Day: 22 January 2005

Mac Mini, The Review Part 2 First Impressions

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If you want real benchmarks read CNET or Macworld. This is my opinion of the Mini based off of my 2+ years playing with OS 10 and Apple hardware. First the memory I put in the Mini (pumping it up to 1gig) really helped. The 1.4ghz G4 did not seem light years faster than the 1ghz G4 in my Powerbook 12″, but it was faster.

I had no problems loading up Microsoft Office, iLife 05, Konfabulator, ecto (using it right now), Netnewswire, and a bunch of other mainstay programs that I have.

One major issue I did discover was that it was VERY slow copying files to the drive. I have a 100mbit switch and router and copying 30 gigs of MP3’s took like 6 hours. That is drastically longer than it should take. I have copied a ton more in that period of time. I am not sure if it is the Mini’s NIC card, or the hard drive. looking over the spec’s I believe that the hard drive is what is causing this slow speed. What I don’t understand is that I have a Thinkpad with an 80gig 4700 or so RPM drive that is close to the spec’s of the Mini, but the Thinkpad can handle the same copy almost twice as fast. I don’t think anything is wrong, but I am extremely unhappy with that performance stat. In real world use I won’t be copying on or off the drive that large amount of data very often. it just sucks that it is so slow. in normal use so far today it has performed well.

The Mini plugged into my 20″ Cinema display without a problem. iLife 05 didn’t come installed. I assume that the final version was not ready when the final image for the Mini was burned into the hardware. That install took a few minutes, but was painless. I have not had a chance to try out the new iPhoto. The rest of the suite (minus iTunes 4.7.1 that I already had) is not stuff that I plan on using.

I am winding down my day of configuring software. I just finished syncing my Treo 600 with Entourage. I think that the only major thing I need to do is get my favorites out of firefox off of my Powerbook.

More reviews and impressions as I use the computer. So far so good!

Mac Mini, The Review Part 1 Upgrading Memory

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I got my Mac Mini yesterday. For a small computer it came in a massive box. Upon opening that box I found yet another large brown box.

Upon opening the smaller brown box I finally found the box for the Mini.

The box as Steve Jobs showed is very small.

First impressions was that the mini seemed heavy (for its size) and well built. Turning it on and configuring it was like any other mac. I got right into installing programs. Then I realized I needed to put the ram I purchased in it. I was not going to stick with the 256 megs RAM that came with it so I ordered a 1gig chip. The RAM upgrade was not as easy as originally led to believe, but it was doable by an end user. of course Jayson and I are both experienced computer (information systems) people and we both were a little skiddish about opening up the Mini. I never had to go buy special tools to open a computer. Read on for more details.

So Apple says the memory upgrade on the Mini is user upgradable, then does not recommend that you do it. I for one was not going to pay double for the Apple memory upgrade, so I decided to do the install myself. Macworld had a fantastic article on how to do it. They gave tons of photos, and explained what you should use to open the Mac Mini. Since I my vision is less than stellar Jayson and I ventured from my warm apartment to Home Depot by his place. There we bought the two puddy knives that the article recommended. The one criticism of the article is on what putty knives to get. The writer said get the thinest you can get. Not sure about you, but I had no idea what I was doing buying putty knives. I can do electrical or computer work, but home improvement stuff is not my thing. After feeling up a few knives we selected two that we thought were good. I include a picture of the label and the Home Depot part number in case you are like me and like exact details on tools you are going to use to open up your $500 computer. We used PN 037064091750 from home depot. Picture below:

The reason I am so specific is because if you goto a place like Home Depot you will see a wall this many options. Who knew you could have that many putty knives.

The upgrade went exactly as the review said. You have to be careful but Jayson was able to get the Mini open and ram in it with any major problems. Funny enough the only problem he did have was getting the case back on. In order to get the clips to all lock into place he had to do it in a certain way or else the back part of the case wasn’t as snug as it should be. After a few minutes of tinkering and all was fine again. Now I had maxed out my memory on the Mini. Below are a few pictures we took when we opened it up. they are not very good. Neither of us had our real camera’s. All I had was my Treo Camera Phone. It sucks in low light conditions and his place was not well lit.

The Mini found the memory right away and I was off and running from there.