Hi Folks,
I'm writing to ask for reactions to an item in today's Daily Telegraph "Digital Life" (in the "Review" section).
This week, they're testing "Mini-PCs", and I quote their review of the Apple Mac Mini ("From £399"):
"Apple's Mac Mini is the tiniest 'small form factor' computer in this group. It is 6.5in square, 2in high, and has a gorgeous brushed-metal finish below the iconic Apple-white lid. Unfortunately, it's also the perfect case of style over substance. The 1.66GHz version is certainly cheap, but it's also very slow. Even the faster model uses only a 1.83GHz Core Duo processor (not the nippier Core 2 Duo) and has just 512 MB of RAM. You will also have to supply the keyboard, mouse and monitor. We'd recommend the Mac for undemanding word processing, surfing the web, or impressing your friends. For amything more intensive, steer clear."
Ehh?? "very slow"?? What *do* people use computers for these days. then?
For years I've been doing word-processing (including "demanding") and web-surfing on
A: 75MHz CPU + 64MB RAM B: 366MHz CPU + 128MB RAM C: 733MHz CPU + 512MB RAM (which at the same time happily runs Win98 in VMWare)
(etc).
and I've done a lot of quite intensive computational work too (dunno about impressing my friends, though ... ); and I've never had a machine more beefy than (C).
I can see that the Apple Mac Mini could be inadequate for computing predictions of climate change, or similar; but what the hell can it be that enough of Joe Public want to do with a computer that it wouldn't be up to?
(OK I can see a case for more RAM; but that should be upgradeable).
Any comments?
Ted.
PS For comparison, the complete set of today's "Mini PC" reviews can be found at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/digitallife/index.jhtml
and click on "on trial"
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 19-May-07 Time: 17:09:17 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------