[BegeMoT]

Gotta say, I picked up a broken one from work. It was going to be tossed out, and well I'll probably toss it out as well. The logic board on it failed and well, its about $250 for a used one, $500 for a new one, and there are several untested logic boards that will work for $80 to $100. Not really worth the cost of repair, I may sell the imac as a parts machine. The logic board failed in that it looks like either the ram or some portion of the video as the display is scrambled. I thought about attempting to reflow the logic board using the oven method, but didn't feel like getting into it now. Its a 1.8ghz G5, 1gb ram, 160gb HD.

But while I was working on the machine, I have to say I do like its build. Its slim, takes up basically zero space. And for what i would do every day with it, it would work. The CPU is powerful enough to do video compression, even though the video is subpar for gaming, but I don't game that much on PC anymore in the first place. Sure, I have a decent monitor, but it kind of pales to playing on a 52" display with a real home theater system. That and the couch is way more comfortable.

Money wise, I know its not effective. The home machine I built for about $300 blows it out of the water.

But there is something to be said for having such a small machine. The imacs take up as much room as my LCD does.

I wish I could build something like this. If someone made a case that would take a micro PC mobo or something like that I almost think it would be worth it. But the case wouldn't be cheap.

[Gulauur]

The iMac is great for general home use. It's probably the best solution after a laptop.

Where it gets a bit lost is in the business world. It doesn't have the raw power to handle serious tasks usually associated with Mac Pro's. Sure it can handle final cut pro but compared to a Mac Pro it's like watching paint dry. On the other hand it's too expensive for most companies to want to buy in bulk for general office users.

[Clesylafabada]

I've always wanted a mac. Can't afford one though and even if I could, I don't imagine I would spend the money on one. If funds were unlimited, you bet I would own one. OSX is pretty. I have a hackintosh setup, but nothing is better than the real deal.

[hechicxxrr]

We just got a few of the 20" imacs a few weeks back for our office. We somewhat need them though as we have macs scattered around in our Art, Media and Music departments.

[education]

Great system for the non-gamer. I'll admit they're sleek, stylish, and perfect for web surfing and all that jazz. Macs are less likely to get infected with anything. With a Mac there's less to worry about if all you want to do is surf, e-mail, and just do basic non-geek stuff.

IMO laptop is still superior. Portability FTW.

[BegeMoT]

Great system for the non-gamer. I'll admit they're sleek, stylish, and perfect for web surfing and all that jazz. Macs are less likely to get infected with anything. With a Mac there's less to worry about if all you want to do is surf, e-mail, and just do basic non-geek stuff.

IMO laptop is still superior. Portability FTW.

Yeah, I like my macbook pro, but its limited screen size, and the fact that i have to tilt my head down constantly to use it gets a little annoying. My mbp is my primary work machine because i have to travel around to different locations for work. Technically a PC would work.

But the MBP allows me to run Win/Mac equally so i can deal with both no problem.

With an Imac, I could have a 24" screen. its $1500 which is not cheap, and when you consider the specs, its not cost effective, but the overall packaging is nice.

If I had to choose between OS X or Vista for a desktop environment for work, I'd choose OS X every day of the week.

[BegeMoT]

The iMac is great for general home use. It's probably the best solution after a laptop.

Where it gets a bit lost is in the business world. It doesn't have the raw power to handle serious tasks usually associated with Mac Pro's. Sure it can handle final cut pro but compared to a Mac Pro it's like watching paint dry. On the other hand it's too expensive for most companies to want to buy in bulk for general office users.

The Mac Mini falls into that category. And its very good for that.

The newer 2ghz C2D mac Mini's are as fast at photoshop as the older 2ghz powermac G5s, even the dual models. They lack dedicated graphics cards, but most of photoshop is done with the CPU anyways. That'll probably change with OpenCL.

[YTmWSOA5]

I think dell tried to copy it but failed because they made them too expensive.


The idea of combining the display and the PC is great until one of them fails. It has gotten cheaper to build mac mini style PCs recently and the hardware has got a lot better too.

[Gulauur]

The Mac Mini falls into that category. And its very good for that.

The newer 2ghz C2D mac Mini's are as fast at photoshop as the older 2ghz powermac G5s, even the dual models. They lack dedicated graphics cards, but most of photoshop is done with the CPU anyways. That'll probably change with OpenCL.

They fall into what category? If you mean the cheap office market, they don't. By the time you have bought a mac mini, apple screen, keyboard and mouse you might as well have bought an iMac.

I just checked it out and I can't believe a basic Mac Mini is now £499 just for the box. You can get a full PC system with twice the power for that!

As for them being fine with photoshop....yeh they are to a point but again, compared to a Mac Pro they are no contest. I have a Mac Mini on my desk and an iMac in my receptionists room and 5 Mac Pro's in the studio so I have compared them on day to day tasks. Plus as I said, I was talking about heavy lifting like Final Cut Pro (video editing). The iMac's just aren't up to it. Neither are similar spec PC's.

