# [Review] Mac Mini



## mail2and (Oct 27, 2005)

â€œWhat is Mac Mini? Is it a computer? A computer at 1.3kg with dimensions 6.5â€?x6.5â€?x2â€?? Youâ€™re kidding me right?â€?

This is what every one says before looking at my Mac Mini.

So what exactly is Mac Mini? Mac Mini is a computer from Apple Inc. which comes without a monitor, keyboard and mouse. It is directed at PC users who want to â€œswitchâ€? to the other side.

For more info on Mac Mini, read my article for Indian Express here

I got this machine from a dealer in Grant Road, A1 Enterprises. I bought the top end model i.e. 1.42 ghz/AE/BT/Superdrive for 35k. It was a good deal considering that the retail price is 39k. Whatâ€™s more we got 2k back from ICICI Bank. So that makes it just 33k!

We bought the machine home and the first thing I did was to take pics 

*img484.imageshack.us/img484/278/photo11320js.th.jpg

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It looks even smaller when you see it in real time!

I also got an iBall mouse, which looks exactly like the Apple Mouse, to match my mini.

*img437.imageshack.us/img437/5162/photo11317hs.th.jpg

Nice, ainâ€™t it?

Now letâ€™s move on to the hardware. It features a G4 1.42 ghz processor with 512k L2 Cache. In PC terms, you can say it is equal to a P4 2.6-2.8 ghz. Apple provide 512 MB DDR Ram which is expandable upto 1 GB which is sufficient considering that each subsequent version of Mac OS is faster than its preceeder. Yes, Tiger is Faster than Panther and Leopard will be faster than Tiger! They provide a Seagate 80 GB hard disk and a single layer DVD-writer. To add to it, it has inbuilt Bluetooth and Airport Express(Wi-fi). The updated Mac Mini, which will be announced shortly but is already shipping, features a dual layer DVD writer. 

All this packed in a box weighing 1.3 kg!

Now, letâ€™s move to the real beauty, the OS! Mac OS X is the most advanced operating system in the world which is based on Darwin which in turn is a fully-featured Unix OS. Darwin is based on the micro-kernel architecture. 

The graphics engine in OS X is called â€œQuartzâ€? and is based upon Adobeâ€™s PDF format. The 3-D graphics are handled by OpenGL.


Mac OS X boots in 25-30 seconds straight on my Mini! The GUI on OS X is called â€œAquaâ€? and is far far ahead of anything Microsoft can offer. Yes, compare Vistaâ€™s GUI to Aqua.

Take this screenshot as an example.

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Look at the border of VLC which is playing a movie. Looks so natural! Such refined bordering is a result of the Quartz engine whose competitior will be introduced by Microsoft in Vista only 5 years late.

Another great feature of Tiger is Spotlight i.e. instant search. No â€œsearchâ€? buttons and no waiting, you get instant results within seconds! Take a look at this screenshot.

*img483.imageshack.us/img483/3669/screenshot012343433bc.th.jpg

Yes, no â€œsearchâ€? buttons and no waiting for minutes to find a single document. Spotlight even searches the contents of documents to find matches for the keyword you entered!


Another feature I loved is the highlighting of options in the system preferences. Watch how possible options are highlighted when I enter a particular keyword.

*img452.imageshack.us/img452/8595/screeniespot7gk.th.png


Isnâ€™t it awesome?


Another noticeable feature in OS X is its dock! Thatâ€™s exactly like your Windows menu bar, but so elegant! I wonâ€™t go much deeper into this subject as most of us already know about the dock. Of course, you wouldâ€™ve heard about the Genie Effect while minimizing/maximizing windows!

Another thing youâ€™ll notice in OS X is its highly realistic icons. You can watch these icons in the previous screenshots I posted. My more knowledgeable graphics friends will tell you that Mac icons are â€œfreely scaleableâ€? i.e. they can be easily resized upto a maxium of 128x128 resolution without any loss in quality! Compare these to the XP icons.

â€œFinderâ€? is Appleâ€™s answer to Windows Explorer. Just that it loads within a second and doesnâ€™t hang when a corrupt or a scratched disk is inserted in the optical drive.

*img457.imageshack.us/img457/9408/screenshot02findr2cl.th.jpg
Cute.. isnâ€™t it?

Then comes the networking part. Just configure your TCP/IP settings and in Finderâ€™s menu bar, click on â€œGoâ€? and select â€œConnect to serverâ€?. Enter the IP address of the other machine and voila, you can share the other personâ€™s files. Just 2 steps! Can any thing be as easy as this!

Installation of files is a breeze! Just double click the â€œ.dmgâ€? file and drag it to the Applications folder. Want to delete it? Just right click and click on â€œSend to Trashâ€?. 

Another feature to be noted is â€œfast user switchingâ€?. Click on your user name in the menu bar and select the other user account to log in. With full 3-D glory, the screen seems to turn around.. and on the other side, you get the other userâ€™s desktop! Can anything be so elegant!

Dashboard! How can anyone forget that! Apple's thinking that all widgets should have a common place rather than consuming the desktop is correct. Hence, they created Dashboard which contains all widgets and disappears on a mouse click  It is extremely useful for people who need quick and brief information and for those who love eye-candy. Take a look...

