can anyone give me the rundown on mac minis?

[Adam K]

just been to a mates house and he has one running under his tv.

i have a media centre pc under my tv at the moment, but his mac mini was almost silent and very slick, and obviously much smaller than my media centre.

anyway, i was wanting to buy one to replace my media centre and was wondering what is what.

he mentioned that there were different ones, intel processored ones and g4's or something like that?

i know sod all about macs, but basically i want to be able to run HD content (720p and 1080p) from it. do they all have the processing power to do that whichever model you go for?

also does anyone know of a news client that is as good as newsleecher but mac compatible?

any other tips appreciated.

thanks!

 

[JJT]

I think im right in saying that all of the mac minis have an intel chipset now so you dont need to worry about that. Capability wise they will be able to handle any HD content, even the base model is pretty powerful and the Mac OSX software is so good you dont need huge amounts of power. Might be worth getting one with more than 1gb ram thou...

 

[Adam K]

I think im right in saying that all of the mac minis have an intel chipset now so you dont need to worry about that. Capability wise they will be able to handle any HD content, even the base model is pretty powerful and the Mac OSX software is so good you dont need huge amounts of power. Might be worth getting one with more than 1gb ram thou...

i was considering getting a second hand g4 if it was capable of playing HD content, mainly because if i don't get on with it then i'm not too worried if it was cheap, but if i go for an intel one then it's obviously a bit more cash to lay out.

hard disk and memory spec don't worry me as i can easily upgrade those myself.

 

[sn00p]

i was considering getting a second hand g4 if it was capable of playing HD content, mainly because if i don't get on with it then i'm not too worried if it was cheap, but if i go for an intel one then it's obviously a bit more cash to lay out.

hard disk and memory spec don't worry me as i can easily upgrade those myself.

Nope, you'd need a dual core for that.

 

[Adam K]

ok, do i need a core2 version with the nvidia graphics card, or will one with the intel gma950 graphics card be ok?

 

[noel-pilot]

For the money that the 2nd hand ones go for you're better getting a new one, decent spec even with base model at £499, Plex is the application you want http://www.plexapp.com/ absolutely amazing, plays anything you throw at it, integration with a whole load of video plugins like Channel 4 on demand, bbc iplayer, itv, and many many more besides. Can integrate and work with iphoto for photo's, itunes for music etc etc,

I'm about to pick up a mini myself having been using a pc as a server and an old chipped xbox with Xbox media centre as the frontend for years.

Any questions on the mac side fire away.

 

[Adam K]

think i'll pop into brent cross apple store tomorrow and pick one up then.

will get the base model and add the memory and hard disk myself.

can anyone recommend a news client for the mac?

 

[Omid]

If mac minis are the way I remember they are a pain in the ass to open, requires a putty knife and a lot of effort. I don't know if they are still like that though

 

[J273]

For the money that the 2nd hand ones go for you're better getting a new one, decent spec even with base model at £499, Plex is the application you want http://www.plexapp.com/ absolutely amazing, plays anything you throw at it, integration with a whole load of video plugins like Channel 4 on demand, bbc iplayer, itv, and many many more besides. Can integrate and work with iphoto for photo's, itunes for music etc etc,

I'm about to pick up a mini myself having been using a pc as a server and an old chipped xbox with Xbox media centre as the frontend for years.

Any questions on the mac side fire away.

Yeah Plex is awesome...Its what i use and works real well.

 

[Riad]

think i'll pop into brent cross apple store tomorrow and pick one up then.

will get the base model and add the memory and hard disk myself.

can anyone recommend a news client for the mac?

If your a student or no any students get student discount some good savings to bed had