & Mouse Set
• 56K v.92 Modem
• Mac OS X - U.S. English
• 1.42GHz PowerPC G4

Estimated Ship:
Deliver by Jan 22nd
Free Shipping
Subtotal $1,002.00

That is insane.

For that you still don't even have a monitor.

Mac?
 

Ugh, that was supposed to be a PM. :-) So consider this a music in thread...
*sings* STOP, IN THE NAME OF LOVE...
Ok, back to the thread. :-)

:) yeah, it's not such a good deal if you're wanting to max it out...

It'd probably be better to go with the iMac to acquire these specs.

First, I'm not suggesting that this be anyone's primary machine for massive amounts of hardcore business (I mean, that's what we all carry Powerbooks for), but if my mother said she wanted to email her grandkids or someone without huge demands or skills on computers wanted to join the Internet age, the base machine--sans Superdrive, Bluetooth, Airport and any fun stuff--is completely functional at $499. Plus, few viruses, no spyware, fully functional email and home software, which means there's actually little to actually support.

Buy a cheap mouse, a cheap keyboard and a $100 monitor and you're done.

As for the factory installed stuff, there will be a human being that, within a day of the release, will have taken the entire thing apart step by step and will have shown you everything you can install. The only thing that usually comes with difficulty is the bluetooth enhancement, but until I see this stuff, who knows.

Sure, if you pimp your ride, it'll get to $1000. But, don't pimp it. Give it to your nieces, grandparents and (in my case) parents. Then buy them a digital camera and they'll have it up in iPhoto without even a telephone call.

Timothy

...then wait for them to start whining about how SLOW their broadband is. :)

Also, as one of my staff members pointed out today, this is kind of the perfect PORTABLE machine (i.e. not like in the laptop definition, but more the ACTUAL sense of being able to move a machine). Try bringing a $400 Wintel box in carryon. I'm wondering how well these machines will do in tradeshow kiosks, since you could theoretically fill a wheelie with a dozen of these things, including power supplies, and have them as carry-ons--I can't tell you how much it costs to ship (or rent on-site) PCs to just be dumb Powerpoint viewers and do the occasional VoIP soft client demo.

I think that the universal nature of the keyboard and mouse, plus the headless aspect, will make this an attractive X-Windows box and will cause Unix geeks to reconsider the $100 Red Hat subscription--just the patch management system alone is worth it. With a $120 external hard drive, this machine is also a reasonable SME server.

Timothy

I'll give up my Windows machine when someone pries my cold, dead fingers from it.

Even so, I'm seriously considering getting a mini mac to play around with. It will never replace my PC given the nature of my work, but it would be fun to have around as an additional machine.

Is that a suggestion, a request or some form of begging?

Timothy

What do you do that requires a PC, anyway? Write spyware?

I'd pay $100 not to have to watch a bunch of Mac worshippers throw Jr. High insults at other platforms on a travel board...

GAMING.

Apple is a great product but for a gamer it is not going to happen.

Funny thing is, I build my own PC's but for 1 year now I have ben telling friends and relatives to buy Apples, to me the premium is well worth it when you look at the total package. If they insist on a PC then I tell them to buy a DELL.

For 1 year now the call volume for tech assisstance from family and friends has seriously dropped and i don't dread answereing my phone.

I do not call adding some RAM and Wireless to be "pimping" it out.

Pimping it out would have me add a 500Gb drive, 2Gb of memory, Hardware MPEG board and a couple of other goodies.

What I did was simply bring it in line with what is common nowadays.

That excuse is so lame, I hear it over and over again.

The kind of user that gets spyware on their PC is the same kind of user that will get spyware on their Mac. I've never caught spyware, and none of my friends with PC knowledge have either.

Any decently configured PC will never catch spyware. And of course there is less spyware for the Mac, spyware authors simply don't have the resources to write applications for what is just 5% of the market. Just like they don't invest their time in WindowsMobile, Symbian, Linux or any other flavour of OS.

Of course spyware does not exist on the Mac. So you might want to let this company know: http://macscan.securemac.com/ as they are making a spyware remover for nothing.

But before this ends in another mac bad, windows good thread, let us focus on the product in the title of this thread...

Wow, so many things to correct, where to begin...

Small format PC's have been around for ages, like the Shuttle series of XPC's. Heck, even Apple tried and failed a few years back.

If all you want is to show powerpoint slides then why bother with PC's at all, there are countless standalone powerpoint presentation devices out there.

Having a carryon full of these is great, but that still doesn't help you when you need to rent the displays for them. The price difference between renting a PC and renting just a display is pretty minimal.

Why on earth would anyone that wants a cheap X-win box subscribe to Redhat? There are countless free alternatives and all of them come with their own good patch management. I've honestly never heard of anyone using a Mac as a dedicated X-terminal. Besides that, if all you want is an Xterm box, then there are plenty of dedicated adapters for under $250, even the mini mac is over powered for just xterm.

But...but...it's a Mac!

