Mac Mini for Design?
- Started
- Last post
- 27 Responses
- juskin
so my 13 inch laptop from 2007 is giving me issues, as I have moved to freelancing some places require me to bring my own equipment, so instead of replacing it with another laptop which doenst provide enough screen-real estate, I am thinking about picking up the mac mini server, throwing snow leopard and picking up a 24 inch monitor as a portable design rig. Anyone try this? I mean spec wise the cpu is on point, 2.6 core duo, 4 gb ram 1tb hd, and an hdmi output, the only thing is does it stay cool? do the components allow for multitasking in a performance sense? any input on this would be greatly appreciated, as I have to make a decision this weekend! worse case scenario I am going to go to apple and just try and launch and do a bunch of stuff to see how it handles it...
- bored2death0
i would not recommend using a mac mini as your work machine.
plus, can you imagine someone stumbling into work with a display and a computer and a keyboard and a mouse?
get a 17 inch MBP.
- juskin0
well I wouldnt be taking it home every day, and there are cases for each, my main concern is power and a 17 macbook pro is around 2k.... I could get a imac for less than that and still have 10 more inches of screen real estate.
- akrok0
i would put the $$$ on the imac.
- amazing0
Whatever you do, don't get a hp. I had this hp for 2 years, and it's dying on me already.
- juskin0
wow so no one has any faith in the mac mini huh? has anyone actually tried one for work tho???
- bjladams0
i did that a couple of years ago- after a few months i went ahead and got the laptop. my wife enjoys the old one now.
- M_C_P0
I had a macbook pro with similar specs about a year and a half ago running final cut pro, after effects, etc. While not as blazingly fast as a mac pro, I was able to work AND i was portable. mind you i'm running video, so for design apps i'm guessing it's quite capable.
however, image counts for a lot. I think the notion of showing up to a freelance gig with a laptop is generally accepted. i can't say i've heard of too many people showing up with a mac mini.
- Josev0
I worked on a mini (2GHz Duo Core) for almost year after my powerbook died unexpectedly. It was my backup machine and it did the job just fine 99% of the time.
- Josev0
This is an older profile on the Apple web site, but Joshua Davis claimed he used a mini for his work: http://www.apple.com/pro/profile…
- of course it's a mac mini its not a performa, some peeps just like to exaggerateMiguex
- raf0
It will get the job done, that's for sure.
But... they're too expensive ie. compared to 13" macbooks, which can easily be used the way you use mini as well.
Especially the "server" one - it is expensive for what it offers.
- I wanted to get a mini myself, but you can get a comparable 13" macbook for very little more, esp. refurbraf
- Miguex0
yeah, I don't think there is a problem w using a mac mini either, just for portability I would recommend a 15 mpb, but most people here will always advise to buy the biggest & faster even if they don't know what you will be using it for.
I think a mac mini will do fine for web/print stuff, do you know how many people are still using machines from like 6 years ago?
In fact, I'm going to say most studios tend to take their time to update their machines, and they still manage to produce their work 24/7.
- Miguex0
Have you consider looking for mbp 15 refurbished, maybe a previous model too, you don't need the latest one, and if you get it from apple you have 1 year to pay for apple care.
- bjladams0
last office job i was at used nothing but minis. every 3-4 months they'd go out and buy a few more and send everyones old one down the line- we used them to run plotters, solvent printers, die cutters, engravers, had them at the design stations and register as well as some for the kids to play on. they work great. just didnt impress me for a mobile freelance machine.
- pillhead0
I cannot believe these bloody things are over £600, WTF.
- juskin0
thnks for the insight. Yes I know about refurbs, Im rocking the black macbook from a few years back, I maxed out the ram, upgraded the harddrive to a 500gb wd drive, I even did a clean re-install to see if I could get better performance, but with a browser, a IM client(required for the gig) and PS/CS5, it drags too much for me, now I dj, and it works fine for serato so I really dont want another laptop and quite frankly I hate 17inch MCP and That still isnt the screen size I need. also I am working with them to get me a screen, so that may be covered. and the price is fine 1k for the mac mini and 200 for a 24 inch lcd screen is 1200 and the 13 MBP is 1289 on the refurb site and I think the processor on the mac mini is slightly higher. Im just concerned about it overheating or the drives not performing as well as a 7200 rpm drive.
- nthkl0
Powerbook with a second display. You can even use a 30 inch if you get the upper echelon graphics card.
Mac mini's are great for the TV or kitchen, or even a conference room... but not as a workstation. You'll juts get frustrated once again.
- ukit0
I think people on here are a bit biased on the way to do things. I'm typing this on a Mini, granted it's one of a few different machines I have, but especially with a little extra RAM it's perfectly fine for basic print or web work. More to the point, unless I'm missing something the specs are exactly the same as the Macbook Pro from a year ago - so how could it be the MBP is viable but Mac Mini isn't?
- right, even if it was from 3 years ago, it's still enough.Miguex
- I agree with you. For some reason any time you ask this question and say you have a limited budget, someone sayd you cant work on anything but a 17" MBP and 30" monitor.Josev
- says you cant work on anything but a 17" MBP and 30" monitor.Josev
- It's fucking ridiculous.Josev
- < haha, it's successful marketing. And consider the fact that even with the Mini, the specs compare favorably to a high end machine from 3-4 years ago, when many of us were doing exactly the same kind of work.ukit
- high end machine from 3-4 years ago, when many of us were doing exactly the same kind of work.ukit
- Thelonious_Funk0
Mac mini is fine, I've used them for work, video installations, kiosk installations , running windows, massive projections using watchout.... all kinds o things, good little machines.. i tell everyone wanting to upgrade to a mac to get one if they allready have a screen
- Miguex0
See the:
"I need a point and shoot camera to shoot the damage on my car window to the insurance company, dude just get a haslelblad" thread
- raf0
I'll share a secret, my precious discovery: refurb stock in UK/Ireland is updated at 0:30 GMT.
Actually, a few minutes ago:
http://store.apple.com/uk/browse…You can see there's a proper 13" laptop for £1k. Likely it will be gone by morning, but they always come back.