Mac mini vs. Dell, Round 3

And now, for Round 3 in our Mac mini vs. Dell debate.

Today, we'll compare Mac mini vs. the Chipper Chicken - the least expensive desktop model I could find on Dell's website. Our third Dell contender is the Inspiron 537s, and its specs (as compared to the mini) are as follows:

Item	Mac mini	Inspiron 537s
Price	$799	$269
Processor	2GHz Core2 Duo E7300	Celeron 450 2.2GHz
L2 Cache	3MB shared	512kB
Frontside Bus	1GHz	800MHz
Memory	2GB DDR3 1GHz	2GB DDR2 800MHz
HDD	320GB/5400rpm	320GB/7200rpm
Video	GeForce 9400M	GMA X4500
Network	Gigabit	100Mbit
802.11N Wireless	Included	Optional
PassMark CPU	1371 / 192	668 / 377

And here we go...

Mac mini vs. the Chipper Chicken

The first, most obvious thing we notice is that purchasers of the Insprion 537s save a whopping $530. That's quite a savings, no matter how you cut it. In fact, you could buy nearly three Inspirons for the price of the Mac mini!

But what do you get for your savings? The mini's processor is significantly faster, despite the Celeron's slightly higher base clock. This is due to the Core 2 Duo's inherently more powerful core and, of course, the fact that there are two of them. The mini also sports six times the L2 Cache, a faster memory bus, and the more efficient DDR3 memory.

In addition to the formidable processor and memory differences, the mini sports a significantly more powerful graphics processor, a faster network port, and built-in 802.11N wireless.

All of this points to the fact that, unlike Rounds 1 and 2, these two computers aren't really in the same class. It's like comparing a Yugo to a Mustang. Sure, they've both got four wheels, passenger seating and all the mandatory safety features, and sure, the Yugo is much cheaper, but they really don't compare.

That being said, a computer like the Inspiron will be a good choice for a surprising number of people, especially those on an extremely tight budget. It should do well for basic web browsing (though not, likely, with significant video content), text editing, and other such non-intensive activities.

Still, if you can afford them, any of the other reviewed machines would provide a far better long-term solution for most folks' computing needs.

Next Episode: Software! OS-X vs. Windows!

All of this results in a computer that isn't really even in the same class.