Elliot Lee

An article on MacWorld.com claims that the Dell isn’t cheap anymore, despite costing $100 less, when you consider all that it lacks in comparison to the Mac Mini.

They’re wrong.

The specs table on their page states compares the Mac Mini’s “Two USB 2.0 ports” with the Dimension 2400’s “USB 2.0 (assumed–Dell doesn’t list this in the specs)”.

The Mac looks better, right? It actually isn’t. The Dell computer has six USB 2.0 ports: two in front, four in the back. As far as USB ports are concerned, it’s superior.

In the wireless category, they say the Mac Mini is “AirPort Extreme- and Bluetooth-ready”, while the Dell has “No wireless”.

The Mac also has no wireless. AirPort and Bluetooth cost extra - a lot extra. Did anyone mention that you can easily get an 802.11g USB adapter for $20? It’s probably about the same for a Bluetooth adapter. And you can use them, too, without an additional USB hub, because the Dell has six USB ports rather than two.

By the way, the Dell also has two PS/2 ports for the keyboard and mouse (you can also use USB ones). On the Mac Mini, you must use a USB keyboard and a USB mouse. That immediately uses up both ports, unless the keyboard has a built-in USB hub (some do).

When we look at audio on their comparison chart, the Mac Mini has “Audio out” while the Dell has “Integrated audio”. Integrated audio, much like integrated video, has the connotation of being low quality. Now, I’m not saying it isn’t - in fact, it is - but guess what?

The Mac Mini’s “audio out” is also integrated audio!

Now, to clarify, I’m not a big fan of Dell, but I just had to post this because the facts were so slanted and skewed.