Mac finally going affordable.
Years ago I hated Mac. I remember the “eeks” from elementary school and first year of middle school. I was so happy when the Macs were replaced by Windows based computers. I mean who would purchase a mac other then people that couldn’t understand how to work with a computer.
Enter Mac OS X, the 10th version of Mac OS, the software like Windows running on the Mac platform. Mac OS X is what Longhorn will eventually be for the PC. Mac OS X started out being hated as 1. It ran slowly on a lot of G3 processor computers (G3 means 3rd Generation) and 2. Backwards compatibility, something Apple was good at, didn’t really exist. However through the years Mac OS X has gotten far more respect and love. Right now they are at 10.3, ready to release 10.4, named Tiger, this year. Around 10.2 I became interested in getting my own Mac but unfortunately all the lower end macs came with integrated monitors and included a keyboard and mouse. I didn’t want to have a whole second setup on my computer and I didn’t want to spend $2000 on just a box (the G5 computers).
Last year I bought my first Apple product, an Ipod Mini. I haven’t used it as much as I would have liked, in part because the Ipod really doesn’t function as well on Windows as it does on Mac. Sure the software is the same but it just feels clunky under Windows. Something that isn’t the case on a Mac.
Then something happened… Apple did what I really didn’t expect. They are finally catering to those looking to purchase a mac, but don’t want to buy a new monitor etc and spend $2000. They are actually thinking about the normal people. They created the Mac Mini.
Yup… its pretty damn pretty. The dimensions are even more amazing… 2 inches tall, 6.5 wide and 6.5 deep. Basically a 2 inch tall 6.5 inch square. Thats about as wide as my current computer. It does NOT come with a keyboard, mouse and monitor. Which means I can get something called a KVM and hook those up myself to my existing setup. Even more excitingly… the specs aren’t bad at all. Sure its not a G5, but a mid/high end G4. The $499 model has a 1.25ghz G4 and the $599 carries a 1.4ghz G4. In the Mac world, these are powerful chips. Not everything should be measured by “megahertz/gigahertz” and this is one of those situations.
So I am definitely going to save up for one of these. This is my goal to get this year, before August. I hope I will be able to do that. I am so excited about this product.
Anywho… that is all I had to say for now.
More information:
Mac Mini website:
http://www.apple.com/macmini/
January 15th, 2005 at 7:16 pm
Hey Yvo! You probally don't remeber me but you helped me decide on all those parts for the AMD-64 pc i built. It really turned out nice! Anyway, iv'e always been a PC user myself but have been somewhat intrested in what Apple can bring to the table. Macs to me have always seemed somewhat overpriced in the past until now! The mac mini seems like the sweet spot for switchers like myself. Yeah, it's not your power mac G5 but its a pretty darn good starting point to get into the mac cult. I am planning on purcahsing one of these also soon as possible but I would like to wait till the release of Tiger in June? I would assume they would load the mac mini' up with the updated Tiger OS. I also heard about maybe a 2nd rev. around that time… So, i'm wondering if i should hold off to purchase… Also, the 2 diffrent models could be a hard choice with doubled the hard drive…