Mac mini: Smaller Than a Bag of Potato Chips, but Not All That
by , 4:55 PM EST, January 13th, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- Something funny has happened to me during Macworld Expo: for the first time that I can remember, a product I was convinced would floor me has failed to do so while another I was skeptical about has made me a believer. I'm talking, of course, about Apple's new Mac mini and iPod shuffle.
It has been impossible during the last month to ignore the rumors surrounding Apple's US$500 Mac and flash iPod. The Mac mini left me feeling that Apple finally got it -- switchers (and many Mac users alike) already have invested in a good enough display for their needs and therefore don't need everything an eMac or iMac delivers, and not everyone wants to spend about $1,500 for a Power Mac G5.
At the same time, I was looking forward to a flash-based iPod, which my athletic side has been waiting a couple years for, until I learned a couple days prior to the keynote that it wasn't going to have a screen. I struggled to grasp the logic in such a decision, for there are times when I'm in the mood for one particular song, and hitting fast forward a hundred times to blindly find that track didn't seem very efficient to me. Furthermore, when I have my 40GB iPod set to shuffle, I greatly appreciate being able to assign a star rating to a song I had forgotten about or maybe never heard before but was impressed by.
After hearing the specs of both the Mac mini and iPod shuffle on Tuesday, and seeing them up close and personal at Macworld Expo, I'm less blown away by the Mac mini and more impressed by the iPod shuffle. Perhaps I'm subconsciously trying to justify rushing out of the keynote to the Stockton Street Apple Store to purchase an iPod shuffle, but I really like the little guy. I can't feel it around my neck or in my pocket and the blind shuffle playback (as well as the random Autofill) makes listening to my iPod more akin to listening to satellite radio (except only songs I own or enjoy get played), and it prevents from returning to old favorites all the time like I find myself often doing with my 40GB iPod when I'm quickly trying to find something I know I'll enjoy instead of "giving chance a chance," as Apple puts it.
I find myself once more reminded by what Mac Observer Editor-in-Chief Bryan Chaffin told me on Monday about the screenless iPod shuffle: "Apple wouldn't do it if it didn't make sense."
The Mac mini, on the other hand, I'm not so sure about. At first glance, it's a sweet deal. A G4-based square that's one-third the size of the long-gone Cube and one-third the Cube's original price. Let me make it clear, however, that I don't think the Mac mini is going to flop the way the Cube did. In fact, I don't think it's going to flop at all, I'm just not very impressed with it.
The eye-catching, minimalist design is the Mac mini's worst feature for a number of reasons. For starters, the Mac mini only has a single RAM slot. Fortunately, DIMMs can be had in sizes up to 1GB today -- a comfortable enough capacity to run Mac OS X smoothly -- but it means that anyone looking to upgrade the Mac mini either needs to customize their system at the Apple store and pay Apple's exorbitant RAM prices ($75 to upgrade to 512MB, $425 to upgrade to 1GB) or, if they upgrade later, are left with an unused 256MB module. But it's not so easy to upgrade the Mac mini later. In fact, according to Apple, you must take it into an Apple store or authorized reseller and pay them to add any extra RAM, a costly and annoying endeavor. Like the iPod, Apple doesn't want nor does it expect its customers to ever see the inside of their Mac mini.
It doesn't matter if surveys show that 90 percent of PC users never open up their systems or are scared to, the reality is that they usually know someone who can do something as simple as adding RAM. And let's not get into how 256MB is a laughably small amount if you wish to run Mac OS X and any of the iLife '05 components, except for maybe iTunes.
"So, you expect a customer to spend $425 to upgrade a $499 computer to 1GB of RAM?" I asked an Apple product manager on the show floor. "Yes," they curtly replied. And I thought the Mac mini was Apple's push into affordable computing.
In order to give the Mac mini its tiny dimensions, not only did Apple forgo a second RAM slot (or a third, like the Cube had), they also decided to use costlier 2.5-inch hard drives, designed for laptops. This creates a few annoying limitations: first, if you ever want to upgrade the hard drive later (assuming you manage to crack open the case or can pay someone to do so), you're going to be paying a small fortune for the larger hard drive (2.5-inch drives also currently top at 100GB, compared to 400GB for their 3.5-inch counterparts).