[BegeMoT]

They fall into what category? If you mean the cheap office market, they don't. By the time you have bought a mac mini, apple screen, keyboard and mouse you might as well have bought an iMac.

I just checked it out and I can't believe a basic Mac Mini is now £499 just for the box. You can get a full PC system with twice the power for that!

As for them being fine with photoshop....yeh they are to a point but again, compared to a Mac Pro they are no contest. I have a Mac Mini on my desk and an iMac in my receptionists room and 5 Mac Pro's in the studio so I have compared them on day to day tasks. Plus as I said, I was talking about heavy lifting like Final Cut Pro (video editing). The iMac's just aren't up to it. Neither are similar spec PC's.

Only if you go apple for everything. We use Mac Mini's exclusively for newer editorial and CSR work stations. When an older G4 was ready to be retired, we replaced them with mac mini's which would be good for a long time in office environment. Sure you can mix and match PC and Mac. But you run into serious issues with text kerning between the two platforms. Price wise, remember that a mac mini is 6"x6"x3" total. Even mini-PC's don't come near those physical dimensions. So its small on a desk.

Apple Cinema displays are good, but honestly way too good for anything but pre-press, imaging, and other graphic related work. We usually paired a mac mini with a cheaper LCD in the 19 to 20" range, and we had a surplus of KBs and Mice.

The only users who ever got Cinema or Studio displays in our building were the people who needed color accuracy as the Apple LCD's use some decent panels. Those same users also had top tier G5 towers and Mac Pros.

_____________________________

I benchmarked a 2ghz C2D mac mini with 2gb ram against a Powermac G5 2.3ghz dual CPU that had 2gb of ram and the C2D was JUST as fast in everything but 3d accelerated graphics where it fell behind, and it was slightly slower in HD performance due to the mini using a 2.5" drive vs the G5's 3.5". A considerable asset when a brand new Mini STILL costs less than an a used top of the line G5 Tower does today.

From an IT standpoint macs are WAY easier to deal with. Computer dies? Drop the HD in nother similar spec'd machine its JUST like it was before. Going from PPC to Intel based mac? Easy, use the migration wizard to import the user AND applications to the new hardware.

[proslaviy]

As for them being fine with photoshop....yeh they are to a point but again, compared to a Mac Pro they are no contest. I have a Mac Mini on my desk and an iMac in my receptionists room and 5 Mac Pro's in the studio so I have compared them on day to day tasks. Plus as I said, I was talking about heavy lifting like Final Cut Pro (video editing). The iMac's just aren't up to it. Neither are similar spec PC's.

That really depends on how much time you have on your hands.

[VQdeochratis]

Is it wrong to want an Imac? Yes, gtfo.

[BegeMoT]

Yes, gtfo.

So I guess you wouldn't wanna know that i gave my sisters ibook G4's when they went off to college, I still have two Powerbook G4' in the closet. A Powermac G5 dual 1.8ghz with 4gb ram, and a Mac Mini 1.8ghz Core duo w/2gb ram as my home theater PC.

And I have a Macbook Pro 15.4", 2.4ghz C2D 4gb ram from work.

The ONLY machine that runs windows in my house is a old Dell GX270 that handles movie/music sharing for the Xbox 360 since i haven't found a mac, or linux client I'm happy with.

[Gulauur]

That really depends on how much time you have on your hands.

I was referring exclusively to professional work.

[proslaviy]

I was referring exclusively to professional work.

Yeah and if you can put the machine to one side and work somewhere else in the meantime it's doable at a stretch.

[Gulauur]

Only if you go apple for everything. We use Mac Mini's exclusively for newer editorial and CSR work stations. When an older G4 was ready to be retired, we replaced them with mac mini's which would be good for a long time in office environment. Sure you can mix and match PC and Mac. But you run into serious issues with text kerning between the two platforms. Price wise, remember that a mac mini is 6"x6"x3" total. Even mini-PC's don't come near those physical dimensions. So its small on a desk.

Apple Cinema displays are good, but honestly way too good for anything but pre-press, imaging, and other graphic related work. We usually paired a mac mini with a cheaper LCD in the 19 to 20" range, and we had a surplus of KBs and Mice.

The only users who ever got Cinema or Studio displays in our building were the people who needed color accuracy as the Apple LCD's use some decent panels. Those same users also had top tier G5 towers and Mac Pros.

_____________________________

I benchmarked a 2ghz C2D mac mini with 2gb ram against a Powermac G5 2.3ghz dual CPU that had 2gb of ram and the C2D was JUST as fast in everything but 3d accelerated graphics where it fell behind, and it was slightly slower in HD performance due to the mini using a 2.5" drive vs the G5's 3.5". A considerable asset when a brand new Mini STILL costs less than an a used top of the line G5 Tower does today.

