Analysis Of The 2007 Mac Minis
Apple describes its Mac Minis as "BYODKM," which is an acronym for "bring your own display, keyboard and mouse. Bring your own display is certainly understandable, but I don't recall every buying (or even seeing for sale) a retail computer without a keyboard and mouse. Given that this is Apple's entry-level computer, I just don't understand why Apple doesn't make life a little easier for the entry-level computer user.
A close up of the Mac Mini and its built in optical drive.
Further, if you choose to go with an Apple-branded keyboard and mouse, you'll spend at least an extra $100. The good news here is that Apple keyboards do have several cool features: in addition to the somewhat common on-board volume controls, there are also controls for adjusting the monitor. Plus, there are two USB ports conveniently built into the keyboard. The ports can be used for attaching just about any USB device to your Mac, such as your mouse, digital camera, flash drive, and, of course, your iPod.
Providing you have modest computer needs, the Mac Mini definitely serves as a quality entry-level computer, perhaps more than you'd get for your money than from some competing retail brands that are still selling old-generation Pentium fireballs at Mac Mini prices, and equipping Vista-based computers with just 1 GB of RAM. If your needs are sending email, surfing the Web, word processing, watching videos and performing mild photo editing tasks on low- to medium-resolution images, you'd likely be pleased with a Mac Mini.
However, if you're a typical Tom's Hardware Guide power user, you'd likely find that these entry-level units are inadequate. Despite using SATA, the 5,400 rpm hard drive is clearly going to be slow compared to today's standard of 7,200 rpm. There's no external SATA port available, and for reasons I cannot explain, Apple, which normally runs its Firewire ports using 800 Mb/s 1394b, only enables the Mac Mini Firewire port with 400 Mb/s 1394a. Apple invented Firewire, they really should know better.
Even considering all of the above, the most-significant problem for those of us that enjoy games and 3D rendering quickly becomes clear: the Mac Mini uses a motherboard graphics chip. As much as Intel has improved upon these, particularly with the inclusion of OpenGL instructions, you can still only go so far with on board graphics, and for those of us that frequent this site, that just won't be far enough.