A quick check at Pricewatch finds the average 40GB 5400-rpm hard drive (found in the $499 Mac mini) selling for about $65, while the 80GB 5400-rpm drive (found in the $599 Mac mini) is selling for around $120. Looking at 3.5-inch hard drives, $65 buys you a 160GB model these days, while $120 can get you 250GB. Am I missing something here?
Asking the same Mac mini product manager why they settled on using costly notebook drives in a desktop computer, I was told that the 2.5-inch drives met Apple's needs while allowing Mac mini's design to be as small as possible. But would anyone have been less impressed if the Mac mini were three, four, or even five inches high instead of two?
What we're left with is a miniature computer that has even fewer expansion options than is typically associated with Apple products. Even the iBook has an open RAM slot, and the notebook hard drive in a PowerBook can be replaced and upgraded fairly easily by an end user.
Like the current iBooks, the Mac mini uses a Radeon 9200 video card with 32MB of VRAM. This won't be enough to take advantage of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger's Core Image, nor many of the newer computer games.
Some have said that with the included S-Video/composite video adapter, the Mac mini will find its way into homes already awash with Macs as a media center. I won't pretend this doesn't sound appealing to me, but ideally you'd want wireless peripherals to compliment the experience and eliminate unsightly cable clutter across your coffee table. The Mac mini supports Bluetooth and AirPort Extreme, but if you want both you need to add them as a joint AirPort Extreme + Bluetooth card when you buy the Mac mini -- you won't be able to later. Cost? $129. If you add an AirPort Extreme card and later want Bluetooth as well, you're in a bit of a pinch (assuming you can get this option even added later) and left with an AirPort Extreme card that joins the original 256MB DIMM in the collection of now useless Mac mini parts.
The Mac mini is a decent computer and a fair first attempt for a company that has never produced a $500 system before. It's encouraging that Apple "gets" that a market exists for such a product, I just hope that with a revision down the line will see polish off what I see as the products rough (and costly/annoying) edges.
...to take a deep breath, count to ten, and WAIT a few days so your head clears?
Thanks for a refreshing "behind the box" perspective, Misha! And to think that the only thing that stopped my from buying one right after the keynote was that the site was too clogged to take my order....for TWO yet!
Glad I recovered from my dizziness and waited to see the first REAL reviews! Thanks again. I may STILL buy 2 of them, but at least I'll have a clearer head when I finally do. Darn that RDF!
CloseViewName:Retro- TMO Forum ModPosts: 762Joined: 14 Jun 2001 Thu Jan 13, 2005 6:25 pmSubject: Bluetooth
There are other options for Bluetooth. I bought a little USB -like key thing from the Apple store. You don't need to have bluetooth internally.
If Apple adds expandibility to this little box, it starts competing with their other products.
The slimmer notebook hard drive might also produce less heat than your standard desktop hard drive. Heat has to be an issue in this thing's small container. Also don't forget, there exist external (firewire) hard drives.
Also, you can always try to sell your "useless 256 MB DIMM" on eBay.
You mention in your article that with the included S-Video/Composite video adapter, this may be used as a media PC. Well, the S-Video/Composite video adapter is an optional add-on for $19. The Mac mini does come with the DVI-to-VGA adapter, however.
The whole point is to combat the person who says, "I wish apple had a low-cost system so I could check it out.". It's much easier to convince someone to spend $500 on something they may totally hate as opposed to $1200.
When I switched to mac a few years ago, the cost was killer! I not only had to switch hardware, but software too! I spent almost $3k just in software. So some cheap hardware gets the users foot in the door and apple will upsell them after they are addicted...which they will become.
I guess it's kinda like computer crack .
Anyway, I think it's a smart deal. I've already heard many of my PC diehards look at them and say they will probably get one...muh huh huh.
The mac mini would be great if it was designed with more economy in mind.
The components are OK, but the fact that they could have saved the end
user money on RAM or a new hard drive, makes this baby high very high
priced.
