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Buying Advice
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jnbull
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Alabama
Status: Offline
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Sep 30, 2006, 06:49 PM
 
Hello all,

I am in the middle of trying to decide what type of Mac to buy. This will be my first personal mac (I have occassionally used one at my job - Powerbook 1ghz 17") and I am looking to buy either the 24" Imac or a mac mini.

Here are the primary things I would like to do with my machine:

1. Edit photos (nothing major - but I am thinking of getting aperature at some point down the road)
2. Edit simple videos - such as my upcoming wedding video, vacation videos or videos of the children in our families. I have experience with Final Cut Pro and at some point I might purchase FCP Express.
3. Using my mac as a media computer. I want to get one of the TV tuner type cards so that I can record, playback and burn to DVD some television shows.
4. Media Hub - download music/videos from ITUNES and use it with ITV at some point when the hardware comes out.
5. Have Windows XP installed on the computer.
6. Use Ilife for its web creation and other content creation tools.
7. Normal MS Office apps

I also have several windows boxes that I will continue to use as well.

I initially was thinking of getting the Imac, however I have been rethinking it recently. For about the same price or less I could get a mini and a 23" (ACD) or 24" (Dell) that I could hook a KVM up to and share the monitor between my Windows boxes and my PC boxes.

However, I am concerned that the mini might not be powerful enough for the purposes I wish to use it.

If any of you have any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
A windows user looking to convert
     
Chimpmaster
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Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: AUSTRALIA
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Sep 30, 2006, 08:11 PM
 
I have exactly the same question at the moment. Im leaning towards the imac due to the big difference in video card, but thats just me.
MacBook Alu, 13", 2.4Ghz, 4GB RAM, 256MB video
G5 Imac, 17", 1.9Ghz, 1.5GB RAM, 128MB video, built in isight, airport and bluetooth
Indigo iBook, 366mhz; 320MB RAM; CD; FW; Airport
     
Chimpmaster
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Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: AUSTRALIA
Status: Offline
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Oct 1, 2006, 07:42 PM
 
Well, I decided to go with the mac mini in the end. I purchased a 19" monitor and a lacie mac mini hard drive to go with the system. This way I will have a 7200RPM HD connected by firewire, which will make a massive difference to system performance (not to mention a total storage of 220GB).

I have configured the mac mini with 1 GB of ram. I figure it will be enough.

I have an xbox 360 so the machine is purely for productivity, so I figure its a good choice, and a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than the medium imac.
MacBook Alu, 13", 2.4Ghz, 4GB RAM, 256MB video
G5 Imac, 17", 1.9Ghz, 1.5GB RAM, 128MB video, built in isight, airport and bluetooth
Indigo iBook, 366mhz; 320MB RAM; CD; FW; Airport
     
   
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