I need a mac for school, and since I'm out of cash was considering the mac mini. I heard that they were updated, and the boxes and apple site don't reflect this update. What are the current specs?
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Current G4 Mac Mini
- Thread starter Sutekidane
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You are guaranteed a machine that meets the specifications published by Apple. There's also the elusive models, which are available in 1.33ghz and 1.5ghz speeds, with a 64mb Radeon 9200, and 5400rpm hard drives. There may be other improvments as well, but these are what I know of.
aquajet said:
It seems to me that these updated models are pretty easy to get now. From what I've heard, unless you happen to buy from a reseller that's got old stock, you'll get a new model.
Well, I'm not sure if I should get one or not, I really need a mac for school all of a sudden though. I had a 1.8ghz imac g5 before, and I don't know if I could go back to a g4... How does it perform? I'm not doing anything too heavy.. a bit of photoshop cs, illustrator, flash, dreamweaver. I'm not going to play WoW on it or anything...
Sutekidane said:
Honestly, you'd be better off with an iBook. Check your school...if it's a uni..and if they sell Apples, there might be a deal. I got a 12" iBook brand new for $699, normally $999. The Mac mini is good, but it lags when running any combination of the two programs listed. By itself they should perform fine, but not what you're used to. Question...why do you need a seperate computer for school? Are you moving?
baummer said:
Nope, they don't sell any computers at my college and the ibook g4 is $949 with edu discount... an iBook would probably be around the same speed as a mac mini, or maybe even slower. I need a mac so I can work on my homework at home and not have to use the school computers. I don't live on campus, it's a community college, and I live about 30 minutes away from it. ahhh.
Yeah, the mini is fine. It gets a bit slow with too many windows open and Exposé. Otherwise it's powerful enough for word processing, web browsing, and iTunes. Try to get 1 GB in it. Just buy your own stick and install it.Sutekidane said:
i have no problems at all with my 1.25 Mini running Photoshop, GoLive, Safari, Skype, Mail and a bunch of other stuff.. all simultaneously. it has got the 1Gb ram upgrade tho.
Mini status
The mini is essentially an iBook in a different box, so they preform very closely (Macworld did a comparison of the two a few months ago). An iBook may make better sense if you really need the mobile computing and must have a screen and keyboard at the ready.
Otherwise, I would suggest you check out the Apple re-furb minis on sale at their site today. You can buy a 1.42 Ghz model right now with Airport and bluetooth installed and then upgrade the ram to 1 GB and even the drive to a 7200 rpm model through other vendors, and end up spending about $800 total for a machine with better specs than an equivalent iBook refurb currently for sale. If you just buy the stock mini (1.42/512 ram) you will save a few $100 compared to the iBook and still get similar performance.
The mini is essentially an iBook in a different box, so they preform very closely (Macworld did a comparison of the two a few months ago). An iBook may make better sense if you really need the mobile computing and must have a screen and keyboard at the ready.
Otherwise, I would suggest you check out the Apple re-furb minis on sale at their site today. You can buy a 1.42 Ghz model right now with Airport and bluetooth installed and then upgrade the ram to 1 GB and even the drive to a 7200 rpm model through other vendors, and end up spending about $800 total for a machine with better specs than an equivalent iBook refurb currently for sale. If you just buy the stock mini (1.42/512 ram) you will save a few $100 compared to the iBook and still get similar performance.