I can't help but feel apple saying enjoy this machine, but don't enjoy it too
much.
I think the Mac Mini is great foray for Apple into the consumer market. Not everyone is concerned about future expansion and upgrades. A lot of my friends have bought basic computers just to check their e-mails, chat and occasionally type up some documents. However, that said, 256mb is a measly amt of memory!
It would be nice to see apple really targe the living room with some TV/Mac mini combo.
Most of your complaints seem to be that 1. Add ons are expensive.
For a Mac that is targeted at the same crowd that pays $400 bucks for a Bose speaker accessory for their iPod I don't see the point.
The Mac runs fine out of the box for the vast majority of people who are going to be getting it.
Remember all the people that are commenting on the Mac mini right now are geeks that want to turn it into a Beowulf cluster.
You keep forgetting that there are retailers out there that will most likely be offering Ram Upgrades and monitor and keyboard bundles. And I think this was done on purpose by Apple. Look at any local paper in your city. In Toronto where I live local papers are filled with iPod ads, none of them from Apple. Now that the Mac mini is out the papers will be full of Mac mini bundles and all of this is free advertising for Apple. Leading to more hype.
So don't look at the machines as being decontented, look at it as an opening for every retailer out there to make Value added deals. It's already starting, Give it a few weeks and we'll see the first designed for mini LCD panels, speaker systems, hard drives, Elgato TV systems, and finally Mac mini socks.
Sorry for the long post.
I have a B&W G3 350 1G of Ram. Works like a horse but to upgrade the processor and the video card is kinda pricy. Mac mini is a better investment even with the small ram. I think Upgrade that old mac vs. buying a Mac mini, I will stick with the mini.
I would by one of these except for the RAM problems. Everything else can be solved...on the cheap, even. Why are they selling a computer with insufficient power to run their OS?
CloseViewName:El TritomaPosts: 12Joined: 05 Feb 2004 Thu Jan 13, 2005 8:06 pmSubject: Market Share
The other good thing about the mini is that if someone buys two for $1,000 that counts for two separate computers in the (in)famous market share calculations, where one computer for the same total amount counts for ... just one. So Apple is playing the stupid market share game by selling less expensive computers and getting a bigger market share. Up until now I haven't seen any analyst point out the silliness of market share under these rules. I will bet a nickel that once Apple's market share starts to go up some analyst will point out that, yeah, their share is going up but total $'s aren't changing much. Count on it happening.
I won't profess to know a great deal about the internal workings of a Mac but isn't the ram listed as 333Mhz speed DDR Ram? Hence, PC2700 DDR? Am I missing something special about it or can't you use a good chip of CL2.5 or CL2 DDR at 333Mhz in it? Even a 1Gb chip of that by Samsung or other manufacturers is $100-$200 as a rule. Remember, I have no clue, just curious. Wanna make the choice about adding another system to the old "Batcave."
A longtime Windows user, I'm getting pretty sick of the crashes, various virii, and malware, spyware, and adware I'm having to contend with daily. I JUST WANT SOMETHING THAT WORKS THAT I DON'T HAVE TO FOOL WITH! Is this so hard?
The Mac mini might be it. I definitely am taking a long hard look.
The single RAM slot seems to me to be a terrible design decision. I mean how much bigger would the thing be with 2 slots? A half an inch? Tops?
The biggest problem with a single RAM slot is that the price of DIMMs doesn't scale linearly with the quantity of RAM per DIMM. This is always the case because it's simply more costly to cram more RAM into the same space.
Here's some rough street prices on PC2700 memory: 256 MB ~ $50, 512 MB ~ $100 and 1 GB ~ $300.
So, if Apple would have made the thing just a tiny bit larger they could have offered the entry level one with 256 MB upgradable to 768 MB for $100. Or, the could have configured the entry level model with 512 MB, upgradable to 1 GB for maybe $110.
I think they could have added the slot and still hit the $499 price point. The cost of the extra DIMM slot is squat and would have allowed them to offer more and better configurations with no added cost.
