The all-new Mac Mini provoked lots of cheering and applause at the MacWorld San Francisco keynote today. My jaw dropped when I saw how incredibly tiny that thing is. I can’t believe they fit a whole computer into something the size of a 2″ thick CD. My gut reaction was, “A Mac for $629 Canadian?? MUST! BUY!” I thought that the headless iMac rumours were nothing more than just rumours. I was pretty shocked when I heard the announcement.
However, the biggest drawback to its small size is that it has no PS/2 ports. There are enough ports for your power cord, Internet connection, monitor, keyboard, mouse, iPod and speakers. And nothing else. If you want to plug in a digital camera, you’ll have to unplug either your keyboard or mouse first, since there are only two USB ports and no PS/2. Which is really, really inconvenient, in my opinion. Everyone in my house has PS/2 keyboards and mice, so I’d have to go out and buy a new keyboard/mouse combo and yet still not have enough room for my camera. The other option is to buy a wireless keyboard/mouse combo to free up the USB ports, but that’s even more expensive. A Bluetooth module costs $65 and a wireless keyboard/mouse combo will run at about $130.
For the average user with no digital camera, webcam or other extra peripherals, it won’t be much of a problem, but things like these make me a little wary of the Mac Mini. When I load it up with all the options I want, it costs $1170 Canadian which is a bit pricey, if you compare it with Windows/Intel PCs. It’s still a pretty decent deal though, since the main reason I want a Mac is for the operating system and I’m willing to pay a little extra to get it. Will I buy it? Perhaps. I’m going to wait for the next Powerbook and iBook revisions to be released, then I’ll compare. Nevertheless, the Mac Mini is a good effort by Apple to encroach on the entry-level consumer market. I’ve heard lots of people say that they’d buy Macs if they were cheaper, so it will be interesting to see how many people actually put up their money now that the cheap Mac exists.
As a final thought, I would like to announce that I think the iPod shuffle is stupid. Why would anybody want to buy an MP3 player that doesn’t let you pick what song you want to hear?
I think if you wanted a little MP3 player for jogging or something, the little Shuffle might be good. Cheap too. Not for everyday use though. I’d put my computer playlist on it, but not my CDs.
The shuffle is definitely good for jogging and things like that, but I’d much rather have an MP3 player that will let me put all my music on it. I don’t know, maybe it’s not as stupid as I think - it seems that although I would never buy one, many people are considering it. Nevertheless, I’m going to get a 20GB iPod instead.
Mac Mini is cool because it’s like first of its kind to be commercially sold, but it still got so much room for improvement. Must see how functional it is in comparison to a Mac. As to ipod shuffle, I guess it’s cool for people who want an iPod for its name and its image but don’t want to go all out for a 10 GB or 20 GB ones.
I think that they should increase the size of the Mac Mini a bit, since they must be using laptop parts in order to cram everything into that tiny box. But since the Mac Mini is designed to be a desktop, it doesn’t really make sense to use laptop parts. If they increased the width, they could fit regular desktop hardware in it, making the computer faster and more expandable (with PS/2 ports and line-in audio). It would still be much smaller than a regular computer and be faster than these current models.
Regardless, I think that these first-generation Mac Minis will sell quite well, though not “millions and millions”, as Steve Jobs proclaimed in his keynote. I’d rather wait for the next generation Mac Minis to come out before I consider one, since Apple usually does okay with their initial new product offerings, but quickly learns from mistakes and improves the second time around.