Competition For The Mac mini? Epson’s mini PC.

Apple’s Mac mini is a few years old. Finally a PC maker has a similar model—similar in size, features, and price tag.

Epson’s cute Endeavor mini PC rolls out but not available on the Mac360 Store. Or Amazon.

Apple’s Mac mini shows there’s a market for diminutive PC boxes as second and third PCs in a home.

Epsons mini PC, dubbed the Endeavor ST100, appears ready to compete with the Mac mini.

Compete? Both are similar in look, size, and price tag, but the Epson comes with Intel’s Core 2 Duo CPUs.

From what we can tell of the details site in Japanese, the ST100 will come in a variety of configurations.

Akihabara News shows the Epson disassembled and with some surprising components. Missing and not.

For example, all models of the ST100 come with a DVD burner, while the Mac mini’s SuperDrive is available only on the high end model.

For now, the Mac mini only ships with Intel’s Core Duo, not the Core 2 Duo chip found in the iMac, MacBook, and MacBook Pro.

Epson’s Endeavor ST100 has a sliding top and bottom to facilitate rapid entry into the PC.

The Mac mini is notoriously difficult for the average user to gain entrance to the internals.

As is typical with many PCs when compared to Macs, the ST100 has more ports, with two USB ports on the front; others behind.

The Epson is also available with more custom features, including an ATI Radeon Xpress video card, up to 2GB of RAM, a 160 GB SATA hard drive.

All the extras move the base price of just over $500 to around $1,000.

Interestingly, instead of a DVI video connector, as in the Mac mini, the Epson mini PC has a small D-SUB VGA port.

The overall physical appearance is less that of the Mac mini than a large white brick. The mini PC is slightly wider, taller, and heavier than the Mac.

Think of it as a true toaster-size PC that runs Windows XP Professional, sans keyboard, mouse, display.

Can you order the mini PC on Amazon? Not yet. So far, there’s no information on release date by Epson, or where—Japan, US, or elsewhere.

Many PC users have been enticed into the world of Macs because of the low price of the Mac mini. Likewise, many Mac users also have a PC.

Question: if an Epson miniPC equaled a Mac mini in price and features, would you buy one (say, for around $600-$800)? Why or why not?

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