Pem’s Tech Blog

Introduction
This is my first impressions with the Mac Mini, and really Mac OS-X in general.

I’m a huge Windows user, and do a significant amount of cross-platform development for Windows/Linux and use of Linux, especially the Linux/Unix command-line console (most of my Linux use is down via remote access to Linux machines, such as VNC with xterm consoles).  But Mac OS-X, of course I’m aware of it and pay attention to the tech news (or even tech tips) for it and know some who use it, but I’ve simply never owned a Mac OS-X system (at home or at office/work).

So I finally decided to try out Mac OS-X, with an actual official/legit Mac OEM computer.  So here is my first impressions experience.

I’m a huge Windows user, and do a significant amount of cross-platform development for Windows/Linux and use of Linux, especially the Linux unix command-line console (most of my Linux use is down via remote access to Linux machines, such as VNC with xterm consoles). But Mac OS-X, of course I’m aware of it and pay attention to the tech news (or even tech tips) for it and know some who use it, but I’ve simply never owned a Mac OS-X system (at home or at office/work).

So I’d like to preface that my intention is not in any way shape or form to even consider “switching” from Windows to Mac OS-X.  The real reason is to play with cross-platform development for 3d graphics/GPU software development (ie, DirectX for Windows, and OpenGL for cross-platform support).  In other words, I will develop something and get it to work on Windows (such as with Visual Studio C++), then test it out on Mac OS-X and fix any compiler errors or run-time bugs (such as with C++ XCode).

What Mac?

One big disappointment with Apple is the claim “simplicity is better than choice”.  It also bothers me that their computers tend to be overpriced relative to most other OEM’s (such as HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, etc).  However, because of Apple’s move to x86, you can run Mac OS-X on other hardware besides just Mac OEM hardware, although it’s not officially supported, and sounds like it might be hit or miss or something might break due to a future upgrade.

Finally, of course it bothers me that everything is Intel (not AMD) and most of it is currently NVIDIA (although they do have some ATI options too with iMac and Mac Pro); hopefully they will change.  Sounds less likely because of the “simplicity is better than choice” mantra, but we’ll see; after-all even now they do have both NVIDIA and ATI options on some of their computers.

Since this is for cross-platform software development, and I want to test the software I develop on officially supported hardware, I decided to get actual Mac hardware.

For desktop you have 3 choices (2009/07): Mac Mini, iMac, Mac Pro.  Mac Pro is huge and very very expensive.  iMac is huge and attached to its monitor, which I don’t want because this is for a secondary machine probably using a KVM.

Mac Mini is not very powerful (uses laptop hardware), but it’s form factor is awesomely small and portable (2.9 pounds, weighs about the same as many netbooks, and less than any normal size laptop) (2 x 6.5 x 6.5 inches).  And it’s price is a lot more reasonable than Mac Pro.  And it would be great to make it easy to be portable and take it on trips (I travel frequently, and I don’t like having large heavy stuff to move for if/when I change apartments).

For laptops, the MacBook line has various choices: MacBook Air, MacBook, MacBook Pro.

MacBook Air is about as light weight as the Mac Mini, so I have to say I was pretty tempted, but in the end the price difference is what got me ($1500-$2500-ish vs. $600-$1000-ish): tempting yes.  Worth the extra money for me personally: no.

MacBook (standard) impressed me less.  Compared to Mac Mini, it has a battery, keyboard/touchpad, and display/LCD.  For me, this just wastes space/weight, limits the form factor, and costs extra.

MacBook Pro: One important issue for me is the graphics/GPU.  All the laptop hardware (including the Mac Mini) has the same NVIDIA graphics (NVIDIA GeForce 9400M).  Except the MacBook Pro, if you get the 15” model then you get both the integrated graphics (NVIDIA GeForce 9400M) and you can use the more powerful discrete graphics (NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT) (although I think you have to logout to do the software switch between them).  I was a big fan of this, except that it is 5.5 pounds and bigger, and more significantly the price was a lot more starting at $2000 for (NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB).  Tempting, but I decided to stick with the Mac Mini.

Overall I do like their case and form factor designs, but it’s also important to point out that their choice is overall extremely limited compared to the rest of the PC world, and they really don’t necessarily have anything particularly unique (besides being official Mac OEM hardware), and a lot of their choices have trade-offs (such as MacBook air has few ports no optical drive; the batteries on the MacBooks are not easy to swap).  Still, I thought the Mac Mini sounded kind of cool, so I decided to try it out.  Low cost, light weight, awesome form factor.

Finally, I went with the Mac Mini, but my runner-ups were:
* MacBook Pro 15”: 5.5 pounds, (NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB): the main reason I didn’t go with it was (price) and (weight/size), but I almost did anyway because of the GPU upgrade
* MacBook Air: 3.0 pounds: the main reason I didn’t go with it was price: on my current budget (very low), I had huge trouble justifying the extra $1000

What I’d change with the Mac Mini

Discrete GPU: As I’ve ranted about elsewhere, the first thing I’d consider is replacing the optical drive with a discrete GPU (such as the Mac Pro has 9600M GT with 256MB).  Because it’s just a CD/DVD drive, that’s not something I think most people use frequently anymore, and if you do, then you could do what the Mac Air does: either use an external drive (such as USB), or share another computer’s disc drive with Remote Disc (for me I’d use my Windows laptop or Windows desktop).

Blu-ray: If it was a Blu-ray drive and Mac OS-X supported Blu-ray DVD movies, I might not have said that the optical drive is just a waste of space/weight.  Maybe in 6-24 months, the latest version of Mac OS-X will support Blu-ray, and I can replace my Mac Mini’s CD/DVD drive with a Blu-ray/CD/DVD drive.

Pem (Admin) :: Jul.10.2009 :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X :: No Comments »

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