The desktop vs. laptop drive thing is not an issue for me. But, I absolutely hate power bricks. That would be my biggest complaint. I realize that the case would have had to be significantly larger to accommodate an integral power supply, but I would have preferred it to the power brick method.
I've got a beige G3 upgraded to a G4/500MHz. To go to a G4/1000MHz is $400. Since I've got an old USB keyboard and mouse, and an old monitor, when the time comes for an upgrade I'll go with the mini. Here are some details on how I'm using my upgradeable machine, and why the mini eliminates nearly all such needs.
Currently my three PCI slots are used for: (1) a video card (but the mini has much better video than my video card); (2) an ATA/133 bus card (but the mini has a firewire slot that can be used for the extra HD); (3) a USB1.1(2)/FW400(2) card that I use for wireless (but the mini comes with these outputs).
Apple has designed a computer that will, among other things, cause upgraders to think thrice before upgrading. How can I justify sinking more money into my machine? All it's got going for it is storage, and once the $100 cases for minis and two old HDs are available, I'll be ready to sign on the dotted line.
What a joke, you iLemmings thought you got a $500 Mac. You need more 512MB memory to run iLife, your only option is buy a 1GB DIMM from Apple for $425 for about $160 worth of memory. Add in AppleCare with a rip off price of $149 and you're already at $1,073. The mini video card won't work with Tiger's new graphics. All you Mac idolators got snowed again by Steve's RDF. The Mac mini should be renamed the Minnie Mouse computer.
Last edited by RealityCheck on Thu Jan 13, 2005 9:50 pm; edited 1 time in total Reply | Quote
All of the described limitations are accurate. But for a significant number of people, the limitations aren't important. My parents buy a computer and use it as it came out of the box until it's worn out - they often use a machine for six years. (My dad had to upgrade from Word 2 to Word 6 in one jump.) The people who will buy these are getting them for email, surfing, basic iLife functions (iPhoto, iTunes) and maybe the DVD player. They will never upgrade the OS, the RAM or the hard drive. They will bring it home, plug it in, and use it until it's time to buy a new one. For those people, it's a great deal.
Can you buy a Windows box cheaper? Sure. Will it have the ease and stability of OS X and iLife (or even a vague equivalent)? No.
Last edited by edtekker on Thu Jan 13, 2005 9:55 pm; edited 1 time in total Reply | Quote
If the Mac Mini can accept standard High density chips, then a 1Gb from Komusa or LD-Technology would work nicely. Both run just over $100 for Generic branded chips. You can pay around $185 to get a branded chip from somewhere like NewEgg last I checked.
Second note, I'm sure a lot of Windows users would be glad to see Mac take some share away. Gate's little company does seem a bit uncaring about their customer base and anything that threatens it should make him try a new tactic, like making a better product. And just so you know, I'm a Windows/Linux user who doesn't care much about the OS, just learning new things about computers in general. Mac Mini sounds like a great way to jump into the Mac world without selling the car.
I've seen a number of posts that point out that the entry-level Dell is $499, and includes a monitor and keyboard. However, if you remove the monitor from the purchase, it only saves you $46! So now it's a $454 for a system that matches the mini for RAM (256 mb) and hard drive (40 gb). There is no video card, just "integrated video" on the motherboard. It comes with Windows Home Edition. If you want to upgrade to the full version of Windows, you need to add $71 to the price. Now your cheapest Dell without a monitor is $525. Upgrading the optical drive to match the mini adds $51, so now it's $576. Since that includes the keyboard, you can knock off about $40, but it's still not factoring in the software bundled with the Mac or firewire, which the Dell doesn't have.
Last edited by edtekker on Thu Jan 13, 2005 10:07 pm; edited 1 time in total Reply | Quote
so here i am, on a G3 imac, still running 9.04, unable to uprgrade to 9.2 for classic functions, and i toil over the idea of buying the newest imac or the mini.
sure, thowing down cash for a good monitor is NOTHING these days, and i already have a keybord and mouse, but darn, that imac is beautiful.
maybe more beautiful? and upgradable? but as i have learned with the imac, components can break, and that stinks if the component is your mai OS.
i like the idea of the secondary machine. heck, i could turn this thing into a jukebox if i wanted......
checking to see if i can get an apple credit card......
