I have been pointed to this, a small (6"x4"x1.25") PC that some people have been putting up against the Mini claiming that it’s a fully featured PC that’s smaller, cheaper and been around longer than the Mini. Well, I’ll give it the the age thing but what you get for the cost in the “PC mini” compared to the Mac Mini makes it more expensive than the Mac Mini. It is also FAR from fully featured.

The Mac Mini features a 1.25GHz G4 processor, 40GB HD, CD-RW/DVD combo drive, modem, 10/100 ethernet, 256MB Ram (upgradable to 1GB), 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 Firewire 100 port, 1 DVI port, an ATI Radeon 9200 with 32MB VRAM and most importantly, it’s all in one case. For how much? $499

I would call that a fully featured computer, processor, hard disk, optical drive, networking options, USB and firewire ports, a respectable max ram barrier and a graphics card. But let’s see what this “PC mini” has. Well, it has the processor, but it is trounced by the G4 easily. A 700MHz P3/Celaraon processor, that’s about as powerful as a 600MHz G3. Then we have the hard disk, it doesn’t actually specify the size but it does have a hard disk, arbite an Ultra DMA 33/66 hard disk.

Well, so far things are looking up, it has the first two, even if they are much much slower than the Mac Mini. Let’s have a look at the optical drive, or rather the lack of it. Sure it comes with an optical drive on the dock, but then it isn’t so small any more and it’s only a CD Rom. Networking options? Forget it. USB? Why yes, it does have 2 USB ports, but no firewire. The ram and graphics card in this thing have to save it, but alas with a maximum of 256MB of ram (was this thing made in the 90’s?) and a minute 11MB of shared VRAM it’s not really enough.

And how much are you expected to pay for this massively under powered PC, that is lacking in many key features? Only $319. Oh well, I guess the gloating PC users can always use the excuse that it’s from July 2003