Originally Posted by edgeprod

I was VERY disappointed with every Mac Mini that I've bought. That being said, I don't have one of the brand new ones. They're cheap enough to be disposable, so that's the real draw .. changing it out every 6-12 months. I use mine as a media server in the living room, because it's as quiet as my Mac Pro and my Macbook Pro, despite the tightly-packed components.

I was underwhelmed when I opened it up to upgrade the RAM -- it's definitely not as elegant inside as the other Apple products. The Mac Pro build quality is tremendous, whereas the Mac Mini was more like every other machine out there. The upgrade was smooth and easy, but they're not designed to be user-servicable, which is a little ridiculous for a consumer machine.

All in all, there are better options out there.

Hope that helps.