Media Center or Bust? wtf....

[MattSepeta]

So I have had my eyes on a mac mini to permanently connect to our TV for a while now, and when I heard about Mac Mini + HDMI I was pretty pumped, so I specced one out. Halfway through, I realized I had surpassed the iMac price point...

Screw it I thought, lets compare the mini to an imac, straight up.

Mini: 2.4 core2 duo, 4GB, 500 GB, 24" ACD, standard mouse, standard keyboard. = $1900

iMac: 2.6 i5, 4GB, 1TB, 27" monitor, standard mouse and keyboard = $2000

My conclusion: If you buy this macmini to use as a desktop, WTF are you doing?

The only reason I could ever see buying one is to use as a HTPC. Why have they not merged the "Apple TV" and macmini into one awesome product yet? Instead, they keep 2 incredibly mediocre products?

 

[Beaverman3001]

The whole point of the Mac Mini is to not be buying a 24in display, keyboard, mouse, etc. It is for people who already have proper peripherals.

When you start throwing in 900$ monitors, prices rise, imagine that

 

[Hellhammer]

Upgrade RAM and HD form aftermarket (sell your current), buy 3rd party monitor for 200$ and refurb KB and mouse. Anyway, if you don't have ANY of the peripherals, just get iMac

 

[bimmerfreak0]

So I have had my eyes on a mac mini to permanently connect to our TV for a while now, and when I heard about Mac Mini + HDMI I was pretty pumped, so I specced one out. Halfway through, I realized I had surpassed the iMac price point...

Screw it I thought, lets compare the mini to an imac, straight up.

Mini: 2.4 core2 duo, 4GB, 500 GB, 24" ACD, standard mouse, standard keyboard. = $1900

iMac: 2.6 i5, 4GB, 1TB, 27" monitor, standard mouse and keyboard = $2000

My conclusion: If you buy this macmini to use as a desktop, WTF are you doing?

The only reason I could ever see buying one is to use as a HTPC. Why have they not merged the "Apple TV" and macmini into one awesome product yet? Instead, they keep 2 incredibly mediocre products?

1) Why would you mandatorily have to buy apple's display...it's way overpriced.

2) What if I want to use this for an HTPC...I think the iMac would be an eyesore

3) What if I already had a monitor, mouse and keyboard?

The iMac in all of these conditions would be uber overkill. Granted, I will always salivate over the graphics card in the iMac compared to the mini, otherwise they are comparable.

 

[MattSepeta]

Yes, I know.

I understand that, about the monitor. But the ONE display offered for the Mac Mini is $900...

The post was more about my confusion as to why they still offer a Mac Mini and Apple TV. It seems that the two should really be merged by now.

 

[Hellhammer]

The post was more about my confusion as to why they still offer a Mac Mini and Apple TV. It seems that the two should really be merged by now.

AppleTV - 229$
Mac mini - 699$

If Apple made a lighter version of Mini, it would likely run AppleTV OS anyway because Apple doesn't want to make a computer that doesn't run OS X smoothly, thus iPad runs iOS and Apple makes no netbooks. TV has never been popular anyway. Blu-Ray is one thing TV, or Mini needs to be a perfect HTPC.

 

[UbuntuFu]

I know, this thing is ridiculously overpriced as a HTPC. I already have a 2ghz C2D mac mini. It only has a 1gb of ram but it plays all my downloaded warez such as 1080p BluRay rip's mkv and xvid tv shows files okay off an external hard drive.

But then again my TV can also play MKV files directly off a USB hard drive. I can also play divx files off an external connected to my PS3 or Xbox.

I want to get the new mac mini server, but basically I would be paying $1000 for a really nice GUI (Plex)