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 $20? It’s probably about the same for a Bluetooth adapter. And you can use them, too, without an additional USB hub, because the Dell has six USB ports rather than two.
By the way, the Dell also has two PS/2 ports for the keyboard and mouse (you can also use USB ones). On the Mac Mini, you must use a USB keyboard and a USB mouse. That immediately uses up both ports, unless the keyboard has a built-in USB hub (some do).
When we look at audio on their comparison chart, the Mac Mini has “Audio out” while the Dell has “Integrated audio”. Integrated audio, much like integrated video, has the connotation of being low quality. Now, I’m not saying it isn’t - in fact, it is - but guess what?
The Mac Mini’s “audio out” is also integrated audio!
Now, to clarify, I’m not a big fan of Dell, but I just had to post this because the facts were so slanted and skewed.
- ThinkPad Advanced Mini Dock
- Set up a computer in my room
- My free Mac mini has shipped
- Installed OS X Tiger on my Mac Mini
- Free Mac Mini from FreeMiniMacs.com
- Dell PowerEdge 400SC AD1980 Audio Driver
- OS X, Similar to Windows CE
- Google Wireless Mouse
- OS X on a ThinkPad Z61t with Kalyway OSx86 Atheros Wireless
- Impressed by the Mac mini
» Impressed by the Mac mini
» Dell Inspiron Mini 9
» Mac mini can run on batteries
» ThinkPad Advanced Mini Dock
I have a Mac Mini, a PC, and an Intel Mac capable of running Windows, Linux, and OS X.
“Sorry, you’re wrong. All M$ OSes have design comprimises that make then unsecure. Add to that, their typical sloppy programming, and you have tons of security holes. Macs are more secure by design. That’s a fact and anybody who says any different, either has no clue about security, has their head in the sand, or makes money off the M$ platform.”
A lot of the security compromises exist not because of mere programming or design flaws, but because of trade-offs. For instance, Windows XP performs far better in terms of responsiveness than OS X, given the same hardware. I know this for a fact since I actually run both Windows and OS X on my one Intel Mac and it’s very clear which OS makes more efficient use of hardware.
Some of the security compromises like being able to create hooks into code can be very useful to a software engineer. Unfortunately they also leave room for malicious use, but that’s true of many good things. Owning a DVD burner allows one to illegally copy DVDs (and so many people do this), but that doesn’t mean that DVD burners are purely evil.
Furthermore, limiting flexibility easily allows one to write tighter and more robust software. OS X (as well as X Windows) is often a lot more limited in terms of its API and its UI than Windows. When it comes to interface customization, OS X applications are typically far more limited by nature. For some, that may justify the added robustness one can find, but for others like me, that may not be the case.
Finally, software isn’t necessarily more stable on Mac than Windows. To make a semi-fair comparison (no comparison can be truly fair), we need to look at software which exists for both platforms. Lightwave, for instance, is FAR more robust on the PC than Mac. Just look at the history of bug reports, and it’s clear that the Windows version is WAY more stable. The same is true of Maya. With Doom 3, aside from the fact that PC hardware of the same price floors G5’s, I also experienced a lot more crashes on the G5 over my PC. When it comes to Photoshop CS, however, my PC version was admittedly less stable. Still, I remember Photoshop 6 in school on the G4 crashed a whole lot.
For the most part, I’ve found software that exists on both platforms to generally be stable on the Windows side. That’s most likely attributed to the fact that Windows versions have a much higher demand, so developers tend to prioritize the Windows versions when it comes to testing and bug fixes.
Stop arguing. I had a friend that loved his Mac a lot. And still does, and he would always tell me about how crappy PC’s are. So i told him to come over and I’ll show him my custom build. So he does, and was amazed how fast, easy to work with. I am running xp pro, with different windows style, using stylexp, and its a great system. Runs well and has no problem. I dont really care if MAC is better than PC or vice versa. But what I believe is to each his own. One person might like one way of software/hardware and one the other. Whoever says PC’s suck and always uses DELL as an example is just complete bullshit. Check out Micron PC or even home built system. Mine is a AMD athlon which in actuality runs at 2.4ghz and its faster than a 3.2ghz P4. So it all depends on what hardware you have and the way its being used. I use it for games and writing for college. Listening to music and editing photos.
But in all seriousness, quit this crap. What the guy meant in that article is that APPLE likes to falcify or sway or skew their wording. I just dont understand how they can compare it to a PC. A mac and pc are completely different, just wait until someone will compare the fasted intel duo core vs a amd athlon dual core or the new AM2 processor. And then we’ll see who’s faster or not. But we must understand that macs and pcs are completely different platforms. The biggest reason why I’m a pc user is the games, my geforce can kick ass, and it works great and i dont have to wait 4 years until an upgrade comes around. And i dont have to worry about buying the wrong hardware that wouldnt work with a mac.
http://www.newegg.com baby!!!!
Anyways please quit this argument, its just stupid.
You know, Dell may end up putting an end to the whole Mac vs Windows BS once and for all if Mike can convince Steve that letting Dell build Macs would be a good move for Apple.