Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/04/11

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Subject: [Leica] Re:Computers get a Mac don't look back Mac Mini $499
From: patrick at photo.net (Patrick (Washington, DC))
Date: Mon Apr 11 10:57:41 2005

what a hassle...  

i seriously don't think that Mac Minis are targeted for the heavy PS-user 
crowd. They are more
entry-level machines and a marketing effort to bring down price (not really 
that cheap once you
add keyboard, mouse and display...)   Sure, they are cool, but the end goal 
of these are to become
media-centers once Apple's software is updated.

p.

--- Feli <feli2@earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> On Apr 11, 2005, at 10:27 AM, Henning Wulff wrote:
> 
> > The only real downside of the mac mini is the slow, small (2-1/2") 
> > hard drive. It makes it even more important to get all the RAM you can 
> > get, if you want to do Photoshop stuff. A local photographer I know 
> > who shoots Leicas and digital sold his Powerbook and got a mac mini; 
> > his reasoning was that it's smaller than the Powerbook and likely less 
> > fragile to carry, he has a larger screen at home and any client will 
> > have a screen and keyboard available if needed, and that screen will 
> > also likely be a lot larger than the Powerbook one.
> 
> If you are going to do a lot of Photoshop on a Mini, it would be 
> advisable to get a fast external 3.5 inch firewire drive and
> make it your system drive, i.e. boot off of it. The small 2.5 inch 
> 'laptop drive' in the mini is not particularly fast (4200rpm)
> and really isn't designed to take a hammering as Photoshop's cache 
> disk. Also keep in mind the OS X will use the disk
> for virtual memory and caching, which will stress it even more.
> 
> 1GB of RAM is probably a must.
> 
> The system bus is the other bottle neck in the Mini. It's not in the 
> same league with the desktop units, but certainly not unusable.
> 
> It would be advisable to add up the cost of the extra RAM and external 
> drive and see how it compares to the base G5 unit.
> 
> 
> >
> > Mac users get derided for using something that's 'easy', and doesn't 
> > need as much effort to configure and keep running cleanly. That 
> > argument only works if you're interested in the techie/geeky stuff 
> > (which I happen to be). For most people, getting some work done with 
> > the computer is more important than the setup or tweaking, and for 
> > those people a mac often provides a better experience.
> 
> The great thing about OS X is that you can use it two ways. As a pure 
> user who never looks under the hood,
>   or as a serious hacker, since it really is UNIX/LINUX.
> 
> 
> feli
> 
> >
> 
> 
> ________________________________________________________
> feli2@earthlink.net                   2 + 2 = 4                      
> www.elanphotos.com
> 
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