Mac Mini - cheapest, smallest, and most quiet SFF?

[Hifriday]

At $499 shipped, 2" x 6.5" x 6.5", 2.9 lbs, running only one fan and using a 2.5" HDD, is the Mac Mini the cheapest, smallest, and most quiet SFF out there? Are there any challengers?

Ok, let's start with price. What is the lowest priced SFF on the PC side? Searching in NewEgg, the Soltek Qbic with VIA C3 1ghz barebone is only $150 and adding in similar components to the Mini (below) comes to only $355.
+ 52X32X52X16X Combo Drive $35
+ 40GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive $47
+ 256MB DDR PC-3200 $30
+ Microsoft Windows XP HOME SP2 -OEM $93
Hey $355 is a lot cheaper than $499, but to be fair the VIA C3 is quite underpowered (not sure it even runs XP?) and you can only use onboard graphics which is also quite weak compared with the Mini's Radeon9200. So let's move up a step to a SFF with more acceptable performance.
The next cheapest one seems to be a Biostar IDEQ $170 paired with the cheapest CPU a 1.8ghz Celeron $57 and a Radeon 9200SE $40 plus the above components comes to $472 which is only slightly cheaper than the Mini. There are plenty of other choices out there, but it seems it would be pretty hard to put together a decent SFF for a lot less than $472. And of course this is just for the components; shipping, assembly, and installation is not included (yes although arguably a good number of PC users actually enjoy building systems themselves).

Ok so the Mini is not the cheapest even when comparing with SFF, but $499 comes pretty close. And how big is the IDEQ? At 12.7" x 8.3" x 7.4 that's over 9 times larger than the Mini!! Help, someone check my math! Oh, yes the Mini's power brick should be included to be fair, at 6.5"x2.5"x1.4" that adds an extra 25% to the Mini's size, so now it's only 7 times smaller than the IDEQ. Maybe the Mini should be classified in a new category, uFF for micro-form-factor!

Certainly there are smaller SFFs out there, but even the Soldam Lepty mentioned in this forum running a Pentium M measures 4.1"x7.7"x7.7" excluding it's power brick, it is already two and half times the size of the Mini. On top of that the system seems to be priced at over $700 for just the barebones?
Ignoring that we mentioned the Via C3 as underpowered, maybe there is some Via SFF smaller than the Mac out there? But with CD-ROM included? Even Kevin Rose's attempt to fit a Nano ITX board inside the Mini case left him without enough room for the CD-ROM. So for now we leave the Mini with the title of smallest SFF.

In terms of noise, unfortunately the Mini is not completely silent. There is the noise from one fan and one 2.5" HDD, but it does make it very quiet. Compared to the IDEQ, which I assume has at least 1 CPU/system fan, plus one PSU fan it seems the Mini does have the upper hand. The Shuttle Zen (with it's external PSU maybe a better quiet candidate, however never having used one I can't say for sure if it would be quieter than the Mini. But considering the higher wattage/heat of Intel/AMD CPUs, I would guess in favor of the mini being quieter. The Pentium M SFFs coming onto the market might be a challenge for the Mini in terms of quietest SFF (but again prices would be a lot more than $499).


So the Mini comes pretty close to the cheapest SFF when comparing similarly configured systems, is the smallest by quite a margin, and is one of the most quiet SFF and possibly the most quiet one within it's price range.
On top of that although everyone has different tastes, I think most will agree the Mini is a pretty sleek/cool looking machine that just begs to sit on your desktop. When was the last time something that was nearly the cheapest actually looked good too.


Of course the Mini is not without it's bad points.

- First it is not a PC and despite PC emulating software probably does a pretty poor job of running Windows programs.
- In terms of a more powerful configuration, you can BTO certain options but because of Apple's premiums, adding options cause the Mini to become quite a bit more expensive than the PC equivalent.
- In terms of upgradability, there is practically no internal expansion options, although you can swap RAM, HDD, Optical drive, add wifi, bluetooth, but this was not meant to be user upgradable meaning it will be a lot more difficult than doing the same on a PC SFF not to mention you risk voiding your warranty. No AGP slot for changing you video card (9200 w/ 32mb is weak), nor PCI slot for adding function cards.
- If you want to mod it to be even more "silent", the limited space, proprietary fan would make it extremely difficult or force people to be very creative ("silencing a Mini's hard disk"... um ... hmm ...)
- Yes on HDD, beware if you are ordering the 40G version as it could well be the Seagate 5400 Momentus drive that could exhibit a loud irritating whir and drive head park clicking that would not sit well for SPCR readers. Upgrading the BTO for $50 you get the 80G version which might well be the Toshiba 4200 which does not seem to have these problems. Apparently Apple is using quite a few different types of drives in the Mini so there is no way to be sure what you are going to get.
- I'm sure more points can be added, but those are the big ones that come to mind.


On a final thought, taking a low cost notebook, and removing the LCD screen/keyboard/touchpad and decorating the remaining case nicely might leave us with an even smaller and just as quiet machine. Maybe if some manufacturer would consider doing that... Hey, wait a minute, isn't that what the Mini is?!