Please see also http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/images/iProduct.gif

Actually, my engineering team, which does a massive amount of Solaris work, uses Powerbooks for network design, system management and Office-based Exchange/Word/Excel, etc. The nice thing about using Macs in this role is that they can, out of the box with an Office 2004 install, balance between the two environments.

I still think these are ideal trade show machines, dedicated Powerpoint displayers and mini-Windows machines aside. For VoIP, which is my area of expertise, I could use these mini boxes and also embed soft clients in presentations, while controlling the entire exercise with Salling Clicker.

I'm not saying that this is an ideal terminal--yes, there are cheaper alternatives--but this is precisely what the linux world has been begging for. Cheap, easily maintained Unix box with Microsoft Office. Why wouldn't you adopt it? Unless you're not bored of chasing down the newest ATI driver.

Sure, I can't go down to Microcenter and buy the fastest, newest gaming video card, but, frankly, I'm not buying business machines for Quake 2. Other than upping the hard disk and memory of laptops and desktops from Dell, I'm rarely configuring anything in a Windows PC. But I know the cost of maintaining that PC after installation is higher than my Mac users. Is that because the Mac guys are senior engineers? Partly true, I'm sure. But it's also just a better OS.

I could care less about the hardware. If you want to run OS X on Intel, you can... buy OpenBSD. But you won't get Office and all the additional tools. If that's fine, good for you.

How many of you knocking OS X actually USE OS X today? Just kind of curious. I live in both worlds, was a Windows guy for years, but I've just made the drift over the past 18 months.

Timothy

Swise:

Are you sure the mini comes with iWork?

I had read it doesn't and the Apple site doesn't mention it (only OS X and iLife '05)

Common for what? An entry level PC?

The strange thing about all of this is that the base configuration, though light for a Windows machine, is perfectly acceptable for an OS X running Macintosh, unlike previous versions of the iMac, which have shipped with 128M (or the original iBooks with 64M). I have a iMac G4/700 at home with only 256M of RAM and the thing is downright perky. It also helps to note that I've got OS X and Office 2004 installed on that machine in less than 10G of space, leaving quite a bit for Grandma to work with.

However, if you want a 500G drive, 2G of memory and hardware MPEG, this machine isn't for you... you're probably looking at the full PowerMac. The configuration you're referring to is akin to putting a Porsche engine into a Fiat Bingo. But considering how much stuff you can jam into the tiny chassis--DVD-RW, Bluetooth, Firewire, USB, WiFi--and do so without massive heat syncs and fans, it is a rather impressive little feat.

Timothy

OK, Windows and linux guys... return to sniping.

Fron what I remember, iWork is priced at $79. I have only used Keynote (which I actually like now that I've gotten the hang of it), but I'll probably buy a copy just to see how it works.

Timothy

I'm sure one person I know of in Paris has already placed his order! :D

Opps, thanks for the catch, SE.

iWork is a $79 add-on ($49 at education discount price).

I use a Windows laptop, and am thinking of getting the mini Mac. I have a 42" plasma display, and the mini Mac would be an excellent way to use the plasma display as a monitor without having to mess around with connecting the laptop.

So, when you said that is where the true value is, it turns out that the mini isn't that much of a deal?

Out of the box it can't really do too much :(

Nevertheless, it might be a nice media center as I find XP MCE to be a POS.

Does Apple have a decent media center software package yet?

Much in the same way, after using the Mac Mini a little yesterday, it seems to run the basic apps with as much snap as all but the dual G4s out there.

It's not for hardcore video editing, 3D modeling and all that. I believe it is positioned to gain new marketshare, not simply to satisfy the existing customer base. Think of all the PC deals that go on every day, with dell selling their lowest end at $350-$400 - this is what a lot of bargain hunters, students, i-just-need-to-check-e-mail people buy. Now the mac Mini at $500 is going to make them think twice. "Hey, for $500 I can have a unit that doesn't take up lots of space, does all that I need it to, and looks good to boot? I'll take it."

I personally am not gonna buy one, but I think i see where they're going with it. Had quite a buzz at Macworld yesterday anyway.

Apple does not, but there are some good addons. EyeTV from Elgato will get you DVR functionality, and there is a freeware app from Apple that allows you to use a Mac as a virtual Firewire DVHS recorder (HiDef!). The Apple DVD player kind of sucks a bit, but the progressive scan issues should be worked out on the next OS release. In the mean time, VLC is great at playing back DVD's, Divxes, etc. Then you have the iApps - iTunes/iPhoto for music and photo viewing.

You would need to buy somthing like the M-Audio Transit to get Optical Audio out, since the Mini does not have it.

Tie all this together with Salling Clicker for remote control, and you have a pretty cool media center.

Hopefully, someone will write a nice U/I to wrap some of this functionality all up too.

I'm thinking about buying one for my new 50" NEC Plasma. Not so much for DVR functionality, as I'm very happy with my new Cox-Supplied Motorola HD DVR, but for the other functions (and some big-screen web browsing).

