Of course, our household is pretty sold on Mac products, Windows XP is old, Windows 7 is still vaporware, and I wouldn't touch Vista with the proverbial 10-foot pole, so we headed to the Apple Store (online) and considered our options.
Our original plan (before old Smaug started coughing a bit too much smoke) was to buy a MacBook Pro for mommy and daddy, and then follow up eventually with a Mac mini for the kids. However, sometimes plans have to bend to reality, and there was no way we were going to be able to bridge the iMac until the second computer purchase. So, instead, we went straight for the Mac mini and put off the MB-Pro.
Of course, the mini is a BYOKMD box (bring-your-own-keyboard-mouse-and-display), so we also added a nifty 24" widescreen display from Dell and dusted off an old PC keyboard/mouse combo I had laying around. We also, following the "buy the highest performance one you can afford so it won't go obsolete next week" line of thinking, picked the $800 2GB / 250GB mini instead of the cheaper $600 1GB/150GB model.
Here are my first impressions.
Ordering Experience:
First, the ordering process was very simple. Even the "cheap" Apple products are pretty well decked out, so there weren't a gazillion options to choose from. Upgraded processor (no), memory (no), hard disk (no), a few pre-installed applications (again, no), keyboard and mouse (not yet!), accessories, and service plan. Click a few radio buttons, hit the "Buy it" button, and on through the usual checkout process. One relatively nice thing (in the "this should be expected") is that a single click-through on the confirmation status took me to the "Order Status", and a single click from there took me straight to FedEx's tracking data. Very simple and clean.
By contrast, the Dell process was not quite so simple. Don't get me wrong - Dell has a very nice website and ordering system. Still, by contrast, it was harder to find and select the best monitor choice (partly because they have so many choices!), and the checkout process was a bit less clear, due in part to somewhat over-fancy graphics. Again, I'm talking a "9" or maybe a "9.5" vs. a "10" here. It really wasn't a big deal. Dell also shipped via FedEx, and the monitor arrived a full two days prior to the computer. Granted, they were shipping from Texas, not China, but they won the race there.
Where Dell really fell short was their shipping confirmation email. It was in plaintext (not a big deal), and had no less than 10 separate links pertaining to various aspects of my order (including definitions, terms & conditions, a copy of the order confirmation, service rebates, etc.). It was difficult to pick out which one would give me the one piece of information I really wanted - the tracking info! To make matters worse, the top link on the page went nowhere. It was a real letdown in an otherwise excellent ordering experience. To me, once I get the "your order has shipped!", the only question I care about is "Where is my package?". All the rest of the stuff should be in a separate email (maybe the ironically much cleaner order confirmation?) or relegated to clearly lower priority part of the email. I want a single, boldfaced, prominent link that says "TRACK YOUR PACKAGE".
Out Of Box:
Out of box, both products scored very well. I especially noted how they were securely packaged using a minimum - and a minimal variety - of packaging materials. I got the sense that both companies have put a lot of thought into how to safely ship their product with an absolute minimum of waste. And best of all - NO PEANUTS!
The monitor, at about 17lbs, shipped in a slim brown corrugated cardboard box with folded, corrugated cardboard "brackets" to suspend the display within the box. There were also two plastic bags (one for the screen and a second for the base) and a minimal amount of plastic scratch protection over shiny parts. One clever idea: a large paper sheet served double duty as protection for the screen face and as the quick setup sheet with only a handful of pieces of tape to hold it in place. Good thinking on someone's part. Why waste another piece of paper or plastic here? The accompanying "product guide" (legal / warranty mumbo jumbo) and documentation CD were also safely but minimally packaged. Well done, Dell!
As hard an act to follow in this sense as the Dell monitor was, the Mac mini certainly gave it a run for its money. I'll have to explain this one from the inside out, though. First, the computer itself is relatively tiny, at only 6 lbs (shipping weight!), 6.5" square and 2" high, with a separate power brick. The computer, power brick/cord, remote, CDs and paperwork are packaged in tight-fitting cardboard spacers (no styrofoam!) inside a cardboard retail box that is shrink-wrapped. The retail box is then suspended within a corrugated cardboard shipping box by a pair of formed pieces of what I can only describe as the paper equivalent of particle board. The only "downer" I can see here is a nearly excessive use of a cellophane-like plastic wrap around the computer, remote and power brick for scratch protection.
Installation:
Installation couldn't be much easier. The monitor, like virtually all monitors was quite simple: snap in the base, plug in power and video cables, and turn on. The computer was not much more complex. Power, video and keyboard cables (and all other cables) plug into the back. One minor complication was in the video cabling. Because the Mac mini is so small, there is no room for a standard DVI connector on the back. Instead, it provides both a mini-DVI and an Apple DisplayPort, along with a min-DVI to standard DVI adaptor in the box.
Unfortunately, this brings up the one serious downside I have found so far. Cable management is an important issue. Right now, I have five cables coming from the back of this small box: power, video, ethernet, keyboard and an external USB hub. The mini is sitting on my desktop and the cables dangle off the back of the desk. It presents a relatively clean appearance. However, none of the connectors provide more than simple friction to keep them in place. I have already accidentally unplugged the power and mini-DVI connectors more than once while messing around with my desk organization. Losing video is disconcerting, but the computer recovers happily. However, losing power will cause the computer to crash. While OS X is relatively robust to accidental loss of power, this is never a good thing for a computer. For this reason, a better design would provide a more secure power connection. However, it doesn't seem likely that once I get things settled I'll be moving the thing around and knocking the cables loose, and some careful cable management behind the desk will likely further protect things.
Initial User Experience:
Now that I've been using the new mini for a few weeks, I can comment on the user experience. First, this little guy is quiet! Our G5 iMac had a rather annoying fan control bug that caused it to be quite loud. Since my wife suffers from migraines, this did not endear her to the computer. Not so the Mac mini. It is sitting atop my desk at approximately chest level, and I have yet to hear a peep from it, except when loading a DVD. It is virtually silent.
It is also remarkably fast. For everyday tasks, it seems to run effortlessly, with very little wait time. I have a MacBook Pro at work with a 2.4GHz Dual Core processor and the same memory load, and frankly I can't tell the difference. I have yet to run any benchmarks, but I did compile the Apache 2.0 web server, and (compared to compiling it on the iMac) at first I thought the compile had failed, it finished so quick.
As for the operating system, right now it is running OS X 10.5.8 (Leopard), and I have pre-ordered OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), due out next month. The iMac was - and still is - running 10.4 (Tiger). Leopard has been out for a while now, and its usability on the Mac mini is much the same as any other Mac: excellent. I especially like the improved parental controls over Tiger. I can place more meaningful limits on the kids' computer use to match their age and maturity. The new features in iLife 09 are very handy (I'm especially enjoying the facial recognition and place marking in iPhoto!), and the look and feel is quite pleasant.
In short, I'm well pleased with my purchase. Macs are expensive computers, there's no doubt, and the Mac mini is no exception. All told, I'm just over a thousand dollars into this box, and a "comparable" PC might have cost half that. However, in my estimation, the overall experience is worth it. We're quite happy with our new little addition.
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