*img460.imageshack.us/img460/6638/milkdashboardjpg7gd.th.jpg

As Aqua itself is based on PDF, you can save any file from any application in the PDF format. Now, that is a very solid feature and will be very difficult for Windows to ever match.

People who say there are no software for Mac, can take a break. These are the same people who say there are no software for Linux. The best thing to do with these people is to ignore them or ask them to visit versiontracker.com or macupdate.com. Any knowledgeable person will tell you that for each task there is an application for Mac. Yes, there arenâ€™t 45454 bug-ridden, spyware-prone software but even 5 quality applications are better than 45454 poor ones! Quality is, indeed, better than quantity!

If all this wasnâ€™t enough, then here is another beauty! People think Mac is just for newbies as it is so simple to use. But no, it is equally useful for the professionals and the geeks. Remember you can do anything on a Mac using its unix-based Terminal. I call it the combination of the greatest command-line OS and the best GUI there is.

*img458.imageshack.us/img458/3944/screenshot03terminal8xm.th.jpg

Alll in all, the Total Cost of Ownership(TCO) of a Mac is much lower than the PC in the long run. I got 15k worth of software free with my Macintosh and be rest assured, 512 MB ram will suffice for Leopard tooâ€¦

But, there are some people who game a lot. For them, Windows is still a better option. The only real drawback on a Mac is Games. But with Apple going the x86 way and people installing Xp on the dev kits without any probz.. the future is bright 

- Anand Batra


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## goobimama (Oct 27, 2005)

Well game developers will always stay away from developing games for the mac because there isn't a market for gamers on the mac. 

And gamers will stay away from the mac because there aren't any games produced for the mac....

Don't know when it will end...

Anyway, for a non gamer, mac is the way.

Nice review by the way...


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## Sourabh (Oct 27, 2005)

Good Review. Kinda first of its kind since its a Mac. Hope you dun get too hooked up with the mini that you would start drooling for the Imacs and the powerbooks again pretty soon. You were quiet lucky with the pricings. Honestly speaking a PC+80Gb hdd+dvd writer+wifi+bluetooth weighing less than 1.5kg for 33k is a steal atleast in India considering the prices of mac mini abroad.


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## mail2and (Oct 27, 2005)

Find me one neutral review on this forum...


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## naveenchandran (Oct 27, 2005)

Nice Review!


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## gxsaurav (Oct 27, 2005)

well 2 things can be said

1) There will soon be many games for Mac, as they are now switching to X86, & games are something Windows XP excels at,

2) There will be no change in Mac gaming, cos first it's costly then similarly configured PC, not much choice of gfx cards, only OpenGL is supported (Source engine,Cryengine can go to rest), also Linux is X86 based, but still not enough games


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## Keith Sebastian (Oct 28, 2005)

Excellent review. One of the best I've seen here at Digit. I'll nominate you to the "Digit Reviewers Hall of Fame".  Keep 'em coming.

Request: Could you try using the mini as a HTPC. Connect it to a TV, play some DVD's, videos and post a review. I know the R9200 has decent video scaling.

I've seriously thought of getting one of these for my living room, but lack of FFDShow support means I won't. Wish someone made a slick quiet windows box like this one.

Cheers,
Keith


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## infra_red_dude (Oct 28, 2005)

hey man, good review! thumbs up!

btw, the charm of mac is the apple branded harware the the mac os. when ppl install windows xp, it'll be the same story again. it'll be like fitting a maruti 800 engine on a mclaren chasis!! i just don't like this idea at all!


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## mail2and (Oct 28, 2005)

Keith Sebastian said:
			
		

> Excellent review. One of the best I've seen here at Digit. I'll nominate you to the "Digit Reviewers Hall of Fame".  Keep 'em coming.
> 
> Request: Could you try using the mini as a HTPC. Connect it to a TV, play some DVD's, videos and post a review. I know the R9200 has decent video scaling.
> 
> ...



i have 2 samsung TVs at home but the mini has dvi output... i'd need a s-video adapter for that... i'll check if I can get that here...

actually Aopen have their Pentium M powered thing.. but it looks cr@p... and heat is a big factor..and I doubt it will ever enter commercialisation stage..


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## gauravsuneja (Oct 28, 2005)

wah boss chaaa gaey ho


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## gxsaurav (Oct 28, 2005)

hmm, Mac as an HTPC, kinda new to implement, as there are TV tuners for Mac but hard to find,

9200 has good video scaling, but no Hardware acceleration

the Aopen Mac mini clone will soon go in production, how good it is,, we can't say yet

also, tell me, even if U manage to install Windows on X86 Mac, where will U get the drivers


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## mail2and (Oct 28, 2005)

gxsaurav said:
			
		

> hmm, Mac as an HTPC, kinda new to implement, as there are TV tuners for Mac but hard to find,
> 
> 9200 has good video scaling, but no Hardware acceleration
> 
> ...



apparently.. the dev kits only had problems with the display.. rest everything worked out of the box


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