New (?) Mini mac pics

[DonnyEMU]

I wondered when people were talking about the Mac MINI if they were talking about this..

The original Mac Mini..



Does Apple know it stole another product name??

The Real Mac Mini


PS Why would want want an apple mac mini, with such lame built in graphics.. 32 megs and a radeon 9200.. It's a little behind the times.. It won't stand up to games that use a lot of texture memory. This is like buying a PC that's graphics is DirectX7 or 8 compatible, when people regularly buy something that is 9 and above. and I am sorry 1.2 Ghz? I'd rather buy a Mini ITX motherboard and build for myself..

[DonnyEMU]

Yes a good point directx 8 vs 9... The big difference is the lack of capability to do HLSL style shaders above a version 2.0 shader.This means no cinema quality graphics fx (sort of like sticking a mac with a Geforce 3TI200 or Gforce 4MX instead of a GeForce FX card.  Even Nvidia's CG, and ATI's current shader technology are improved for hardware rendering. Speaking of the XBOX.. The Xbox itself has a better graphics engine than this puppy..

[DonnyEMU]

As much as I like the fact that Apple is yet again tempting into the low-end market, my point is there is a certain level of graphics standard that most current even value pc's keep to  functionality.  My point is, you can get a much nicer "value" pc at that price.. The $499 is also hype if you add in a dvd burner (nice one) and wireless..

-Don

[DonnyEMU]

I agree with you. The smartest thing they could ever do is just SELL OS/4 to Mac users.. Even mini-mac users..

-Don

PS Ewwe did I let that slip as a freudian? I mean of course AmigaOS 4 (not OS/2 4.0)

[DonnyEMU]

Is it bashing to point out performance issues, especially when  you have advertising on apple.com saying the exact opposite (showing Pixar game footage?).. I think it's cute and I am not saying if you like it you shouldn't go out and buy it.

I am just saying it's not an exciting performer compared to spending $500 to $600 on another platform (and you would get a keyboard/mouse and a display) there..

Something you could set the record straight for me on is just how much RAM does OS X like to have so the OS isn't paging to the hard drive all of the time..

Now if the new wireless iMac was $600 with screen I'd be buying one tomorrow..


PS And you don't think people will use it for games?

[DonnyEMU]

Mini ITX motherboard



Mac Mini motherboard..




Nearly the same dimensions nearly the same cpu speed, one intel one G4..

[DonnyEMU]

I used to work for a "Commodore Authorized Education Dealer".. From the C= Pet to Amiga days.. I will just say this about Apple.. They have superior marketing and in the past exhibited very close to monopolistic practices.

Before Apple opened the Apple stores (like gateway and others in the past going direct), they had a dealer network much like Commodore did.

When trying to sell Amigas to schools we ran up against "but we get this HUGE discount from Apple and free machines".. Which is all hype because the discount just brought them down to what they should be paying in the first place for that level of hardware. Also, Apple would donate machines just to get schools to remove other brands from their labs. This practice Commodore couldn't keep up with because of the low margins it had on it's own products and the high pressure to make profit (based on their financial situation).

Commodore couldn't wrap it's mind around the idea that the idea of "donating" machines for free would gain them marketshare, because the US subsidiaries couldn't "loose money" to make money..

It seems like Apple is again trying this tactic with the low end mac.. They don't care if they make money on it, if it gets them marketshare over PCs..

PS I spent my $499 today, but not on a Mac Mini.. I bought an AMD64 3000+ cpu with 512MB DDR memory, A DVD burner, a sleak black tower case with a 400 watt power supply. It has 8 speaker AC97 audio, built in LAN, Firewire, USB 2.0 SATA, IDE, IDE/SATA RAID and a Geforce FX 5900 ultra.. It's also BYOKMD (Bring your own keyboard mouse display) and it hooks right into my HDTV..  I will race anyone with a Mac Mini, or  a G4 AmigaOne any day  with this unit.. And I have Windows XP 64 bit edition installed by the way..