Mac Mini

chrism_scotland · 12 Jul 2009

Been looking ahead to replacing my current desktop Windows PC and I was wanting a laptop but I think a laptop would drive me nuts using it all the time, also I would probably be looking at close to a grand for what I would like.

As a compromise I'm going to get a netbook of some description for mobility as all I really need it for is Office, Browsing, email, music and maybe video so a laptop would probably be a waste, although that said I'm sure some of the basic Dell 15" laptops at around £350 would also be fine.

Anyway in terms of a desktop I really fancy a Mac and been looking the the Mac Mini as there is no way I can justify the £1200+ on an iMac, not even via my employee discount scheme.

I was just wondering if anyone here used the Mini and how good it is?
The most taxing thing I can see myself doing would be Lightroom processing and I would want to have Windows XP/Vista/7 on it (whatever the best one is) would the Mini Mac cope with all that?

TheCrow · 12 Jul 2009

If your gonna save money by buying a mac mini, and then want to put windows on it. I really cant see the point in buying a mac mini in the first place.

For the price of a mini you could get a really fast desktop and just use windows on it with lightroom.

chrism_scotland · 12 Jul 2009

Using Windows would just be for some of the more obscure stuff I have that isn't available on Mac OS like some of my games I have, for day to day usage I would be intending to go over to Mac OS for everything, and I would hope to be able to get my netbook to either dual boot or be solely Mac OS too.

welly · 12 Jul 2009

chrism_scotland said:
Using Windows would just be for some of the more obscure stuff I have that isn't available on Mac OS like some of my games I have, for day to day usage I would be intending to go over to Mac OS for everything, and I would hope to be able to get my netbook to either dual boot or be solely Mac OS too.

You don't want a mac mini if you're going to play games on it. Unless the games are about 3 or 4 years old, of course. They're great for what they're good at but what they're good at isn't gaming.

spanner28 · 12 Jul 2009

i bought a mac mini a few months ago and find it so much better than the pc it replaced, alot of programs like photoshop are available for the mac and theres a few fairly decent programs built in, i like it anyway... as for whether or not its powerful enough to run windows on it i am not sure but apparently it can be done on a mac

chrism_scotland · 13 Jul 2009

Oh the games I have I would want to play are Harpoon which is a new version but basically ten years old and another independent oldie game.
Aside from that Football Manager is the ony other thing I play and it's Mac Compatible.
I've read up on using Windows on the Mac and I think the Mini should run it perfectly and especially when the less memory consuming Windows 7 is released.

Impspeed · 13 Jul 2009

Okay,

I bought a Mac Mini 1.66Ghz with 1GB of RAM a couple of months ago and fell in love with it (not literally, of course). It did everything I wanted it to do including Lightroom, wordprocessing, eMail, internet and video. After a while I decided I wanted to upgrade to 10.5 and iLife 09 and it was cheaper for me to sell the original Mac and buy a new 2Ghz 1GB RAM Mini. This is when the problems started!

After installing Lightroom and iWork it was just so slow! It was slower than my old PC with half the RAM and a slower processor. A couple of trips back to Apple and it was replaces twice and a free upgrade of RAM to 2GB. It is better now, but not brilliant. I still think my old 1.66GHZ Mac Mini was quicker.

Anyway, the moral of the story is the Mini is a great entry into Mac computing. Go for 2GB RAM as a minimum, especially if you want to run LR or games. If you will mainly be using parallel desktop with Windows then I would strongly suggest you buy a windows PC rather than a Mac. The spec you get for your money with MS Windows is better than a Mac however, as has been said many times on here before, Mac's just work better for me.

I hope this helps...

DB

chrism_scotland · 13 Jul 2009

Impspeed said:
Okay,

I bought a Mac Mini 1.66Ghz with 1GB of RAM a couple of months ago and fell in love with it (not literally, of course). It did everything I wanted it to do including Lightroom, wordprocessing, eMail, internet and video. After a while I decided I wanted to upgrade to 10.5 and iLife 09 and it was cheaper for me to sell the original Mac and buy a new 2Ghz 1GB RAM Mini. This is when the problems started!

After installing Lightroom and iWork it was just so slow! It was slower than my old PC with half the RAM and a slower processor. A couple of trips back to Apple and it was replaces twice and a free upgrade of RAM to 2GB. It is better now, but not brilliant. I still think my old 1.66GHZ Mac Mini was quicker.

Anyway, the moral of the story is the Mini is a great entry into Mac computing. Go for 2GB RAM as a minimum, especially if you want to run LR or games. If you will mainly be using parallel desktop with Windows then I would strongly suggest you buy a windows PC rather than a Mac. The spec you get for your money with MS Windows is better than a Mac however, as has been said many times on here before, Mac's just work better for me.

I hope this helps...

DB

Thanks mate, I'm more attracted to the Mac OS thatn Windows, as I am no longer at University I am not tied to having a Windows OS for my files to be compatible and I only use my PC for very sparing gaming these days, nothing that can't be bought for the Mac or even run on a Netbook if I buy one.

I know I will get a better specced PC for the money but I would really love to have a Mac as I much prefer the OS, I'm getting more and more fed up with Windows.