Apple Mac Mini (2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 160GB, Fall 2009)

Pros: cheaper than other macs, but actually it's not much of a pro. The thought comes to mind that the drive could be formatted and you could put windows 7 on it which would make it a useful pc for most professional tasks and it would be great for games

Cons: However, Core 2 duo is 3 year old slow technology. I've found PC's already that are cheaper and more powerful. You could even hackintosh those. But not much point when you could put win 7 on it and be free to enjoy something better.

Summary: Some may not like the notion of formatting a mac-mini and putting windows on it or that I've said it's not fast. But I'm being honest. It's an under powered, door-stop. Sure, if you are relatively inexperienced with computers and watch "I'm a mac" commercials, then you won't know that you are paying double for a computer that is 1/2 the power of what you can get. You see, in PC land, there are many choices. You can buy a pc that is far slower and more lousy than a mac. OR, if you shop around, you can get one that is also more powerful than a mac for about $800.

That's right. you can. I have an i7 based pc that runs circles around a typical $1600 imac in video rendering, something macs should be good at. And it only cost me $800. It has a 1.5TB HD and ddr3 mem and a great graphics card too that is faster than macs. Running windows 7, it is VERY solid and stable all the way, day after day with no problems. It was already faster than macs, but I decided to use it's easy OC feature to bring it up to 3.8Ghz. It's now faster than a $2500 mac pro. I think the big deal is that if it crashed all the time and was hard to use, I'd get a mac. Because

that's what the ImAMac ads promote. (Not that I believe the hype). But again, I have no problems. I showed this to a friend with a mac and he was impressed and shocked at how fast it was. Then I hackintoshed it to load osx for fun and showed him a mac twice as fast as his and he was sick, LOL. But I didn't see any use in keeping the osx leopard on it. Not that it isn't nice, but it gets in my way of productivity for some of the software titles it won't run. And I don't like having to use bootcamp etc. Not much point if you get one just to load windows all the time.

But seriously, I can not recommend the Apple Mac Mini to anyone. It's seriously over priced and under powered. Even if you are an apple lover, it's just a cheap fix. A $2500 mac pro would be more like it. BUT, again, I can have the same power in the PC I have for $800. The only exception would be if someone insists on osx, then they would have a cute web browser running safari by using the mini. But even that crashed on me in my testing. I'd rather use internet explorer 8.0. It's very solid. And no. I'm not a troll. I'm serious. If you are considering a mac, know EXACTLY why you are doing it. Don't just get one because of the dumb commercials. I have a recording studio and do video, and everything works great. I know every one tells you that mac is for doing video, but that is another pack of lies. Many of the companies that create the software run on mac, were already creating it for pc.

Updated on Jan 24, 2010

Ok, for those non-believers. My CineBench score on my new PC is 18,500. The mac mini is 5400. I paid $800 for my computer. The mac mini is about $600. DO THE MATH. Remember what I said before. In PC land it's all in where you shop and what you buy. OF course you can find cheapie piece of junk PC's that aren't fast. But you can also find more powerful ones that are better than macs for 1/2 the money of a mac. And yes, my system is rock solid and stable and I'm loving windows 7. And yes, I've used osx leopard many, many times. I know my stuff.