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Stupid=buying a Mac Mini

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iMac's are relatively powerful computers (maybe not at the pro app level, but neverthelesss). mac mini's are supposed to be cheap, and are meant to convince people to switch to mac's.

Ideally the PC user can just buy a mac mini, replace it with the tower and be good to go.
 
= Me stupid then

i have just placed my order for the Mac Mini Duo core doent mean i silly.

reasons being is that i would love a imac - more of everything basically. but i already have a decent enough monitor, and not really interested in playing WOW or nething like that (have a degree to pass)

another thing that put me off a little is the money (UK always costs more!!) + im a first time switcher so if i like the mac mini, after i get some cash 2gether ill go all in and get something with some grunt in it!

btw cant wait till my baby arrives!!
 
Goodness

Yes, $500 is a lot of cash. One thing that we don't remember while we're typing our responses to rumors and each other is that a good chunk of the US can't afford a computer, and a solid minority of those folks can't afford health care, and some miss out on the basics like food, shelter, and clothing. Take it a step further, and note that probably 10% of the world makes less than that a year. Yep, it's a lot of $, and it's unfair to a lot of folks to take it for granted.
 
Just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean that it has no value. If I applied this logic to everything, then there would be no point to making iPods of less than 60GB, or notebooks at all.

Be realistic. Apple has a broad enough product line to have a computer for almost everyone - and that it a very good thing.
 
Stupid = Saying other people are stupid.

Ok I have just done it here but I was provoked.:)
 
This is the first time in a LONG time that i've agreed with majority of a MR thread. Thumper, if I owned an iMac I might agree with you if only out of loyalty alone. Alas I don't.


And just for the sake of adding text to this post I'm going to claim that anything not a Quad PM is overpriced and should be ignored. I'm not willing to take up more of this post by providing any facts or figures to back up my claim which is probably off base anyway.
 
lanray said:
Yes, $500 is a lot of cash. One thing that we don't remember while we're typing our responses to rumors and each other is that a good chunk of the US can't afford a computer, and a solid minority of those folks can't afford health care, and some miss out on the basics like food, shelter, and clothing. Take it a step further, and note that probably 10% of the world makes less than that a year. Yep, it's a lot of $, and it's unfair to a lot of folks to take it for granted.
Click to expand...

I guess it would really piss you off to find out I spend a hair over $500 Saturday evening on dinner and drinks for three. That could have probably bought quite a few sheet metal shanties. :cool:

I disagree with the original post in that buying a Mac Mini is stupid... In the grand scheme of things, buying an iMac is stupider. I cannot stand the idea of an all-in-one computer. I like my iMac a lot, but I hate the non-upgradable form factor WITH built in display. Non-upgradable is one thing, but with the display built in, the iMac is a space-hogging KVM-unfriendly machine that doesn't have a single part you can use on another machine in the future other than the keyboard and mouse. I wish Apple made something like a bigger Mac Mini, with better specs and a 3.5" hard drive- for people who don't really need the craziness of a Power Mac, but at the same time don't want to deal with a dog-ass slow Mac Mini.
 
io_burn said:
I guess it would really piss you off to find out I spend a hair over $500 Saturday evening on dinner and drinks for three. That could have probably bought quite a few sheet metal shanties. :cool:
Click to expand...

If you don't mind me asking, what do you do for a living?
 
actually considering that the mac mini is now somewhat upgradable makes it appealing to me.

get now a mini core duo. that would be fast enough for the next 6-9 month. then buy a 2.33GHz Core Duo for ~$300 and plug it in. Maybe there is a way to upgrade the HD to a 7200?

Anyway, you get a fast mac for ~$1100. that isn't cheap but also not too bad.
 
andiwm2003 said:
i wonder where apple makes the most profit.
given the spec's of the imac's compared to the mini's i guess apple makes a lot more profit (percentage wise) on the mini's.

while i think there are many reasons to go with the mini i also think that it is too expensive.

my two cents.
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I going to guess they make a lot more money % off the imacs. The minis they are not making much off of.
But when you put in all those little extras then look at how much apple pays for them.

The monitor maybe 100 more bucks.
Mouse and keyboard maybe 5 bucks (the mouse being the first thing I thow in the garbag from the imac)

isight maybe 50 bucks

faster everything else 100 bucks
 
Well, I own an iMac (see sig) and when I first bought/switched to a Mac in (2000), my money was really tight and $500 then did matter....a lot! Now it's somewhat better, but I'd still get a Mini. If anything goes wrong with my iMac I'm out everything until it gets fixed and returned to me. Not to mention If I had a Mini, I would've just bought a 20" display and not had to sell my 17" iMac just to get that extra screen size. Now that's worth $500 of smarts ya think :rolleyes:
For most people the Mini is just what they need for the next 2-3 years or more depending on software needs and $500 could be spent there not a problem.
Last there are people that could take that Mini and make a good living off of it if they wanted to and use that $500 as a treat for anything or someone and is far from equaling....stupid.
 
io_burn said:
I guess it would really piss you off to find out I spend a hair over $500 Saturday evening on dinner and drinks for three. That could have probably bought quite a few sheet metal shanties. :cool:
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I don't begrudge anyone the money that they have/make (legally), and I certainly have enough that a socialist revolution wouldn't look kindly on me, but isn't that comment just kinda bragging?

to the poster who said you're paying for form factor with the mini, that's true, but you are with the imac too. ok, maybe not quite as much, but it's still a pretty compact design itself.
 
intel just reduced their prices on duo cores by 30% because the 2.33 ghz duo core will be released.

can we expect a price drop on mac mini's soon?

i mean with the cpu price being a large part of the overall price and with faster duo cores and meroms being around soon i hope the reduce the price for the minis. for e.g. the imac G5 came down by $100 and got a ton of features added in the revision C.
 
