"It costs way too much for what you get" You can't compare Apple's prices to that of Dells. It is impossible to sell products for the same price as the cheapo parts major PC manufacturers use and still have them the quality of Apple's. More features + low cost = cheap quality.

ooh a new word. Lavishing. I quite like it. Is it halfway between 'ravishing' and 'lavish', then? That sounds pretty good. Whatever it is, I want it.

of course 'lavishing' has long existed as a participle ("they were lavishing attention on the dinner"). But not as an intransitive participle ("the dinner was lavishing").

It was embarrassing to see the original intel mini barely beating the G4 mini and in some tests losing out to it, thanks to the intel GPU. Put a real GPU in it, Apple, not this intel junk.

The GMA950 *is* "cheapo parts".

It's really obvious when you look at the laptops. I recently priced a Thinkpad with almost EXACTLY the same parts as a Macbook, except for a far superior keyboard and case, *and* an nVidia GPU. And it was cheaper than the Macbook.

The Mac Tax is real.

Why not a small pizza box- with a 3.5" drive, 4gb user upgradeable ram, one slot (even if it's a PCMIA/Cardbus type)and a price point of $500. I can buy a ton of PC's for less with more features, slots, upgradeability- I don't care about the size- if I wanted a small computer it's called a laptop- where Apple already charges DOUBLE.

Can I get fries and shake with that!?

Get a freaken life. Better yet... go on ebay and find a used Mac that will suit your needs.

Based on history, my guess is that the mini will only get smaller, not bigger. Steve doesn't like 'big' (yet Apple sells a Mac Pro that is bigger and less expandable then comparable PC workstations on the market). They'll probably fill it with slow hard drives, slow graphics, limited expansion, and hope people think it's "new" (oh, wait, that's the current mini).

And bhout, what Apple quality are you talking about? You're paying for design, not quality. They get memory, drives, mobos, etc, from the same people that Dell and the rest get them from.

The fact that the mini doesn't ship with a simple keyboard and mouse just shows how cheap Apple is (money wise). It's like the good ol' days when you'd spend $3000 on a new mac and need to get the keyboard (they always threw in the mouse), or a video card.

Of course, in the good ol' days, you could also get a mac with no drives, no video, no memory, and save yourself a boatload of money on Apple's overpriced parts and put in what you want. But that cuts too much into Apple's revenue stream.

Macs blow up just as much as PCs (I guess the quality you're talking about is the fact that it would $1000 to fix my PPC tower's power supply, but only $200 max for a PC).

...Apple today announced it is doing away with the Mac Mini stating that squares are out. In the near future Apple wants to play with designs that involve the circle with the possibility of evolving the design into a sphere... possibly even floating...with the ability to backup Space, not just Time. Fans are sure to want that in fruity colors too. lol

And hey, the whole same internal parts thing as the PC? It's about the development of a total system that makes the Mac better. You don't just get a bunch of parts thrown together and a bunch of companies saying you figure it out. You get a system that was tested and designed to work together as seamless a possible. Ask my buddy about that one who put together his own PC (and he was in college as a computer engineer) and could never get the parts to work well together. Meanwhile, $1000 later...he switched back to Mac.

... nonexistence, I'm grabbing one beforehand. Just because I don't want it as my primary Mac doesn't mean I don't want one...

It's not the fastest machine out there, but it does have it's uses. We use them for our POS stations. The power is definitely sufficient for that. The price is quite reasonable too in that it's small and has everything needed already installed. Sure, I could get some PC box for a few dollars less, but then it's big and bulky and ugly, not to mention running Windows.

At home, I have a couple mini's instead of AppleTV's and they work wonderfully. Attached to them are Elgato EyeTV's to build mini-DVR's. Yes, a Tivo would be cheaper, but there are things I do that require a mac. Plus, I get the advantage of being able to use the TV as a full computer screen with my wireless keyboard system. It's a beautiful thing.

Now, if there were anything to upgrade, here's my list.

1. Internal power supply. That brick is a pain, especially for the mini I have mounted to the back of an LCD in my kitchen. Without the brick, it's a much more beautiful solution.

2. 801.11n, for obvious reasons.

That's really all I'd need. Maybe a larger hard drive would be nice, but quiet is more important than large. If a 3.5" drive makes more noise, I'm not interested.

"I guess the quality you're talking about is the fact that it would $1000 to fix my PPC tower's power supply, but only $200 max for a PC."

Where are you shopping? I've never paid anywhere near that for an Apple power supply, not even for the fairly esoteric one in the XServe. Mind you, if I need to replace a power supply out of warranty... I'm not buying it directly from Apple.

If you're talking about buying parts from Apple, then they're no worse (or better) than Dell (or any other PC manufacturer) in that respect... they make it painful enough to replace parts that it's generally "smarter" to just buy a new machine. I've been quoted prices of over $100 for a fan in a Dell server that I was able to pick up from newegg.com (same exact fan) for less than $20 shipped.

If we're going to discuss the value of the mini, we really need to look at its reason for being... to replace existing machines that already all the required pieces in place, particularly for switchers. In those instances, where nothing else needs to be upgraded, the mini is a good fit.

Is it the best deal for the money? I'd have to agree that it is not.

Were you to purchase a mini, LCD, keyboard, mouse, and RAM to match an equivalent iMac you'd likely save less than $150 over the iMac... and you'd be lacking a lot more than $150 worth of better hardware in the mini versus the iMac. The graphics card alone in the iMac is pretty much worth the difference in cost for most of us.

They make great little backup drives with built in DVD burner.

it had any kind of bluray drive in it. i know it along with the macbooks would be the last to recieve such an update, but i can dream right? If something like that were to happen, I would snatch one up so fast...Truthfully that is the only thing I am really waiting for which sucks because if it doesn't fade off into non-existence like some think (not me) then I think it will be around 2 years before I see something like that happen. So unless I get some unexpected cash flow, then i have to decide where do i put the Blu, the Mini or the MBP? Hmmm