Mac mini vs. iMac: A Good Value Or An Expensive Toy?

Klose said:

Well,$599 for a 20’ monitor actually is a waste. People could just go to a PC store and grab any monitor like LG, Acer or Sansum for a much much lower price, today’s price for 21.5’ inch monitor is just $175. Check it out.

Danny Boy said:

It’s really just a matter of how much money you have to spend vs. what you want. If you have a keyboard and compatible display, the Mac mini is an incredible value. It’s as fast as the low end iMac and comes with iLife. The all-in-one iMacs are very popular, too.

Go with your heart.

MiP0d said:

I don’t yet own a Mac, but my cousins who live down the street have had their $599 Mac Mini for almost 6 months now. Their price went up when they added on the wireless keyboard and wireless might mouse. I’ve been checking out theirs and it works pretty great. it’s fast it doesn’t take up a lot of space, as people say. But, doesn’t the iMac take up even less space? it’s an all-in-one Mac which means it’s just the screen, keyboard, and mouse. whereas the Mac Mini takes up that additional space. My uncle (who’s Mac Mini it is) is trying to persuade us into buying a Mac Mini. We already have an adequete monitor, keyboard, and mouse. But I plan on installing vmWare (the ability to run Mac OSX and windows vista or xp side by side on a mac). And, the Mac Mini doesn’t have enough memory or hard drive space to be able to handle that without going slow. The iMac has plenty. Plus, with the iMac, I’d get a way bigger screen, a nice keyboard where my mom’s nails don’t get stuck in between the keys, and the Apple Mighty Mouse. All included! Plus the protection plan which puts my iMac total at $1,503.17! My mac mini total with the protection plan only would be $813.27 is that worth it?

Cec said:

I love my Mac Mini.  My friends and I all have them and it was an easy way for me to get people I care about away from the problems of windows.  The truth I see is that most people I know that switched already had the monitor and keyboard/mouse.  So it is an easy choice for a upgrade.  I think Mac will continue to get more converts from this computer the more Vista keeps going the way it is.  The only people I know that like windows are the techno geeks/IT guys.

birdy176 said:

Now that I want to come over from the dark side, I find that the Apple growers make that decision a tough one by offering Hobson’s choices, although it doesn’t involve horses.

My dream machine for video editing is the iMac 20” but the display has such negative reviews that I am afraid that I would have to return it. The 24” model is Apple’s money maker at more dinars but too large for me.

The Mac mini on the other hand seems to have a SATA 5400 RPM and lousy graphics card as befits a supposedly moribund product.

Since Apple is oblivious to their would-be customers complaints or suggestions, I’ll probably stay with the devil I know and stay married to Bill Gates.

Bonobo said:

My Intel MacMini is hooked to a 12” LCD from Apple, the first they ever offered from about 1999 or so, and whatever spare keyboard and mouse is around, and winds up being a server hosting things on my Dot Mac/MMe account.

In a pinch, I can use my MBPro’s backup external hard drive to boot it if my MBPro goes down, so it is a backup computer which I can actually take with me if I’m ever in a bind. 

Very Efficient, very inexpensive, runs 24x7, what more can I say?

spinaltap said:

I’ve been a Mac user for 20 years, and have owned my PPC Mini for the past three years - together with Apple Cinema Display, wireless keyboard and mouse.

When I upgrade to a new Intel Mini I won’t have to ditch the Apple Cinema Display, keyboard and mouse - try that with an iMac.

In the longer-term the Mini makes more sense.

Worldweary said:

Bought a Mac Mini C2D 2ghz refurb.  Waved goodbye to Windows and haven’t looked back.  Kept my own monitor and trackball.  Love it just the way it came.  Probably at some point I’ll upgrade this thing with more ram and a 7200 rpm hdd.  Then I figure it will be good to go for quite a few years as long as it can drive the OS.