Second-guessing technology/marketing/supply for a technology company like Apple is fun to read, but ultimately fruitless. I'm not sure what the whining about 2.5 vs. 3.5 drives gets us if we don't know the design and engineering specs, and understand who dictated what the mini would be. Same with RAM, etc, etc. I'm certainly not going to buy one of these, unless it's as a 3rd or 4th computer to replace an aging iMac in my home office/small business. And if I did buy one, I wouldn't expect much from it.
But I'm finally ready to buy one for my mom instead of a used, aging PB or iMac. She WOULD use it like a toaster - the only thing in would be "toast" (email, web pages) the only thing out "toast" (email, printing). She uses a wintel box now, and has my brother (who knows nothing about Apples) occasionally reformat her hard drive to scrub away the spyware that grinds her computer to a halt. Very little change for her (if you haven't noticed, OS X has echoed much of Windows UI, down to the looped arrows on aliases), with considerable benefit. There will be a pause while virus makers and spyware makers scramble to disable OS X, but it will never be as bad as the Windows debacle.
1. Using PC skinflint, DIY calculations against a Mac is a category mistake.. you forgot the value and quality of the software included on the mini. You forgot people want a Mac, not just a pile of parts with out-of-date drivers from a rotating list of vendors shoved into a noisy floor heater. ...and maybe some folks don't want virii and the big me-too firm from Redmond. All that has value. And for people who know, maybe the place to get a little margin to keep this thing afloat, they put a little extra into the RAM and a little less in the base model. Makes it nice for the true grandmas who are never going to try to do six things at once.
2. The form factor itself commands a premium, like every new super micro gizmo from Sony, Sharp, etc. ..creates a system with style not unlike: Bose, B&O, Nakamichi to name a few. It is the mini's best feature, just not for you, tinker-boy (bell?)
3. Your whole article is based on your ability to crack this open and add stuff to it. That's a tower PC concept. This is an appliance for plug and play. It's a second unit for the bedroom, kitchen or shop ..or in my case, since it's dimensions are 6.5"x6.5"x2" and standard dashboard audio slots are 7"x2"x whatever deep, I am putting the one I ordered yesterday in my van. With Bluetooth and WI-FI just think about that for minute...
4. A lot smarter people than you ..and quite a number of them designed and marketed this thing. All you've done is state the personal objections of one fluffer. You can't criticize the mini - it wasn't created for you. The market will decide it's value.
5. That is all.
Curious that Apple have, in effect, produced a console in the Mac mini –except that it's a "pretender" console with poor graphic specs. really a "sampler" product aimed at increasing volume sales in the light home entertainment, light business category.
Just imagine, if they were more focused on reviving the Mac game platform, giving it as much priority as with iTunes, the Mac Mini might have converged on the path of Playstation3...
Instead, they choose to market the PPC G5 as the ultimate gaming machine.
But the Mac game platform still needs a more competitive price entry point in order to draw back prospective developers, publishers and punters.
CloseViewName:MarcelVPosts: 19Joined: 30 Oct 2004 Thu Jan 13, 2005 11:14 pmSubject:
Quote
Guest wrote: ...the stupid external power supply took it off my buy list.
Why is it that external power supply makes people to walk away from it? The reason Apple did it, was not only to minimize the size of the Mac mini, but also to reduce the noice the machine generates.
to realize what the Mac mini is. Just by looking at it I could determine (by myself) that is not an expandable machine. It has what the intended market needs, period. You want all the super-dooper stuff, then the mini is not for you, very simple I think.
It will barely let you browse the internet, check email, organize your music, photos, mail, some basic but entertaining 3d gaming, etc. That is exactly what it was designed for.
BTW, the intended buyers usually buy the thing, and just want to use it for 2- 3 years and then get a new one. With cheap Dell/windows they cannot do that without recurring to their tecky and handy friends who will help them reformat, install more RAM, etc., a good number of times during those 2-3 years.
Could it had been different, bigger, more expandable, etc? yes. But Apple is a business and they know more about their target audiende than the experts around here.
