Mac mini

[Sid70]

Would anybody recommend a Mac mini for a designer working in web?
Mostly 2D graphics in Photoshop, but I travel a lot. Tired of laptops,
need a 22" at least to work normally, so a 22" packed with a mac mini
in a trunk sounds legit, question is will that be enough to get work done?

[candyflip]

Build your own.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/393-buildi...ml#mini_deluxe

[iwiiiiiiiiii]

Yes, I have recently bough many for myself and designers/developers, it work pretty well and it's cheap. I upgraded to 8gb ram though.

[Sid70]

Yes, I have recently bough many for myself and designers/developers, it work pretty well and it's cheap. I upgraded to 8gb ram though.

Yeah, even my macbook pro has 8GBs, RAM is essential, what about the processor and integrated graphics especially?

[Sid70]

Build your own.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/393-buildi...ml#mini_deluxe

Thanks, but ima not a geeky nerd, I cant really differentiate one fatherboard from another... iCore3 or 5 + 8 GB RAM would be fine... I hope it's integrated video works fine - thats my main issue...

[jwerd]

Yeah, even my macbook pro has 8GBs, RAM is essential, what about the processor and integrated graphics especially?

Going out on a limb here but your mbp is probably going to be a lot more powerful than any mini you get :/

[candyflip]

Thanks, but ima not a geeky nerd, I cant really differentiate one fatherboard from another... iCore3 or 5 + 8 GB RAM would be fine... I hope it's integrated video works fine - thats my main issue...

Neither am I. Took two hours and was super simple. Was fun too.

[Sid70]

Going out on a limb here but your mbp is probably going to be a lot more powerful than any mini you get :/

it's a 2009 built so gotta get something new...

[NETbilling]

Build your own.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/393-buildi...ml#mini_deluxe

Yes, especially if you want to be fixing it. Otherwise, spend a little and get reliable hardware, right from Apple. The Mac Mini works great.

[iwiiiiiiiiii]

Yeah, even my macbook pro has 8GBs, RAM is essential, what about the processor and integrated graphics especially?

For us it works great, no complaint from both dev and designers.

[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.

[Sunny Day]

Mini

If you get a Mini, install the freebee Temperature Monitor. My new one runs much hotter than the old one. About 70C. Anything over 90 can damage the unit.

I run mine with a 27 inch Asus monitor as it was just slightly more than the 22. It comes with Bang & Olufsen speakers, but I can't get sound using HMDI or a Thunderbolt cable. The Mini's built in is good enough for Youtube or news clips. I just use a set of externals for music.
The mini came with too little RAM, so I bumped to 16. It's faster, but I used 3rd party RAM, so I don't know if Apple RAM would have been even faster.
Since I don't like batteries, I use a wired mouse. I have the mouse, printer, an external drive and Apple keyboard plugged into a cheap Office Depot USB multi-port. I tried a 7 port Belkin and the Mini couldn't see it.

I'll be switching back to an Air or Macbook Pro. probably the Air as it's lighter and fits perfectly into my portfolio. Biggest issue with the Mini, is laptops in Sleep mode, everything is waiting as soon as you open up. The Mini is OK in Sleep unless I unplug it. Then I have to hope everything comes back up. Lost a lot of open web pages that way. I have to unplug it every time I leave the house. My computer table is near the front door and a thief could snatch it and be gone before the alarm went off. it's a low crime area, but I lost a a MacBook Pro before the alarm was installed.

[Sid70]

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.

i'd only need to add RAM, stick my monitor, mouse and keyboard into a mini... fact that its quiet adds a huge bonus for me - i hate my HP helicopter.

[vdbucks]

For $600 base price you get a fucking dual core (in 2013?!?!), 4GB of ram, no real graphics (hd 4000 comes integrated in the cpu, made by intel) and a 500GB HDD?

For $800 base price you get a 2.3GHz cpu, 4GB of ram, no real graphics (hd 4000 comes integrated in the cpu, made by intel) and a 1TB (5400 rpm!) hdd?


Christ, that's one hell of an expensive logo.

Oh yeah, I also bought an Apple wireless keyboard the other day for around $80 and the half the damn keys aren't even aligned properly... So much for superior quality.

[CIVMatt]

Hey guyz, I have a mac mini I bought and barely used - the OS was trashed out of the blue and I need to reinstall, when I hold the R on reboot I start the install from the internet and once it's ready to go it asks what drive I want to install it on and there's nothing listed. I'm guessing I have a bad drive but not sure. THought I'd ask since seeing this thread.

