Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Apple Archive

Why the Mac mini May Be Perfect for College Students

, 2005.01.14

Apple has quite possibly found a new market for itself upon releasing the new Mac mini. I argued last week that people using older Macs might consider the (then unreleased) Mac mini a low cost upgrade to their older systems.

Now that it's been released and we see how small it is, it appears that the Mac mini may be ideal for another market - the college student living away from home.

While many college students commute to school every day, those who are away at school have to deal with a number of annoying aspects of being away from home, including how to transport your things back home for the summer. This is why, when it comes to buying computers for college students, a laptop is often ideal.

Many do have laptops, but many have desktops as well - often simply because they would rather work at a desktop computer than a laptop with it's cramped keyboard and small screen.

Typically the desktop machines students have are conventional minitowers. While minitowers are nice because they can be upgraded easily - new hard drives, video cards, and CD/DVD drives can be installed quickly and painlessly - they also take up a lot of room on your desk or floor.

Also, how many students really bother to upgrade their computer, beyond maybe installing more RAM? I'd guess that only a select few bother to upgrade their processor, add extra hard drives, or install a new video card.

Mac mini This, of course, means that the Mac mini would be absolutely ideal for students. It's a full-featured desktop computer, however it is also small enough to put in a backpack and bring home over the summer (along with your laptop, if you'd like).

It's simple to set up, so even someone who's "computer clueless" could connect it to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse when they arrive home.

The nice thing about the Mac mini is that while it is so small, it can still be upgraded in order to meet people's needs in the future. More RAM can be added, of course, but with the FireWire port (something most PCs lack), you can easily add an external hard drive if you should run out of room on the internal one.

The built in DVI display connector means that if you should choose to upgrade to a flat panel display at some point, the Mac mini is ready for it.

The Mac mini is not without drawbacks. The built-in video card - an ATI Radeon 9200 with 32 MB of VRAM - is a bit lacking when compared with video cards available in stores today. For instance, in my PC I have a Radeon 9200 with 128 MB of VRAM, and that was the most basic one I could find.

For most users the 32 MB card in the Mac mini won't be a problem, but those who want to play some of the more graphics-intensive games would be better-off buying a low-end PC. Why? For the simple reason that the Mac mini doesn't allow you to upgrade the video card at all.

Many low-end PC's don't even have AGP slots (a friend of mine is dealing with this problem in his low-end Gateway), but you can at least add a better PCI video card to the system. Even though a PCI card won't deliver quite as much performance as an AGP card, it's still better than being stuck with a rather basic video card forever.

The same is true with the iMac and eMac, where you're stuck with the same video card forever.

But looking at the Mac mini's $499 price, you still end up with an amazing value for anyone who doesn't need high-end graphics for state-of-the-art gaming.

Recent Apple Archive articles

iPods, notebooks, and other modern electronics more readily replaced than repaired, 12.07. Whether it's an intermittent failure or a broken display cable, more often than not it's cheaper to replace a broken electronics device than repair it.
Options for replacing your older iPod, 11.19. Whether you've run out of space on your old iPod or want features it doesn't have, here are your options in new and used iPods.
Could the $200 'green' PC with gOS Linux become a threat to Apple?, 11.14. The low cost, low power Everex desktop comes with a customized version of Ubuntu Linux, has a Mac-like Dock, and sells for $400 less than the Mac mini.
Leopard different, a bit buggy, but worth the upgrade, 11.02. Leopard on a Power Mac G4 and a MacBook Pro: It runs well on both computers, but each has some odd bugs, and some of the changes are a step backwards.
More in the Apple Archive index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: Mac mini Core Solo, Feb. 2006 - The only Mac to use a Core Solo CPU, this model ran at 1.5 GHz, has integrated graphics, and includes a Combo drive
Group of the Day: SuperMacs is for those using Umax SuperMac clones.
November 24 in LEM history: 98: Microsoft's heavy hand - 00: Looking at the iMac - 04: The best Mac for the holidays - Picking the right replacement for a dead mouse - Better battery for 15" AlBook
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

Best G4 iMac Deals, 11.24. Used 15" 700 MHz CD-RW, $150; 800 MHz Combo, $229; 1 GHz, $289; 17" 1.25 GHz, $200; 20" 1.25 GHz, $509.
Best MacBook Air Deals, 11.24. Used from $899; refurb from $1,099; new 1.6 GHz/120 HD, $1,150 after rebate; 1.8/64 SSD, $1,150 a/r; 1.86/128 SSD, $1,350 a/r; 2.13/128 SSD, $1,694 a/r.
Best PowerBook G3 Deals, 11.24. Used 233 MHz WallStreet, $75; 266 MHz, $160; 400 MHz Lombard, $199; 400 MHz Pismo, $289; 500 MHz, $350.
Best 12" PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.23. Used 867 MHz SuperDrive, $348; 1 GHz Combo, $379; SD, $519; 1.33 GHz, $529; 1.5 GHz Combo, $549; SuperDrive, $609.
Best Mac Pro Deals, 11.23. Used 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,300; 3.0 4-core. $1,919; refurb 2.66 4-core Nehalem, $2,149; 2.93, $2,549; 2.93 8-core, $4,999; new 2.26 8-core, $2,290.
Best Time Capsule and AirPort Deals, 11.23. Used 802.11g AirPort Extreme, $49; 500 GB Time Capsule, $150; new, $190; 1 TB dual-band, $280; 2 TB, $469; 802.11n AirPort Extreme, $170.
Best eMac Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz Combo, $100; SuperDrive, $269; 1.25 GHz Combo, $119; SD, $319; 1.42 GHz Combo, $289; SD, $498.
Best Mac OS X 10.6 and Mac Box Set Deals, 11.18. "Snow Leopard", single user, $25; 5 users, $45; Mac Box Set, single user, $139; 5 users, $180; Server, $414. Shipping included.
Best Xserve Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz dual G4, $649; 2.3 dual G5, $795; 3.0 4-core Xeon, $1,899; refurb 2.26 4-core, $2,499; new, $2,888; refurb 8-core, $2,999; new, $3,449; more.
More deals in our archive.

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Apple Archive articles copyright ©2000-07 by Adam Robert Guha. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.