Looking for your sage advice about buying a new mac mini

[Andrea]

Hi all,

I'm currently using a nice old smurf which I have upgraded a bit. It is a G3 300 with 1 gb of ram, a usb 2.0 card and a superdrive (pioneer) which I installed. I also have an external 120 gb Fantom hd. It's running 10.3.9. It's a sweet old computer, but it's not doing it for me anymore. There is a serious lag between actions taken with the mouse and what shows up on the monitor (old 17" cinema display I bought with the smurf). It's incredibly slow loading any graphics intensive web page, even though I have a nice fast DSL connection.

I'm a visual artist. I use the computer for a lot of internet stuff. I scan paintings and drawings to post online. I do some typical business related stuff. I recently started learning CS3 and want to move into more computer art, so I want a machine that can run CS3. Also, I will be launching a website within the next month or so. I've seen my friends' machines running Leopard and I'm in love with it.

Like most visual artists, I don't have a huge amount of money. I'm feeling kind of frustrated running a machine that feels like it is held together with chewing gum and bandaids. It has a lot of little problems that add up to headaches. For example, even though I installed a superdrive, I can only burn CDs from music files. I can't put a document of any kind on a CD. Every time that iTunes gets updated (which seems to be about every week or so), it gets all gummed up and I end up having to create new iTunes folders and moving all my music. I'd like to run Firefox, but whenever I do I get little freezes and browser crashes. Even Safari crashes a lot.

All these frustrations make me feel like I want to get a new machine rather than a used one that could be upgradeable to Leopard. I just really crave a machine that works smoothly out of the box.

So I'm thinking of buying the mac mini core 2 duo 1.83. I can buy this new for less than a good used Power Mac G5 machine from what I have seen and I think it would be more seamless in running CS3. I don't think I need the core 2 duo 2.0 because the main differences are: combo drive instead of super drive (fine for my purposes), smaller HD (I already have the Fantom and if I need more storage I can buy another external - I like the external's portability) and slightly slower processor. I'm thinking that after struggling with this 300 mhz machine, jumping to a 1.83 will seem like warp speed so the difference between a 1.83 and a 2.0 will be meaningless to me.

So, good people, what is your opinion? I know I wouldn't have the expandibility I'd have with a tower, but I think I wouldn't need it. I'm thinking of using this mac mini for 2-3 years and then seeing what is on the market. Who knows what would be available then? And by then my income will be a bit better and my credit will be much better. I can then use the mac mini for some other purpose, like maybe a music only machine.

Will this mac mini let me run CS3, do some heavy internet stuff, take care of my iTunes, and run basic business related stuff (mainly in NeoOffice) without all the headaches? Also, can I use my current studio display with it for a couple weeks until I buy a new display? What third-party flat planel displays can people recommend? I've looked at the prices and it seems there are some beautiful third-party flat panels for around $300-400 out there, far less than any Apple display.

Please weigh in with your opinions and experiences.

Thanks,
Andrea

[Omphaloskepsis]

1. I have a Core 2 Duo iMac running at 1.83

It runs CS3 great. I have had it for a year and have been totally satisfied with it. And my iMac has the integrated graphics like the mini does. Honestly, even if I had the money to upgrade it I wouldn't bother. It runs great. And we do the same things: iTunes, Photoshop, web stuff, Office.

Please, I beg of you, get 2 Gigs of RAM. Mine came with 512 Megs and that was horrible. With 2 Gigs it is running great. And RAM is really cheap right now. Just don't buy RAM from Apple, they massively overcharge for it. I suggest http://crucial.com/ for RAM. 2 Gigs is 52$ right now (Apple wants 150$). The Mini isn't the easiest thing to get inside so you might need to find someone to install it for you. That might be about 35 dollars which is still a lot cheaper than going through Apple for the RAM.

http://crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Mac%20mini%20%28Intel%20Core%202%20Duo%20-%201.83GHz%29


edit -- The monitor thing kinda depends. That machine is sort of on the edge of when Apple switched to a different display connection type. That monitor might have a DB15 connection which will not work a mac mini without an adapter.

[Poiuyt]

2. A mini should work great for you

I agree with Omphaloskepsis that you should put as much ram in as possible. That will help with Photoshop. Installing your own ram in a mini isn't that hard. There's a very clear video explaining how to do it at Other World Video (http://macsales.com/ An excellent source for purchasing ram BTW).

On a different matter, a lot of your problems seem to be software related. You should consider picking up a copy of DiskWarrior by Alsoft. It's the best disk maintenance application out there.

[Andrea]

5. Thanks

Thanks for the tip on DiskWarrior. I am going to check into it.

[alfredo]

3. I have the 2.0 Mini and I love it. The graphics card may

not be enough for some video/games but for what you are doing, it will be more than enough.

Save up your pennies and someday add a another gig or RAM.

[Andrea]

4. Thanks Everyone

You guys are great. This was just the type of info I needed. I got better advice here than I did in the EveryMac forum. I am just about ready to bite the bullet. I think I will buy it tomorrow. I am definitely going to upgrade to 2 gig of memory, but not through Apple or MacMall (the two places I am most likely to buy it). Apple wants $150 and MacMall wants $120 for that upgrade. And I presume they keep the two 512mb modules that are normally in it. I checked Crucial and OWC and they both have 2 gigs for about $52. Then I have the two 512mb modules that come with it that I might be able to sell on Craig's List. I haven't bought from Crucial before, but I've bought a couple things from OWC and they give nice installation instructions. I don't think I'm going to do this install myself, though.

I think I will have a local Apple reseller do the install. I've read conflicting info about voiding my warranty if I install it myself and it seems like $35 is worth it for the peace of mind. My local reseller is MicroCenter. I need to call them to see if they will install RAM that I buy elsewhere. I guess I may as well check their price for RAM, too.

I have messed around switching out my current RAM sticks and haven't been able to find the problem. I have tried verifying the permissions and running 1st Aid before and they never find anything wrong. I'm not too sure why I'm having the problems I'm having other than maybe I am just trying to push the smurf beyond it's abilities.

BTW, I looked at reviews of the Mac Mini at cNet. Not too surprisingly, they don't give it a great review (they are biased against Mac in my experience). The user scores are high, though. I can't recommend anyone going to cNet to do much research - the navigation on that site is so convoluted it's infuriating.

[moggie]

6. Upgrading the RAM yourself is not as daunting as some sites make out

The tricky bit is getting the case open, but I've upgraded a couple of Minis armed with just a butter knife. After that it's just a simple dismantling job, for which you'll need a small screwdriver, tweezers, and of course a wrist strap.

I suggest keeping the old memory. If you use non-Apple memory to save money (as I always do), and the system later has hardware problems and you take it to Apple for repairs, they might refuse a warranty repair because of the non-Apple upgrade. If you keep the Apple memory, you could put it back first to avoid this.

[Andrea]

7. Thanks, Moggie

Very clever idea to keep the old memory. Excellent. Thanks.

[alfredo]

8. Of course I would then restart to see if the problem was

the new RAM.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. I went from macbook to macbook pro after

my baby ate my other laptop. best bucks I spent on a machine.

[Poiuyt]

10. This sounds like it's going to be an interesting story