PS - All this talk about Spyware/Adware - Microsoft is at fault for a lot of this stuff for leaving holes open in their OS. I'll blame the end user for a bit of this, but it is Microsoft's fault. However, given enough time, I'm sure that people would find holes in Firefox, MacOS, Linux, etc. (although with a much lower probability of success).

I am intrigued by this machine, I have never used an Apple in my entire life but more and more I am getting curious. I figure this is a cheap (cheaper) way to check out Apple's way of doing things.
I would hate to plunk down thousands to find out Mac's aren't for me.
(of course to me 5 hunnie isn't exactly pocket change so I havent decided what I am gonna do).

I don't know if that's necessarily a fair assessment.

I went to Dell's site and specified a similar configuration on its low end machine--256M RAM, no software, no monitor, 1 year warranty, DVD/CD-RW drive and WordPerfect (like that's useful)--and it came out at $547.

Sure. Add $29.00 for Works or $149 for Office Basic. $50 for the screen (though it currently is a LCD). Take the free 256M upgrade. And add necessary virus and security protection (not as huge a worry on the Mac) for $69. Out the door at $815, sans shipping and tax.

MacMini at $499, without the memory upgrade (which I find unnecessary for OS X, but people will disagree... I would argue the Mac is usable at the memory level, an XP PC is not). Add decent USB mouse and keyboard for $50. Add iWork for $79. Get Quicken 2005 and iLife free. Add $205 for the 15" LCD from Princeton. Total of $833, sans shipping and tax. If you wanted Office 2004 for Mac, you have the "Home/Academic" version at $139 for an alternative total of $893, a spread of less than $100. With the memory, $75 more for $968 (a price that will drop quickly as the authorized resellers get involved).

Now envision all the help desk calls you get on weekends and weeknights gone. :)

Media stuff is great... it ships with iMovie, iTunes (so it can work with the Airport Express), iPhoto, so you've got a full suite of media editing tools.

As for DVR. With remote control, $159. Don't know much about it... I have my DirecTivos.

http://www.miglia.com/products/video...dvr/index.html

I can't speak for its quality (that was just a paste from MacWorld), but then again... according to the Washington Post and New York Times technology editors, I think we're still waiting on a quality DVR for Windows. ;)

Timothy

Such a devil's advocate you are when it comes to these things. :)

ok, ok, so I accidentally include 2 out of around 15 apps that you don't get out of the box, but that doesn't null out the value. Everyone will find something different that they appreciate and place the most value upon out of the iapps that are included. For me it's Mail, iPhoto, iTunes and especially iChat. I use my .mac homepage for positing all my pictures. To give you an idea of how simple it is, I actually imported my digital pics into iPhoto and created a web site from New Year's Eve while drunk off of my A** around 3 AM New Year's Morning. A few days later, I stumbled across the new page on my web site, unaware that I had created it! :D If that's not a ringing product endorsement, I don't know what is. :)

Others really get into the video editing and DVD burning in iMovie and iDVD. And then I know some folks who absolutely love Garage Band. Each to his or her own, sober or sloshed.


What media center-type activities would you want it for? DVR? Jukebox for the stereo/a place for holding your music collection? Ripping DVDs?

People do it, and there are 3rd party apps out that'll make it work just fine. I think I read a post in the thread on Slashdot that mentioned how someone had an old G4 set up for this purpose. ..... ..... Found it.

For a PVR solution, I kinda like this one.

I'm planning on holding out, as there will surely be more elegant, integrated options available at some point.

So to answer your question, Apple doesn't have an integrated package like that yet, but there are third party options available.

Huh. I am typing this on a new Dell Celeron 2.6 which I got a little over a month ago. It cost 289€, including shipping, with a combo drive and a "free" upgrade to 512MB. Came with a keyboard and mouse, too. I added 20 bucks for a bluetooth adapter. Maybe the American peso is a lot further in the ****ter than I thought, or maybe you aren't trying very hard.

Granted, it doesn't look like Barbie's toaster, but that's OK.

I absolutely adore having the Mac<>Win debate. It's always a lot of fun.

ok, now this is just not a fair statement. Everyone knows that Barbie's toaster is pink, and this box is brushed aluminum. There's not even any pink fake fur trim anywhere on it.



;)

Puh-leese. :rolleyes: My PC came with over 150 apps! Wordpad, Messenger (which actually has other people on it), Movie Maker, even Control Panel!

Let's not be disengenuous here...this Mac thing is a cheap computer that comes bundled with the same bog-standard crap Windows and Linux machines come bundled with in the OS. Do you get paid to write ad copy for Apple, by any chance?

BTW, recording a TV show != media center. See Meedio, XP Media Center Edition, MyHTPC, Freevo, MythTV, etc. PC-based, 10-foot interface, integrated remote control, no need for mouse, keyboard, or a half-dozen contraptions hanging out of every USB port. This new Apple box might make a good platform for such a thing, but there is no software even close to doing it (and a Google search turns up absolutely nothing likely in development).