When I first heard of the new Mac Mini I was a little skeptical to say the least. My initial thought was that this was going to be a repeat of the G4 Cube miscue of a few years ago. For those of us who remember the Cube was Apple’s first attempt at a true space saving machine. It wasn’t a bad machine; it’s looked beautiful but unfortunately suffered from technical problems. I won’t get into them, but it’s safe to say that the Mini is the more well thought out little brother of the Cube.

The Mac Mini is a marvel of design and function and lives up to the boast of world’s smallest fully functional computer. It comes in two flavors that, from the outside, are indistinguishable from one another. The higher and lower end models (I use this term loosely because they have a price difference of only $100) only differ in processor speed (1.42Ghz for the high end and 1.25Ghz for the low end) and hard drive space (80GB vs 40GB). With Apple’s build to order options you can have almost the same machine.

From a design standpoint the Mini is a beautiful machine. Standing at a scant 2 inches off the desk the Mini is as unobtrusive as clock radio would be. One of the best things about this design is that it makes the machine easy to carry around. As long as the place you are going has open monitors (The output support DVI and VGA with the included adapter) and a USB mouse and keyboard you have a very versatile machine.
So that’s all the rosy positive stuff. There are a few drawbacks to this machine. As it’s predecessor the Cube, the Mini isn’t as upgradeable as many people would like. However, this machine isn’t meant to be a high-end professional computer (As the Cube was supposed to be) so that’s not as big a problem as it would first seem.

The only other major sticking point I had was the fact that there are two options for the computers. There is, as I mentioned before, very little difference between the 80 and 40 gig models. The speed jump isn’t huge as it is in some other Apple lines. Overall I don’t think that two options were necessary. I think Apple should have had one model with the faster processor and a 60GB hard drive and let you choose if you wanted a bigger or smaller hard drive or more RAM.

Those minor things said overall this is a wonderful machine to help someone get into the Mac lifestyle. Perfect for switchers or first time users and even for experienced users on a tight budget (i.e. college students like myself). I give the Mac Mini a 4 out of 5.