[vdbucks]

Hey guyz, I have a mac mini I bought and barely used - the OS was trashed out of the blue and I need to reinstall, when I hold the R on reboot I start the install from the internet and once it's ready to go it asks what drive I want to install it on and there's nothing listed. I'm guessing I have a bad drive but not sure. THought I'd ask since seeing this thread.

on the install screen there should be a menu bar, on that menu bar there should be a menu item named "Utilities". Click utilities then from the drop-down menu, click "Disk Utility".

Once in disk utility, you should at least see the HDD listed in the left panel. If not then chances are the HDD is bad. To confirm the hdd is bad, or at least isn't being picked up by the system, you can close Disk Utility then from the same utilities menu, open Terminal, then type "diskutil list" and hit enter. Your disk should be listed there in the output, if not then something is obviously wrong somewhere.

If you do see the HDD in the left panel, click on it, then in the right panel, click on "Partition". Under "Partition Layout" it *should* say "Current", click that drop-down menu, then select "1 Partition". Below the partition area, there is an "Options" button, click it. Confirm or set the partition scheme to "GUID Partition Table" then click ok. Then click "Apply", wait for it to complete.

Once that is done, simply close Disk utility to get back to the installer screen and proceed with installation as normal.

[CIVMatt]

I do see the drive listed in that section, I'm going to follow that and see if that works, thanks vdbucks.

[edgeprod]

Steps 1-5: throw that piece of shit in the trash

Fixed it for you.

[xenigo]

Oh yeah, I also bought an Apple wireless keyboard the other day for around $80 and the half the damn keys aren't even aligned properly... So much for superior quality.

Quality problems are something Apple is very receptive to, so just bring it back. They'll replace it for you without any issues. Open the new one up in the store and make sure it fits your standards. I do a final QA and thorough visual inspection on the expensive stuff I buy because I'm super picky about shit like that, too.

Sales people think I'm nuts... but it's not their money, so whatever.

[xenigo]

The ONE reason I would hold off on buying a Mac Mini right now is that it's due for a refresh to Intel Haswell architecture.

It will be updated very soon, and it would be disappointing to be on the previous generation. I always do my machine purchases within the first week of an architecture update.

[Black All Through]

Built my last and its the one thats lasted the longest (knock on wood)

[seeandsee]

that price for dual , come on you can get i3 and 8gbram and nice grafic card for 800$

[vdbucks]

Quality problems are something Apple is very receptive to, so just bring it back. They'll replace it for you without any issues. Open the new one up in the store and make sure it fits your standards. I do a final QA and thorough visual inspection on the expensive stuff I buy because I'm super picky about shit like that, too.

Sales people think I'm nuts... but it's not their money, so whatever.

I shouldn't have to make another 2 hour drive just to replace something that should have been perfect to begin with... I mean, according to all the Mac fanboys, everything Apple touches is of the utmost quality and perfection.

[American Psycho]

Vdbucks you're obviously a big fan of mac operating system yet you still really see NONE of the value in the Apple manufacturing or hardware or software or support or design that goes behind it.

Do you think those items that are part of a mac are better or worse than say asus or dell?
What's the value of these parts to consumers? Should that all be priced the same as a no name Windows brand or a dell. I mean the mac pro case alone is higher quality design amd material than a comparable dell. Should apple charge less than a dell?

[edgeprod]

I shouldn't have to make another 2 hour drive just to replace something that should have been perfect to begin with... I mean, according to all the Mac fanboys, everything Apple touches is of the utmost quality and perfection.

[American Psycho]

2 hours to an Apple store where the heck do you live I wouldn't blame Apple because you live far away from metropolitan area that has an Apple store

[edgeprod]

2 hours to an Apple store where the heck do you live I wouldn't blame Apple because you live far away from metropolitan area that has an Apple store

Well, it WOULD piss me off of Apple made me drive for their defect. I'm 1 hour from an Apple store (I am outside of Tampa), but for every problem I've ever had, they've shipped me another (insert thing I needed here), for FREE, overnight ... even VASTLY out of warranty. My Mac Pro desktop blew a pair of video cards. They send me TWO new ones (one at a time), overnight, three YEARS after the warranty had expired. Then, when one of those died, they sent me a higher-end card (what I was doing was taxing them in specific ways, so this was the only fix) for free (expensive card!), also shipped overnight ... also obviously WAY out of warranty.

They've always treated me like gold, so if this changed, my brand loyalty would rapidly erode.

[2MuchMark]

Would anybody recommend a Mac mini for a designer working in web?
Mostly 2D graphics in Photoshop, but I travel a lot. Tired of laptops,
need a 22" at least to work normally, so a 22" packed with a mac mini
in a trunk sounds legit, question is will that be enough to get work done?

I was thinking about getting one for a side project. If I do I will let you know how it works out for me. I was playing with one at an Apple store a few days ago and it was perfect for what I need, and was super-fast too.

[American Psycho]

Iguess I'm spoiled since a while never lived more that 15min from apple store ...