MacCentral Compares the Mac mini to a Low end Dell Computer

By Scott McNulty

As soon as his Steveness unveiled the
Mac mini all the critics of Apple who said, 'How come there isn't a cheap Mac' quickly changed their tune. Unfortunately their new tune was, 'Sure, sure that is great Apple, but I can get a complete Dell system for
$400 and that includes a keyboard, mouse, and monitor.'

Sounds like those critics were confounded by the horrible user interface of the Dell store, because
MacCentral's Dan Frakes
tells it like it is. He compares the Dell Dimension 2400 to everyone's favorite tiny computer; the Mac mini. The Mac mini fares very well.

Dan points out that the Dell doesn't come with the raft of software that is standard on the Mac mini, and that the OS Apple is shipping on its consumer machine isn't a watered down version of the 'real OS' (like Windows XP Home is).
The Dell also doesn't come with a combo drive, and it maxes out at 512 megs of RAM. About that RAM issue, the Dell shares its RAM between the system and the graphics card while the Mac mini comes with an actual video card (shocking, I
know).

That is not even mentioning viruses and spyware (which Dan does).

Yikes, we sure have been talking about the Mac mini a lot here at TUAW, we might have to change our name to 'The Unofficial Mac Mini Weblog.'

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