She is still shaking her head. "What do you mean that little thing is the computer? It looks like a tupperware sandwich box."

Once we got it set up and she reclaimed about 1/4 acre of desk space, she was in heaven. After a week of looking over at the Windows spyware collection box in disgust, I went back and got a mini for me, too.

Now the PC is relegated to uploading weather info to my web site.

 

FC4 is pretty nice. And you can't beat the price.

 

Your post sparked my interest, since I do not follow this pc stuff. I checked the Mac site and was thinking OMG how cool is that. But a second search showed a few items missing, to quote "no serial ports, no way to connect a printer, no PS/2 ports, no floppy drive, no 5.25" bays, no PCI slots, no speakers, and no Windows XP..."

 

Why would you want serial ports or PS/2 ports? Any why would you want a floppy drive or 5.25" bay? Or even PCI slots or speakers?

My Dell laptop, while it has speakers, doesn't have any of the items you mentioned. And it works flawlessly for me. And I can't remember the last time somebody seriously used the internal speaker of their desktop...

The Mac Mini comes with an ethernet port, modem port, two USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 400 port, a DVI port and an audio out port. That'll let you connect pretty much anything you'd ever want to. Mouse, keyboard, printer, external storage, network, camcorder, digital camera, etc. etc.

 

Speakers, as you mentioned, would be a must for me. I use mine daily - creating on-line slide shows to music, listening to S2000 at 9k on track videos, music, etc. I can't imagine a pc w/o speakers.

 

[QUOTE=dlq04,Jan 6 2006, 08:42 AM]Speakers, as you mentioned, would be a must for me.

 

Hmm, dlq04, are you using the built-in internal speaker? Mono, no bass, and overall horrible sound quality?

Or do you mean some external speakers? For example, the above pictured ones, or the 4.1 Klipsch set I have? They work with the Mac without any issue.

 

The keyboard has 2 additional USB ports so you can hook up a mouse and whatever else and still have a fre USB port on the box. I am using a wireless printer with the Mini's Bluetooth. Also running the I-net connection through the built-in wireless setup.

 

This is potentially misleading, the Mac Mini comes with no keyboard. I bought the wireless Apple one, and it has no USB ports. Not sure what keyboard you were referring to.

 

Any USB keyboard will work with the Mac Mini. If you ask for an Apple keyboard when you buy a Mini, you get to choose between a wireless KB for $59 or a wired one for $29. The wired one has 2 USB ports built in.