Well, it seems that many people in the PC world just don’t get the Mac Mini. They complain that it’s expensive, underpowered, has a rubbish graphics card, a tiny HD, has no keyboard and mouse, isn’t available in a selection of colours, doesn’t dance around and doesn’t come with a large shake. Then when Mac users try to point them wrong and show it is cheap then they come back with “But it is cheap, for a Mac”. Well this post is to explain more about the Mac Mini and hopefully show people why it was created.

“Macs are expensive”

Relatively speaking they are in the more expensive price range but prices have been dropping rapidly. The Mac Mini is the cheapest Mac ever made and is very good value for money. But is it competitive. The easy answer is yes. The complex answer is also yes, but you can build a much more powerful PC for less. Another gripe with the Mac Mini that PC user’s have is the lack of expandability. Now I have to agree with them here, 1 slot for ram isn’t very good though when you consider the size it does make up for it.

Now compared to a lot of computers the Mac Mini is actually a very good price. I managed to price up a 1.25GHz Mac Mini with an 80GB HD, 1GB ram, 17” TFT monitor and iWorks for just £733.90, which is pretty cheap for a computer like that. But just how does the Mac Mini compete with similarly priced computers?

“1.4GHz, your having a laugh?!”

Yes, 1.4GHz isn’t a whole lot, but it is about the same as a 2GHz Pentium 4. And when you consider that a lot of budget PC’s use Celerons in the 2GHz-2.6GHz range the Mac Mini doesn’t seem quite so under powered. It will likely beat a 2GHz Celeron but will probably be beaten by the 2.6GHz. It will happily run many of the latest games and rip CD’s at a very respectable speed.

“But it’s got a crap graphics card and next to no ram!”

Yes, the 256MB of ram is pitiful but there are more expensive PC’s out there with the same amount of ram (such as the default Dell 2400 configuration). A 512MB module isn’t all that expensive for the Mac Mini and a 1GB module can be got at just over £100.

The graphics card argument is one that does irritate me. Sure it may only have 32MB of VRAM but that isn’t the end of the world. It is a budget PC so you can’t expect low prices and the fastest graphics card. Plus the fact that many miss out on is that the Mac Mini does actually have a graphics card. Many similarly priced PC’s only have Intel Integrated Graphics which uses the CPU and system Ram to deliver poor performance. So instead of sapping away at your G4 and ram the Mac Mini has it’s own dedicated resources for graphics.

“But when you add a mouse, keyboard, monitor, speakers, WiFi, fairy lights and a rear spoiler the price is gonna mount up”

Well, if you really want fairy lights and a rear spoiler for your computer I think you need help, but the others are half true. For example, I have a mouse at the moment that I use with my iBook and I have a spare keyboard left over from my iMac. Quite a few people will have these lying around. There is also the fact that the Mac Mini is designed to replace a users old PC. You can plug in the monitor, keyboard and mouse you have at the moment. But what about PS/2 keyboards and mice. Well you can either go out and get a PS/2 to USB adapter or you can go out and get a new USB keyboard and mouse. They don’t cost a whole lot.

Hopefully I’ve managed to help explain away some of the major complaints of PC users. And for those who complain that they’ll have to pay for all new software on the Mac, just use the money you save from Anti Virus, AdWare or Spyware software.