Dave’s Mac mini arrived via FedEx last weekend. Great little BRODKM (Bring your own display, keyboard, mouse) machine. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jonah’s first major computer when he’s in grade school is one of these. (Jonah’s presently using an old $10 Mac SE. He likes to type nonsense on the keyboard and click and scroll haphazardly about on the mouse.)
Just yesterday we popped the mini’s case using a small screwdriver and a couple of putty knives and installed 1 GB of RAM. Getting the case off is a bit of a trick, but once you have it the RAM upgrade is simple. Dave reports that the mini is significantly happier running Mac OS 10.3.8 with 1 GB of RAM versus the stock 256 MB. I don’t doubt it.
Not sure what else to say about the mini. It’s a Mac. It works. It works well. Huge applause to Apple’s engineers and designers for being to put so much in such a small form factor and at such a low price. It’s a brilliant computer, and I hope Apple sells them by the boatload.
As part of our effort to encourage such an event, Dave and I have volunteered to show off his mini at next month’s Salem Macintosh Users Group (SMUG). We attended February’s meeting only to find that we were amongst the community’s intelligentsia. We’ve not heard back yet as to whether or not we’ll end up presenting anything, but I dare say that we’ll be able to provide a good show if called upon.