I think it is as clear as water.
On the Dell entry-level PC, depending on Dell's marketing channel (which there are many!), one can be had at $299 w/o monitor, 2.0GHz Celeron, 256MB RAM, on-board video, etc. WinXP Home is not an incomplete OS; it has everything one needs except advanced networking and security features most people (and quite a few small businesses) will never need. WinXP Home Edition is based on the same kernal, and offers essentially everything WinXP Pro offers. I have both, and WinXP Home is the better buy - and, no less stable.
I've used Apple's since the Apple II days, but Jobs really doesn't get it - because he never wants the Mac to become a commodity like the PC. It's really strange when the Apple II was open architecture, and offered excellent expansion capability. But, that was Steve Wozniack's influence - not Jobs.
The Mac Mini is a step in the right direction, but computerphiles won't fall for the expensive, and required, upgrade costs. It's best to stick with the standard Mac's, or Linux-based PC's if you want a cost-effective upgrade path, software flexibility, and OS stability. That being said, my XP machine running next to my Mac, and Redhat 9.0 Linux machine, has been as stable and crash free as either of the latter systems - and, that's the surprising and honest truth.
The Mac Mini is small. That is what Apple wanted. Here is a good use for that size. Put it into the dash of your automobile as a car stereo. This is Brilliant.
Regarding adding a 3.5 inch drive? As we speak, I’m sure that Lacie is working on a firewire enclosure which is identical, stackable and with additional USB/Firewire ports for those who need more drive space. So don’t worry! Be happy
[quote="Guest"The components are OK, but the fact that they could have saved the end user money on RAM or a new hard drive, makes this baby high very high priced.".[/quote]
Maybe you could use the internet and take at look at the $600 SMALL FORM FACTOR SHOOTOUT (Apple Mac mini vs. Shuttle XPC)
I also was in shock when I looked at the price of RAM from Apple. I know the rule... never buy from Apple. But what do you do in this case? Yeah, I suppose I could try and install the RAM myself, but Apple doesn't suggest it. And you know what, even with my experience, I'm not sure if I would be comfortable doing it myself.
But I do have to say Apple did give students/teachers a break on RAM. If you look under education pricing, 1 GB of RAM is only 325. A GB of RAM is 250 plus 50 to install it, that's really not so bad. It's just too bad RAM is so expensive for the non-education customer.
I'm no expert, but I would say that you're looking at it with the wrong eyes. I don't think the Mini was meant for people doing heavy duty video editing. Its to enlighten widows users. You can use OSX with 256 RAM, I know, I did for a while. A bump up to 512 will satisfy most users. The idea is to get them to experience OSX and see how much better it is then Windows. You can do this without a gig of RAM and a 160 gig HD.
The point is to get MAC out to people who are doing just web browsing, some picture stuff (Not Photoshop Pro) and the like. People who need the kind of specs you're talking about- people involved in multimedia- already use MACs.
Look at the full picture, not if you would be ahppy with a Mini.
It has been impossible during the last month to ignore the rumors surrounding Apple's US$500 Mac and flash iPod. The Mac mini left me feeling that Apple finally got it -- switchers (and many Mac users alike) already have invested in a good enough display for their needs and therefore don't need everything an eMac or iMac delivers, and not everyone wants to spend about $1,500 for a Power Mac G5.
The Mac mini, on the other hand, I'm not so sure about. At first glance, it's a sweet deal. A G4-based square that's one-third the size of the long-gone Cube and one-third the Cube's original price. Let me make it clear, however, that I don't think the Mac mini is going to flop the way the Cube did. In fact, I don't think it's going to flop at all, I'm just not very impressed with it.
In order to give the Mac mini its tiny dimensions, not only did Apple forgo a second RAM slot (or a third, like the Cube had), they also decided to use costlier 2.5-inch hard drives, designed for laptops. This creates a few annoying limitations: first, if you ever want to upgrade the hard drive later (assuming you manage to crack open the case or can pay someone to do so), you're going to be paying a small fortune for the larger hard drive (2.5-inch drives also currently top at 100GB, compared to 400GB for their 3.5-inch counterparts).
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