Omniquity

I’ve been using the Mac Mini for about a month now. I definitely give it a thumb’s up. I have not once longed for my laptop since transitioning to the Mini.

Aside from the expected boost in speed from the latest processor, here are the pluses:

• Absolutely silent, and runs much cooler than the MBP. Intensive disk operations will heat it up noticeably, but with ordinary operation it’s barely warm to the touch
• The smaller footprint is nice, and it’s a beautiful piece of industrial design in any case
• The four USB ports on the back reduce the need for an external expander and/or cable swapping (the Dell monitor I use also has USB ports built in, so between the two I’ve got plenty of USB capacity)
• The ability to pinch the screen to expand or contract it (like on an iPad) is a great feature for my poor eyes
• Lion is great on start up—it’s quick and it will bring you back to the same point when you shut down: same browser tabs are opened, same apps are open
• Lion is also much faster when shutting down

I have but one complaint:

• The external disk drive takes up some of the footprint saved by the Mini itself, plus it could use a slightly longer USB cable for more flexibility in placement

This doesn’t seem like much, but given the pain usually associated with migrating to a new computer, the highest praise I can give to the Mini is that the migration was virtually painless and operation since has been flawless (I don’t think there’s been a single crash of an app, let alone the OS).

If you don’t need the massive power of a true desktop and you have other mobile devices to relieve you of the need for a laptop, the Mini is a perfect choice.

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I installed the Mac Mini over the weekend (see post below). First impression is very positive. The installation process was very smooth, as I’ve come to expect from Apple. Back up the laptop to Time Machine, boot the new machine, load everything from Time Machine, and it’s about 95% done. (I remember the bad old Windows days when you had to reinstall every program from scratch when you got a new computer. That was a royal pain.) About 3.5 hours total, 3 of which are unattended while it loads the old files.

There were a few hiccups. First, remarkably, the machine would not boot with the Apple Trackpad. It required the trackpad to be connected as the pointing device before it would continue with the installation. But, the trackpad must first be paired with the computer before it can be used. So there was a deadlock, and I had to plug in a USB mouse as the pointing device to finish the installation. Not a huge deal, but stupid.

Also, when I opened Aperture (Apple’s pro photo app), the links to referenced photos needed to be reset. That takes some time. And for some reason a large percentage of mail in folders was marked as unread. A 2 minute fix, but annoying.

Overall though, can’t complain. Aperture in 32 bit mode is many times faster than the old machine. Everything is snappier. The Mini itself is absolutely silent.

The other supposedly big change is the Lion OS. Frankly, aside from one bizarre scrolling feature that is easily turned off, I can barely tell the difference from Snow Leopard. There are some new gestures to control the screen (great with the trackpad), Mail looks a little different, and a few things here and there are snazzier, but I don’t think I would feel compelled to upgrade, even for the low $29.95 cost.

I’ll be back in a few weeks after I’ve lived with the system for a while.

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I’ve been using my beloved MacBook Pro for more than four years. It’s a great machine but overworked and bit long in the tooth. Plus, I have been using it as a desktop more than 95% of the time since I got an iPad. Time for an update and a rethink.

In choosing my new computer, I’ve tried to follow the advice that I give to others when they ask me technology questions: choose the device that will best help you with the tasks you most often do. In my case, I spend most of my time in the browser, do a fair bit of photo editing, manage my music collection, and work occasionally in MS Office apps. I don’t need a laptop, and I don’t need a desktop tower, either. So what to choose?

The Mac Mini!

Frankly, I would not have considered a Mini in its previous incarnation—not enough of a performance difference to justify the expense. But Apple just refreshed the design, and when ordering through the Apple store online you can get an Intel i7 clocked at 2.7 GHz. With 4GB of RAM, a 7,200 RPM hard disk, and a dedicated graphics processor it should provide a serious boost relative to the MBP.

By the way, I initially considered 8GB of RAM, but decided to get the 7,200 RPM disk instead. It’s less money, and the RAM is user-upgradeable (the only component on the Mini that is). So if I decide I need more RAM, I can upgrade with third-party memory later.

As with most things Apple, there are some curious compromises with the Mini. The lack of an optical drive has had the most press and it is a little annoying, but I only use the drive occasionally to rip CDs. It’s a decent design tradeoff to swap the drive for the graphics processor.

I’ll be back in a few weeks to let you know my initial impressions of the Mini.

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