New Apple stuff! Flash ipods & biscuit tin sized computer!!

[df0notfound]

well im sat here at work useing a 733mhz g4 tower with 512mb ram i currentley have, photoshop cs, safari, itunes, entorage, and dreamweaver open and its running pretty fast i also do a lot of quark and illustrator work but im rambaling now, this mac mini system has double the proccesor power so should have no problem running these apps at all.

And a G4 would outstrip a ****ty 300 quid entery level dell machine so can we lose the preconceptions about this being a machine for messing with itunes and watching dvds on, a creative could quite happliy use this thing to create artwork on or edit videos.

and no im not a mac fanboy i just sheled over a grand for a pc that can run games like half life 2

Pretty much same here 800mhz G4 with 512meg ram, its a powerbook so it has a pretty big L3 cache which makes it run about the same speed as a 1ghz G4. Anyway done loads of photoshop/illustrator/flash/director/final cut(pretty basic stuff anyway, of course rendering takes a while but creating aint bad),maya on it. Can throw loads at it and it doesn't get sluggish or anything.

[Valken]

RAM matters more than CPU clock speed on Macs...

I have a G4 Powermac that I've been upgrading over the past few months...

It started out with 256 RAM and a 466MHz G4 and upping the ram to 1.5GB had the most impact on performance, next was a Radeon 9200 and after that was an SATA controller. The CPU had the least impact when I upgraded it.

[bowser123]

This is going to be a stupid question undoubtedly but I'll ask anyhow.

I have an original iMac G3. It has a VGA Output connection thingy which is used for video mirroring. Would I be able to buy this new Mac Mini and simply connect it to my current iMac for it's screen?

[ojlim]

well, **** the mac, but ipod shuffle, yes! tiny ipod + USB harddrive = genius. I must get a 1GB model. Maybe it will be even cheaper next year.

[John Beaulieu]

getting a few shuffles as belated xmas presents for friends ... might even get one for myself for when i cba taking my ipod with me

[Valken]

bowser,

Afraid not

oklim,

erm, usb thingys like that have been out for ages

[yashiro]

Breakout boxes are available that provide SPDIF out (M-Audio). Which is the point of this wee thing.

Want the extras? Pay for it; Apple's usual trick.

[yashiro]

This is going to be a stupid question undoubtedly but I'll ask anyhow.

I have an original iMac G3. It has a VGA Output connection thingy which is used for video mirroring. Would I be able to buy this new Mac Mini and simply connect it to my current iMac for it's screen?

You'd need VGA IN, not out.

[mid]

Breakout boxes are available that provide SPDIF out (M-Audio).

Really? Where? I can't find one on the Apple site.

[yashiro]

The answer was in the post.

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/SonicaTheater-focus-1.html

[ojlim]

oklim,

erm, usb thingys like that have been out for ages

You missed my point completely.

I have a 256 USB harddrive myself. But it's not an ipod.

[Valken]

I see... but USB harddrive/music player combos have also been out for ages... with better support for audio types and screens! ACTUAL LCD SCREENS!

[JibberX]

I'm moderately interested in the Mac mini, as I have been moderately interested in most of their kit over the last 5 years. Never bought any of it though. If I was a box to play on it'd be a CISC box, with Linux... I'm not really a multimedia guy anymore.

[mid]

Oooh, Coax digital out, rather than optical, even better (I've got a spare coax in, but not a spare optical). Thanks Yashiro.

Back to the iPod stick, I'm aware of some previously existing 512Mb flash audio players, but

1) since this does mp3 (inc. VBR) and AAC, and most other players won't do AAC (certainly won't sync as well with iTunes), why do you say they have better media support? There's Ogg, I suppose, but I can cope without it.

2) I wouldn't say no to a display, but the very, very few 1Gb ones I've seen are a lot more than ?99, so this looks like a bargain.

[Valken]

1) WMA tends to make nice small files with *ok* sound quality and then there is OGG. I am nitpicking though, I've got a 20GB 3g iPod and an iBook so I don't need any of Apple's new product range.

2) Maybe, I haven't done price hunting really so I can't argue.