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My Mac Mini is easily the best computer purchase I've made. This is coming from someone who used to build own PC systems with the fancy cases, fans, etc. some y

by d_r 16y ago

My Mac Mini is easily the best computer purchase I've made. This is coming from someone who used to build own PC systems with the fancy cases, fans, etc. some years ago. It's tiny, it's quiet, and it works like a charm with two 1600x1200 displays. It takes no space on my desk. I did upgrade RAM and the hard drive myself, though, and don't recommend it for the faint-hearted. It was incredibly nice to see Apple introduce an openable case in the latest update.

MrFoof 16y ago
I've been down the same road. There was a point in my life where I had full-sized towers serving as a development server. And I mean full-sized -- as in 30 inches tall. I built the last and final home-built computer in mid-2007. I probably spent about $100 extra in eliminating noise despite having a powerful setup. I was spoiled at the time by my Mac Mini which was silent. A lot of fellow raiders never seemed to "get" that. I guess your computer sounding like a jet engine is fine if jet engine computers are what you're used to. They didn't understand the difference having that same computer being silent makes. Still, cables. The big box that has to be put somewhere. The power draw. More cables. The switching between it and the Mac. Wireless cards that never seemed to have fantastic range. Not being able to get built-in bluetooth and resorting to annoying dongles. More cables. Forking over more money for a beefier UPS. Another $10/month on the electric bill. Desks have shrunk over the years as I've shrunk down. From a massive corner unit, to the current 4x2. Next, I'm building it into a slightly smaller than a 4x2 closet with nothing getting in the way of my legs. Whenever I look at old photos, or visit someone, I'm still taken a bit aback as to how much physical space was allocated to the computer. A large desk, large chair, plus the room for ingress/egress, etc would easily eat up 40 square feet. For now I'm down to a new Mac Mini (with 8GB of memory) and an older, aluminum 23" cinema display until the 27" iMac is refreshed with a better GPU. It's dead-silent. It does nearly everything I need. The 7 1/2 square feet of desk space is barely occupied by it giving me tons of room to spread out documents, notes, etc. Enthusiasts will always be enthusiasts. That's fine. There'll always be a burgeoning market catering to them. Though for me, I'll gladly pay extra -- considerably extra -- for something that minimizes its intrusion in my environment.

by d_r 16y ago

MrFoof 16y ago

I've been down the same road. There was a point in my life where I had full-sized towers serving as a development server. And I mean full-sized -- as in 30 inches tall. I built the last and final home-built computer in mid-2007. I probably spent about $100 extra in eliminating noise despite having a powerful setup. I was spoiled at the time by my Mac Mini which was silent. A lot of fellow raiders never seemed to "get" that. I guess your computer sounding like a jet engine is fine if jet engine computers are what you're used to. They didn't understand the difference having that same computer being silent makes. Still, cables. The big box that has to be put somewhere. The power draw. More cables. The switching between it and the Mac. Wireless cards that never seemed to have fantastic range. Not being able to get built-in bluetooth and resorting to annoying dongles. More cables. Forking over more money for a beefier UPS. Another $10/month on the electric bill. Desks have shrunk over the years as I've shrunk down. From a massive corner unit, to the current 4x2. Next, I'm building it into a slightly smaller than a 4x2 closet with nothing getting in the way of my legs. Whenever I look at old photos, or visit someone, I'm still taken a bit aback as to how much physical space was allocated to the computer. A large desk, large chair, plus the room for ingress/egress, etc would easily eat up 40 square feet. For now I'm down to a new Mac Mini (with 8GB of memory) and an older, aluminum 23" cinema display until the 27" iMac is refreshed with a better GPU. It's dead-silent. It does nearly everything I need. The 7 1/2 square feet of desk space is barely occupied by it giving me tons of room to spread out documents, notes, etc. Enthusiasts will always be enthusiasts. That's fine. There'll always be a burgeoning market catering to them. Though for me, I'll gladly pay extra -- considerably extra -- for something that minimizes its intrusion in my environment.