Distributed Builds!

Actually, if you wanted to buy a few machines for distributed builds in Xcode, the Core Duo mini crushes anything else you can buy from a price/performance perspective, especially now that it's packing Gigabit ethernet.
 
lanray said:
Yes, $500 is a lot of cash. One thing that we don't remember while we're typing our responses to rumors and each other is that a good chunk of the US can't afford a computer, and a solid minority of those folks can't afford health care, and some miss out on the basics like food, shelter, and clothing. Take it a step further, and note that probably 10% of the world makes less than that a year. Yep, it's a lot of $, and it's unfair to a lot of folks to take it for granted.
Click to expand...
I was being sarcastic.

But in the grand scheme its all relative, so there is no yes or no.
500 dollars to Donald Trump isnt the same as 500 dollars to a starving child in South America.
 
I guess I'm stupid no matter how you slice it, as I own a 17" Intellimac and a mini duo.:rolleyes:

As many have mentioned, the different form factors and strengths/weaknesses mean each have their own ecological niches. The iMac works fine as an attractive all-in-one family desktop. The mini works great attached to the TV for quick Internet access, iChatting, and media needs. Neither would work nearly as well in the other's role.
 
I agree about the mac mini being pretty poor value, but that is to justify it's size (which is bigger than an iMac). $500 to you = $750-$800 of my dollars.
 
andiwm2003 said:
intel just reduced their prices on duo cores by 30% because the 2.33 ghz duo core will be released.

can we expect a price drop on mac mini's soon?

i mean with the cpu price being a large part of the overall price and with faster duo cores and meroms being around soon i hope the reduce the price for the minis. for e.g. the imac G5 came down by $100 and got a ton of features added in the revision C.
Click to expand...

It's more likely that Apple will just do a speed bump when the current shipment of processors run out, rather than dropping prices.

Obviously, the mini would be a nice box for playing games, if it had the graphics hardware. I've noticed a lot of Windows laptop computers with the Radeon x200 but as I understand it, it's not much faster than the 9200 and slower overall that the Intel graphics hardware that's part of the mini already.

Too bad we can't see a Mac midi with a slightly bigger box and the graphics hardware from the iMac.
 
A headless iMac would be nice, (Mac Mini form factor, or close to, iMac specs). It wouldn't work out as cost effective as the iMac itself, but for those few who wanted to connect to their TVs, it would be great. I do think it should include a Keyboard and mouse though. Maybe the same specs as the 17" iMac, BT keyboard and mouse and cost around £749, (iMac £929).

They wouldn't sell many, but for that small market segment after that, it would be ideal. The 160GB would also be fantastic to use as a DVR. So that takes us back to a Mac Mini media hub.
 
thumper said:
Now is it just me or would you be stupid to by a Mac Mini
when for $500 you get double your Harddrive, a faster Intel chip
a pimped out SuperDrive, a graphics card which could play almost ALL
new games on the market and a 17" flat screen monitor!!!!!!...

... oh ya.. and an iSight camera..

oh oh and an Apple Mouse and
keyboard...

does this make sence to anyone???

id like to get a little mini mac.. but the cheap one is useless
and then the higher end is just too much money for getting nothing.. really..

i think the Mac Mini's are over priced!!!
Click to expand...

Wow. After years and years of "We Need a headless iMac" threads we now have the exact opposite. I wonder how many more "the mini has no monitor/keyboard/mouse" and "mini is over-priced" threads we are going to see.
 
Actually, if I remember correctly:

Stupid = Stupid and Stupid = Stupid, due to the Reflexive Property of Algebra. It's simple elementary math really.

Is buying a Mac mini stupid? Well, hopefully not to those purchasing them. I don't see a problem with them. They draw in new users who want a small bite of the Apple and the Mac mini gives them this at a fairly reasonable price. In addition, they are excellent companions to other Macs. Plus, as some have already said, it can accomplish tasks and fit in places where no Mac has ever gone before (no innuendo there). I am beginning to sense some racism towards certain types of Macs. This Macism™ must end. All Macs have the dream of living in a MacNation™ where they are not judged by the speed of their processors but by the content of their, uh, MacCharacter™. Okay I'm officialy finished.

Jumping into a pit of magma = Stupid
 
sigamy said:
Wow. After years and years of "We Need a headless iMac" threads we now have the exact opposite. I wonder how many more "the mini has no monitor/keyboard/mouse" and "mini is over-priced" threads we are going to see.
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well, the mini is NOT the headless mac people were talking about. These people wanted the specs of an imac in a standard case that allows 2 hard disks, upgradable ram and graphics card.

what we get is a non upgradable mac in a mini case that makes it more expensive.

the mac mini is great but it's not the type of headless mac many people wanted. if it was it would kill mini, imac and even powermac sales. that's why there won't be a headless mac in the forseeable future.
 
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