Apple Mac Mini Review

Overall Rating

I'm a computer science student - so i am fairly handy with software etc.

The mac mini is great as a standalone system, but when connected to peripherals you get very basic options (if they work at all), and many websites and other applications fail to interact properly with mac based browsers and other software.

If you have powerPC software - some of it runs fine on Intel - others crash or fail to respond.

If you use Skype, then your microphone won't work in the line-in socket without a preamplifier (£25 ish from Maplin)- so i had to buy a Logitech USB microphone instead

You need (absolutely) a standard mac mouse (one-button) and keyboard - to use in case anything goes wrong (e.g. ejecting a stuck CD). The first thing the support line tells you to do is plug in standard mouse/keyboard. So much for bring your own peripherals! A Kingston mouse bought with the system will not work in such situations (although it's great when the system is working fine). The mini does however work fine with all the screen i have tried.

Boot Camp will load only a small sample of retail Windows XP editions - so i gave up on it. You may need to ring the helpline to get OSX to boot if anything goes wrong with booting windows during boot camp based installation - so be warned.

The killer application is VM Ware fusion - it runs XP and W2000 properly, with all the applications i have tried working fine - all my favourite web sites now work fine inside XP, and Fusion/XP interacts with via Windows drivers with USB devices! So al my peripherals work properly inside XP. I have it running all the time.
Wonderful - but it costs extra - and then the price of windows XP on top.
And doesn't this mean that i would have been better buying a PC?

The support line takes at least 15 minutes to answer (0870 number answered in Ireland/India/Italy/USA) - and are good with standard problems, but need to refer to the States for anything significant. Set aside an hour for each call.
It's impossible to find an email address for support.
I have had my system for 3 weeks, and I'm still trying to get them to register my system with Apple Care bought on the web at the same time as the machine. They say it should have been automatically registered by the purchasing system - and i am still waiting for someone in the States to override the mistake. So be careful about buying online - perhaps go to one of their retail shops eg. in Manchester instead.