Mac user advice

[Paul]

Calling all Mac users:

I'm suffering severe withdrawal symptoms from not buying any good toys recently, and my latest grand scheme is to treat myself to a Mac Mini. I am thinking of using it as my digital media hub (impressive jargon, eh?) to store my iTunes library, all my digital 'photos and to experiment with High Definition TV on my HD ready telly. I also quite fancy having a Unix box to play with again, sad techie that I am, and playing with Garage Band might just spur me on to practice my guitar playing, once I buy a Griffin iMic to feed the sound into.

Micro Anvika are cracking out the model with 80gb disk, 512mb RAM, superdrive and Airport express built for £450. I appreciate that it's not really upgradable by non technicians, but is that a problem? I'd appreciate the thoughts of any current Macintosh/Mac Mini users out there regarding the pros/cons of this particular route into Mac ownership. I'm not interested in hearing from Windows users about how crap macs are...

Cheers,

Paul
(former Apple employee and mac zealot from the olden days of the Motorola 68040!)

[sandbar]

...........from the olden days of the Motorola 68040!

Ah yes!!! That old Motorola 5 push-button radio from the sixties. Way ahead of anything else at the time and the dogs danglies

sandbar

[theseadog]

Well it least it's not just me I thought about buying a mini as well but decided that the better option ( and as it happens about the same cost ) was to buy an old stock G4 iMac, you know the half football base with the lovely jubbly flatscreen. Any roads, bought that for about 50 more than a mini and opend it up and replaced the base ram and disk, Result spanking fast reliable ( windows users can look that word up in the dictionary ) gorgeous looking machine to run my imaging/music/ rest of my iLife from. and if I get really bored or just want to see what a crash looks like on a Mac I can always run Virtual PC XP

That's not a bad price really, and if you want to upgrade it's easy enough to throw more storage at it external FW or a suitable 2.5" internal, though it's not likely to be as fast as the 3.5" drives available and the FW is only 400, however if you're not in a mad rush it'll be plenty fast enough. A 1Gb ram upgrade will be very cheap, and as long as you've got 2 very slim paint scrappers/putty knives to open the case then upgrading is not a problem. Even as you've got the built in Bluetooth ( I presume as it's the SUperdrive model ) it's only one more screw to get the antenna out the way.

Yeah go for it, or grab a good deal on a G4 i or power.

Toodle Pip

[bigblackfalco]

I'm not sure....an extra £100 you could have a newer spec iMac(might have to be secondhand) (or even a G5 Power Mac).Much more useful with very similar specs.And 80GB isn't really enough if you want to have a serious music and photo library.I'd be looking at 250GB or more.
I've looked at the mini but like you say it's really limited.
I'm also with the get a bargain G4 but think the G5/64 bit architecture is the way ahead.
Bailey.

[bmwonder]

I used to have bumper sicker in the US that said;

Windows '95...........Mac '89

I want my mac back soooooo badly.

[macuser]

I suppose my log in gives it away... macuser (geddit?) - currently using a g4 powerbook / mac OS X Tiger (10.4.3) - excellent bit of kit it is as well!

Don't forget that apple are currently working up to the launch of their next generation macs... sometime within the next quarter / half year is believed & this time they will be using intel processors (welcome to the dark side).

This may mean that current build macs will be sold off "cheaply"

A good source of info and speculation is www.appleinsider.com/

[macuser]

oh & btw -

Uses a mac, operating on OSX Tiger & Safari AND my isp is demon AND rides an 11s... AND is into RUSH (R30 rocks) this guy does have issues with authority!

[BMWBob]

As Macuser says quite a few rumors circulating currently about the launch date for the next generation of intel based Macs.

Also worth checking out www.macrumors.com

If you can wait until this Monday Steve Jobs will be giving his keynote speech at the US MacExpo. That will determine if there are going to be any existing models being pensioned off cheap(er) or if what he announces could be a better bet.

I notice you mention about wanting a digital hub. There have been specific rumours about just such a machine based around a Mini Mac being announced next week. Regards Bob

eMac G4 700 MHz OS 10.4.3
iBook G4 1.25 GHz OS 10.4.3

Oh and a 1998 R1100S

[madman]

Never wanted a Mac, but there again I run a "normal" PC with Suse Linux 10 and think that compared to Windoze (on the laptop) it flies!

[Paul]

Thanks for the input fellas. Based on Bob's excellent rumour rumour, I think I'll hold out until next weekend and see what Mr Jobs has to say in his keynote speach next week.

Cheers,

Paul

[bigblackfalco]

Paul,before you spend any money,I suggest you take a good look here for some good money saving tips:
http://www.afrotechmods.com/

Bailey.