Ok, I know that I am not the only one to call my Mac mini ..well.. minime. But hey, I did name my iPod “Escape Pod†so I get points there.
I wanted to share some impressions during my first month with the Mac mini. The form factory is a big plus. I have it on my desk right beside my monitor, and it takes up no space to speak of.
I purchased the 1.5g model with 512mb or ram. Performance seems to be very good. I have used it to burn DVDs and iMovie for editing, and it seems to just crank along. It is also very quiet. I have turned off my Linux box, and really only have the Mac on always. I can sit in my small windowless (in more ways than one) office at home, and I can think.
OSX is nice. Linux with Gnome is a lot like it in some ways, so I feel comfortable with it. I like how when I attach a new device to it, you don’t see balloons popping up telling me that there is a new device installed (Well Duh). For example, my DVcam, I hooked it up, couldn’t tell if it was recognized. I opened iMove and it was just there waiting for me. Now, Installing applications are a little different. Most of which you just drag the application into the applications folder. It is odd at first, but makes the machine very easy to manage.
I did install Gimp on it, and I wasn’t quite happy with that. It felt very “Tacked onto OSX”. I get that feeling with the Windows version too, like mouse focus was quirky or something with X. However native OSX apps are awesome. So unless Photoshop for OSX falls out of the sky, There are some things that I will just have to continue do on my Linux box.
So, I see me using it for really anything. I bought it for editing movies primarily, but it has proven to be a great general purpose machine. Very happy with it, and I would recommend it to anyone, especially family.
BTW: iLife is worth the price you paid for the whole machine, and consider a USB, and a Firewire hub.