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.
As of today, 5 out of 7 of my co-workers have received their free mini mac as well! Don’t be afraid to drink the kool-aid, it’s safe and results in a mac mini, good stuff indeed!
Just received my free mini mac!!! It’s wicked awesome!
USB hubs are cheap $12 for a 4 port one, OS X (10.4 now) is better than XP, I ran XP Pro and had to spend too much time maintaining and fixing it.
Spyware and Virus’ will never be a problem for Mac users but will for windows users.
Norton Antivirus + update subscription will more than makeup for the price differnce.
The G4 is a better processor than the Celeron as it has more L1 and L2 cache.
Search google for a video called the ‘Mhz myth’ it shows a G4 with half the speed of a pentium 4 mopping the floor with it. Thats a Pentium 4 as well, imagine what it would do to a crappy Celeron.
People who buy low end PCs usually just want to;
Download photos from their camera, occasionally videos from their videocamera (which you need firewire for as USB 2.0 drops frames), manage still photos, send emails, word process and browse the internet.
Given apple’s hardware, OS and included software it makes it a better package than the dell.
Even if you want to play games, you get a dedicated graphics card, not a cheap intel card that borrows system memory.
Dell units are utter junk and everyone knows it! They cost $400 for a reason. I work with computers and I’ve seen no Dell that can compare with the design and build quality of the Mac Mini.
Um… The Mac can use a $20 USB wireless adapter too - it’s not an advantage of the DELL.
And for the record, Apple’s integrated audio is ten times better than DELL’s.