Thread: Mac purchase advice

Thanks fellas. I've been watching ebay and the price difference between a new $849 mac mini and second hand gear isn't enough to justify a second hand purchase. The new mac mini seems like great value which is a problem for me because I don't really want to spend that much on another computer. I'll wait and see what happens when new model mini arrives.

Pete

Also, and you may be aware that students and education staff gte a 10% discount too. Even if your not maybe you know someone that is who would be happy to sign up for it instead? That will bring you around $780 atleast.

Xav

Keep an eye on the refurbished macs on the apple web store they occasionally have a mac mini for about 70-80% of retail with 123 month warranty. There is a tab on the LHS of the mac purchase page.

Refurbished Mac - Apple Store (Australia)

Thanks everyone for the help. At this point it looks like I'll have to dig deep and get a new mac mini. I was thinking about waiting for the new models in January, possibly, but a lot of people are saying prices will rise considerably so I think Ill get in before xmas.

Cheers,
Pete

Originally Posted by discopete

Thanks everyone for the help. At this point it looks like I'll have to dig deep and get a new mac mini. I was thinking about waiting for the new models in January, possibly, but a lot of people are saying prices will rise considerably so I think Ill get in before xmas.

Cheers,
Pete

It's on the cards. The Macbooks certainly went through the roof.

Please come back and tell us what you think of it!

Hey Pete,

You can pick up a second hand PC for under $500 with hefty processor and RAM specs (several on eBay for between $300 and $500). You could run Linux on that and it'd be faster than OSX or Windows with no software costs whatsoever.

If you've got your heart set on the Mac, that's cool, but if you're still looking it's worth considering Linux as an option.

Cheers,

Mark

Originally Posted by Delta_Farce

Hey Pete,

You can pick up a second hand PC for under $500 with hefty processor and RAM specs (several on eBay for between $300 and $500). You could run Linux on that and it'd be faster than OSX or Windows with no software costs whatsoever.

If you've got your heart set on the Mac, that's cool, but if you're still looking it's worth considering Linux as an option.

Cheers,

Mark

Linux is not necessarily faster than OS X, or Windows. It is the hardware that facilitates performance, and in the case of the Mac the hardsware and OS are optimised to maximise on that.

I have used Linux since about 1995 and on some machines it is very fast and on others not. It depends on many factors, hardware, what services are running, what windowing manager (if there is one ), etc. But the Linux movement has been pretty much broken since it was forked in 1997 so performance is far from guaranteed and usually it requires the user to optimise their distro for the hardware is gonig to be installed on.

There is a cost to everything you get and one of the major costs on Linux has been the user's time in configuring it. With Windows there are ongoing costs to keep it running, both in time and money. On the Mac you can literally get a new machine, pull it out of the box, plug it in and it will configure itself to suit your local situation. Recently I upgraded my Powerbook to a Macbook Pro. Not only did it configure itself but it also walked me through the process of connecting the two machines (choice of Firewire, USB 2.0, or ethernet - I chose the latter) so it could copy *all* my applications, configurations, files, etc, onto the new machine. Then set them all up so they'd work.

Now, if you want *really free* software you should be looking at the BSDs. FreeBSD is great, OpenBSD is blindingly fast, NetBSD is virtually unbreakable.

Alan

Originally Posted by discopete

Thanks everyone for the help. At this point it looks like I'll have to dig deep and get a new mac mini. I was thinking about waiting for the new models in January, possibly, but a lot of people are saying prices will rise considerably so I think Ill get in before xmas.

Cheers,
Pete

If you are looking at a new machine you are far better off looking at the iMacs than than the Minis. You said you want to use yiour existing peripherals but frankly you're wasting your time and money.

The screen on the iMac is, well, brilliant and their performance is absolutely exceptional. The cost difference between the mini and iMac is not worth the loss of performance and quality. You also don't get all the expandability, ports, the amont of RAM you can put in it is very limited, etc. You will probably be keeping the Mac for 8 years or more so you are better off getting everything in it now, including more than 3Gb of RAM.

Sell the monitor, etc. and get it all in the iMac.

My old G5 dual processor is 7 years old, it is running the latest OS version and is faster than the new MacBook Pro. I bought it second hand 4 years ago for $750.

Alan