From an IT standpoint macs are WAY easier to deal with. Computer dies? Drop the HD in nother similar spec'd machine its JUST like it was before. Going from PPC to Intel based mac? Easy, use the migration wizard to import the user AND applications to the new hardware.

Macs are only easier to deal with from an IT standpoint if you have staff trained in OS X. I have worked in several design agencies and the IT staff know windows and the design boys know how to load Illustrator. It's counter-productive as the IT staff have to waste hours working out problems they know the answer to for windows. These agencies can't afford a dedicated OS X technical support guy. And you can drop the HDD from one PC into another PC and generally all will be well. XP or Vista will notice the new GPU and adjust and work. But this really is a ridiculous point because it's only because Apple use a standard component set for their systems that it works. Hell, if an IT buyer purchases 1000 dell desktops for an organisation exactly the same would be true.

A mac mini is also a poor choice for office use as it is likely to be left on for extended periods and a case that small doesn't provide adequate ventilation for that kind of use. You won't notice it initially but I will bet a few quid that they die before a standard PC sized package would. I had a shuttle XPC and it had the same problem.

Also, I don't know why you are talking about G4 and G5's. That is old technology. Sure a Mac Mini may be as fast as a G5 tower which is why I have been very careful to differentiate between Mac Pro, Mac Mini and iMac. The Mac Pro has a minimum of quad core processor and anyone doing video work will spring for the eight core version. As I said, there is no comparison between them and a Mac Mini.

[Gulauur]

Yeah and if you can put the machine to one side and work somewhere else in the meantime it's doable at a stretch.

I will guess from this that you have no experience at all of professional video editing.

[gusunsuth]

I have an iMac 2.8Ghz with 4GB Ram, and it's very quick when running leopard. Obviously the video cards included are not going to run games very well, but I use mine primarily for my business. Having a nice, large screen is excellent for doing work or watching movies, and the fact that it takes up such a small amount of space makes it perfect to put almost anywhere.

[proslaviy]

I will guess from this that you have no experience at all of professional video editing.

Bad guess but I admit it's 2 or 3 years since and I have no experience of editing HD so that maybe a lot more taxing.

[BegeMoT]

Macs are only easier to deal with from an IT standpoint if you have staff trained in OS X. I have worked in several design agencies and the IT staff know windows and the design boys know how to load Illustrator. It's counter-productive as the IT staff have to waste hours working out problems they know the answer to for windows. These agencies can't afford a dedicated OS X technical support guy. And you can drop the HDD from one PC into another PC and generally all will be well. XP or Vista will notice the new GPU and adjust and work. But this really is a ridiculous point because it's only because Apple use a standard component set for their systems that it works. Hell, if an IT buyer purchases 1000 dell desktops for an organisation exactly the same would be true.

A mac mini is also a poor choice for office use as it is likely to be left on for extended periods and a case that small doesn't provide adequate ventilation for that kind of use. You won't notice it initially but I will bet a few quid that they die before a standard PC sized package would. I had a shuttle XPC and it had the same problem.

Also, I don't know why you are talking about G4 and G5's. That is old technology. Sure a Mac Mini may be as fast as a G5 tower which is why I have been very careful to differentiate between Mac Pro, Mac Mini and iMac. The Mac Pro has a minimum of quad core processor and anyone doing video work will spring for the eight core version. As I said, there is no comparison between them and a Mac Mini.

Well, you can say the case can't do it, and you can say it can't cope with it. But the fact is, you don't have experience with actually administering a large pre-press environment.

And training an IT guy on how to handle basic OS X issues? Easy as pie. RR Donnelley does it all the time. Sure there are sometimes what seems like odd ball questions from those who don't deal with macs on a daily basis, but its not rocket science. Day to day, I am in charge of almost 200 users, most of which use macs in various forms from G4's at the lowest, to Mac Pros.

To give you an idea, last inventory we had ~30 quicksilver and mirror door powermac G4s, 37 mac mini's, 77 G5 towers in various specs (from 1.5 singles to the quad cpu G5 towers). A few imac g5's, and the rest being filled out with mac pros as we phase out and cascade the G5's to less demanding roles. We have mac pros from the first gen to the later octocores.

My HTPC is a mac mini, I restarted it two days ago because of the 10.5.7 update, but before that it had been up for over 2 months without a restart. I use itunes, and the included remote to play movies. In fact, most of the movies are compressed on the mini so it can be used as a juke box. For those that I don't want to compress, Front Row will play the Video_TS folders straight up off a network drive.

I can sit here and debunk mac myths all night. Unlike most people i've worked on both sides of the fence. Still do. And given a choice between maintaining a group of PCs, or a group of Macs, i'd choose the macs ever time.

And for a day to day OS? I'd go OS X between Vista and OS X. Course, I run Ubuntu at home as the day to day OS, most of the time I love it. Its got all of the features from OS X that i love, and its free, light on resources, and fast.