An apple a day...

By now, both the Mac-savvy and Mac-envy worlds are in a intense battle about the Mac mini. It’s a low-powered box with a old 9200 ATI graphics card that (until two days ago) was not listed in the future Core Image list of supported cards. The list is gone, by the way, from the Apple site.

In spite of all this, I’m ordering one as a gift. It’s just a no brainer. It’s cheap (cheaper than a high-end iPod) and will allow me to cut down the family support calls for computer stuff.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people don’t get a simple thing: not everyone is a top end gamer that needs a super FSB with gigabytes per second transfer rate. Yes, the Mac mini will not play Doom 3, at least with the Doom 3 requirements published by Aspyr, but will slice and dice you photos, it will burn your DVDs, and it will stream your music to your Airport Express.

And, it will infect your brain.

There is always some things that you would like to be better. I would like to have a better graphics card (or at least assurance from Apple that it will support Core Image in Tiger), I would like that the memory would be replaceable without going to a Apple Specialist (although you can argue that Apple is trowing them a bone: the retail stores are killing the apple specialist network, this will allow them to have some services to offer), and I would like a USB in the front (but I totally agree that would ruin the design).

I think that, if Apple can keep up with the demand, they will fly of the shelfs.

And now in the local news: when will they get to Portugal? They will be launched January 22, so I’m expecting to be able to buy one in February. And to put my money where my mouth is, I made a bet with Nuno: if a Mac mini is spotted on sale, in Portugal, before the last day of February, he will buy me lunch.