Mac Mini Power Struggle

How powerful is your computer?

This is a question I've been asking myself recently, as I'm about to buy a new machine. I'm trying to keep my options open, so am juggling between three quite different models:

Option 1.

Sony Vaio VGN-AR51J 17-inch, 2.0Ghz, 250GB HD, Blu-Ray, £799

pros: Powerful processor, Blu-Ray player, nice big screen (for a laptop), not a bad graphics chip (for a laptop), it's a laptop (so I can move it from room to room), it's a Sony.

cons: It's a laptop (I originally wanted a fixed position machine to prevent having to keep plugging and un-plugging stuff), it's a budget computer (even though it's a Sony), it has no HDMI output (a major reason for purchase was to attach to hi-def projector downstairs), it's screen is small (compared to the other options), it has Vista.

Apple iMac 20-inch 2.0Ghz, 250 GB HD, £799

pros: Mac OS X Leopard (still the best), big glass screen, more powerful due to OS and no need for Anti-Virus (why does everybody forget the system drain used by AV when comparing?)), Built-in iLife and other functions, great keyboard & mouse, remote (though quite useless for desktop environment), good permanent media hub, mid-range model, looks amazing.

cons: Relatively poor graphics chip, fewer hardware features than Sony, pricey for a desktop, no Blu-Ray, can't move from room to room, is basically a laptop when judged by its components.

And here is the interesting option (one I hadn't really considered until a few days ago).

Apple Mac Mini 2.0 Ghz, 120 GB HD, BYOKDM, £499

pros: Cheaper by £300, stylish, compact, versatile (can use it for all my requirements), powerful (for it's size), Mac OS X Leopard, iLife, Remote (suddenly useful when placed under the telly), flexibility in screen size (can be used either with 19-inch computer monitor or 46-inch 1080p telly).

cons: Poor graphics chip, is basically a laptop, no screen or control device supplied, small hard drive.


When viewed as separate entities, the fight looks to be between the Sony and the iMac, especially when allied to the rumours that the Mac Mini is due to be 'retired' by Steve Jobs and Apple. But these rumours have been flying around since just after the Apple TV was introduced, and the Mini has had two hardware revisions since then.

I can see why. The Mini was touted to be the entry-level attraction for Mr Switcher when it was introduced. It traded on the fact that most people looking for a cheap way in to the Mac fold would already have a screen, keyboard and mouse and wouldn't necessarily be looking for the most powerful machine out there. But what I don't think they counted on was how much the Mini would appeal to existing Macheads who were starved of the 'Media Centre' type computers that were being offered by the PC manufacturers. It is an eminently versatile little machine, use it as a traditional desktop, an under the telly media and recording device, a quasi-portable hot-swap client or an 'Apple TV-on-steroids'. It may be less powerful that the more expensive Macs, but take a look at all the benchmarks and it is only the gaming that suffers for this. And compared to the Sony, well if my experience of OS X vs Windows so far is anything to go by, I suspect that it will be a lot more efficient to use day-to-day than the Sony.

And what about the lack of graphical grunt? The answer is simply that I don't care. It's quite possible that any Mini that I buy would be placed next to a hulking great Xbox 360 (great machine) and an elegant little Wii (ditto). Why would I need any gaming power from the Mini? I often use Handbrake to encode my DVD's, so I suppose I'll lose some minutes there, but I've been doing that with a G4 1.5 Powerbook for so long that I reckon it'll seem like a silicon powerhouse by comparison. Also, as far as it's green credentials go, the Mini is far more energy efficient than my other two options. And another advantage is that with its small desktop form-factor, it is far more practical to retire as a mail server, a remote storage machine, or a media server (which I think are all going to prove more and more useful in the home as time passes) when it's usefulness as a main computer has diminished.

This all, in fact leads me back to the central point of this blog: how powerful is your computer? I read a great Editor's introduction to Linux Format magazine the other day that posited that an old 800 Mhz machine dumped in the loft was capable of performing 800,00 calculations per second! An immensely powerful machine by any other standards than the resource-heavy, bloatware we call an operating system today.

Processor performance increase rate is slowing down these days. We should be approaching 4.5 Ghz or so by the old formula, but the fact is that nobody except gamers and developers (and dick-measurers) really wants or needs that much power from their appliance any more. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I recently revived an old PC from its XP/Vista torpor by putting Linux on it (now using Ubuntu: not very original I know, but there it is). This extremely cheap option is now my primary computer and serves me for 80-85% of my requirements.

Should I buy a new machine at all? The only reasons I can give to justify the purchase is that I want Leopard now that a lot of the issues have been ironed out (my four-year-old PowerBook will probably struggle with some of its features), I also cannot use some of the Intel-only Mac apps. If it were not for these reasons, I suspect that I would be completely happy with what I've got already.

I hope Apple doesn't get rid of the Mini. It's ominously overdue a speed-bump and the rumours of its demise are gathering apace. The main threat to its existence, ironically, is the aforementioned Apple TV, which is a vastly stripped-down consumer version of the Mini. This product has its charms, I suppose, but doesn't appeal to me at all; not least because its main raison d'etre, the movie downloads, are not even available in the UK yet.

But that Blu-Ray player is also quite alluring.................no! No! Stop it, you Vista-toting harlot!

Vista la Hasta, Baby.

Well, I've done it. I've gone and reinstalled Vista on my ageing desktop. I had it on there toward the end of last year, but had no end of problems; the DVD drive wasn't recognised and had no online drivers (are there really no generic drivers for this eleven-year-old technology yet?), the graphics card drivers were shonky and slowed the machine (P4, 2.66Ghz 2GB RAM, 256Mb Graphics Card: no turkey yet) and several of the key components of a satisfying, stress free experience were just simply not working. In the end, I gave up on it (a relatively easy decision, as I had received Vista Ultimate as a gift) and installed Mandriva Linux, which is a brilliant alternative to Mac and Windows.

I suppose I was harsher than most on Vista because I'm so used to using Mac OS X, which, despite the murmuring of the masses, is by and large free of these hassles. I've only ever had one reason to use the 'hold power switch' technique in four years of owning my PowerBook G4 (a power-cut during a back-up to a mains-powered Hard Drive) and there isn't that infuriating restart circus that you get when dealing with Windows. Productivity? There's no doubt that you can't install the majority of the apps on Mac that you can on XP, but I've got to say that I always get more done on my Mac. There's something about the way Windows works that leads you down blind alleys, installing disappointing needless apps, servicing a protection regime of anti-virus and spyware blockers that encourages me to waste a lot of time on simply messing around with the machine itself. And some of the features that I was looking forward to using most on Vista were a little disappointing.

Take, for example, Dreamscene. This feature allows you to use a video file as your desktop wallpaper (as opposed to your screensaver). I thought this sounded fantastic, and indeed the guys at Microsoft have done a really good job at getting some relatively hi-def video files to run in the background without stealing the amount of resources that you would think. I'm sure that many people like me (most Mac users appreciate a company that tries to make using a computer more palatable) if asked in a focus group would have been very positive about Dreamscene. But, in practice, the effect doesn't come off at all. It should be an extremely impressive thing to see your wallpaper moving around (the effects are pretty good), but there's no getting away from the fact that to most people it just looks like any other movie file playing on the machine. And despite the efforts of the Microsoft crew, it does affect performance, especially on older machines. Somebody at the development stage should have realised that a lot of effort was going into something that just wasn't worth it. And that goes for a lot of what Microsoft has done with Vista: a lot of real effort and achievement in slightly the wrong direction. A lot of the system is derived from Cupertino, and it does feel a little like using Tiger, but for me it simply can't compete.

So why Vista again? Well, the drivers for my various parts have largely come down the pipe, there's more and more compatible software and you can run the system a lot faster if you shut down a lot of the eye-candy. But really it was the efforts of Microsoft in the area of online content and Vista client applications that got me back on side. The Windows Live suite has got a hell of a lot going for it, as Microsoft have learned a lot from the likes of Google and Yahoo and, in my opinion, improved on them. Integration is quick and seamless, and you get a really consistent experience using these apps online and off. I own an Xbox 360 and there is also a fair bit of integration there as well, meaning that there is quite a lot of temptation for someone like me (with not a lot of spare time) to surrender my online efforts to this deserving cause. The only real downside is that I reckon most people won't appreciate these efforts as much as I do and will continue to use the many alternatives on the market. This would reduce the appeal of Windows Live, as it relies on a good proportion of friends, family and colleagues using it, which would be a real shame (I can't believe I'm taking this tack with bloody Microsoft!).

But there is a lesson here for Apple. I love using my Mac; it is no doubt the superior system. I bought my PowerBook at the same time as I bought a Windows laptop and the value for money is in a different league. Features that the PowerBook has and the Winlap didn't are almost endless; Wifi, DVD drive (the Winlap only had a CD, not even a RWCD!), large 17inch screen, silent operation, a consistent and organic operating system, Firewire, USB 2, a fast processor, large HD, the list goes on and on. The PowerBook is still a powerful laptop today when compared with even £600 Windows laptops. But Apple's online integration into OS X is clumsy in my opinion. They put a lot of uploading features into the iLife suite (which is otherwise an impeccable set of software), and offer .Mac, which on the face of it should be a more natural way of getting content online and sharing it. But £69? £69.00 GBP? For something that everyone else is getting free? And the upload speeds in the UK are absolutely atrocious. Reliability is the worst I have ever encountered on this type of product and I have RARELY had a successful backup on iDisk, upload on iPhoto or a happy experience with anything to do with .Mac. Even the email is inferior and offline more often than Yahoo or GoogleMail. The only reason a lot of people continue to subscribe is for the @mac at the end of the address.

 

Am I a .Mac subscriber? Hell yes, but only because I picked up a box at ToysRUs when they were selling their Apple stock off cheap. I got it for £9.99, but I tell you that I had to give it a moments debate even at that price. Come on Apple! Get your act together and sort out a decent free online service.

Must dash, there's a lot more Christmas cheese in the fridge and I haven't come close to blocking my main arteries yet. Happy New Year to everyone and let's hope that there are lots of good techie surprises in 2008.