It would be nice to hear other SPCRers thoughts on this.


PS: What ever happened to the
AMD PIC? Does anyone know if that is out yet in the "third world"? Is it silent and powerful enough to use? It's only slightly larger than the Mini, but of course runs Windows CE, is limited to a 10gb drive, has no optical drive, etc. Maybe the PIC has potential to be the cheapest, smallest, quietest web browsing uFF.

[Tibors]

I disagree with your "disqualification" of the C3 based systems. The target audience of the Mac Mini is home users. Target applications: office, mail, webbrowsing, simple photo editing, iTunes/MP3. The C3 systems have absolutely no problem with these things. The onboard graphics is already overpowered for these simple 2D tasks.

Yes, the AMD PIC is out. There is a personal website from somebody in the caribean (Antigua IIRC) that shows pictures of modding one.

[Hifriday]

Is the C3 really powerful enough for day to day computing use? I have never used such a system so guess I shouldn't have been so quick to discount it, but it's hard to imagine a processor less powerful than a PIII-500mhz running XP smoothly. Then again my old notebook was a PIII-850 and it was acceptable with WinMe.

Ok, so let's reconsider the C3. The Soltek system above is cheap, on size however, it is still more than 8 times larger than the Mini. Also noise-wise I am guessing there is a PSU fan, CPU fan, and a system fan making it quite a bit louder than the Mini. Let's also look at some other C3 systems. Perusing Mini-ITX and Directron:

A Morex Cubid2677 with an external power brick and fanless? case seems to be a good cheap/low-noise candidate and comes to $460 excl shipping (Case incl 60w brick $60 + Epia M1000 board $156 + slim combo drive $74 + RAM/HDD/XP from before).
That's not much cheaper than the Mini. As for size, at 2.5"x10.7"x11.6" it's still more than three and a half times larger. How much more would we need to pay to come close to Mini's size?

The smallest Mini-ITX case I could find was the Casetronic Travla C134 at 2"x7"x10" which is only 60% larger than the Mini. Such a system would run $554 excl shipping (case with 55w brick $132 + 2.5" 40g drive $69).
I believe this is also a fanless case, so with only a CPU fan and 2.5" HDD, it is also competive with the Mini noise-wise.


So let's re-evaluate where the Mini stands amongst the SFF.

* It still seems to be the smallest SFF (with an optical drive) by a comfortable margin.
With the to be released Nano-ITX, I expect down the road cases very similar in size to the Mini will be released, but as shown in Kevin's exercise, it would be pretty hard for it to be smaller than the Mini. Hoojum has an upcoming Cubit Nanode case, but at 3.7"x5.9"x6.3" it is still 60% larger than the Mini.

* In terms of cheapest, well ok a C3 SFF takes that spot, but considering we are choosing the lowest cost components above, the Mini still comes within $150 of this system. If we also factor in shipping costs and labor/time to build the C3 system, then we are probably talking about less than a $100 difference.
For a system more on par with the Mini noise-wise, then a C3 SFF costs pretty much the same as the Mini. And if we want one that also comes close in size, well then the C3 SFF would easily cost over $150 more than the Mini.

That's still extremely impressive IMO. Also being the smallest in electronics usually comes with a high premium. And, arguably you are getting more for your money with Mini's higher processing power? and better onboard graphics? although C3 may have the upper hand on sound, Mpeg2 playback?

[Rusty075]

Mini's are not terribly quiet, according to user reports that are beginning to surface. At idle they're quiet, but under load their whiny little fan ramps up quickly.

Most mini/nano-itx systems run fanless CPU's, and fanless power bricks are common as well.

The Silverstone LC07 is about the same size as a Mini. (its a bit wider, but shallower. Any nano-itx based system will be mini-sized or smaller. The nano-itx board is smaller than the Mini's motherboard.

In terms of performance, for what these systems are targeted for, the Via CPU's (C3, Eden, Epia) and the aged G4 in the Mini are about a wash. They'll both write emails and surf the internet at exactly the same speed, and they'll both play high-end games at exactly the same speed.

The differences really come down to your OS of choice. (Has anyone put XP on a mini yet?)

[Hifriday]

The Silverstone case looks pretty sweet, and it's only 25% larger than the Mini. However from the specs/installation manual, there doesn't seem to be room inside the case for an optical drive or even a hard disk?!?

As for fanless VIA Mini/Nano-ITX, yes that would give it a low noise advantage over the Mini. It seems most of these fanless cases are basically an aluminum block that acts as an extension to the CPU heatsink. Do you think it would be possible to connect the Mini's aluminum frame to the CPU heatsink with a heatpipe and run it fanless? That would be an interesting mod! Anyone know the peak consumption of these G4 processors?

As for running XP on the Mini, as G4 is not a native x86 processor it doesn't seem that it would work.

[pychiquata]

Apple's OSX is extremely memory hungry. With 256m it won't feel snappy at all. 512mb is an option with the mini, as is 1gb. The last option is so hidous expensive that 512mb is as much memory any sane person would put in it. 512mb is ok-ish for OSX, but it won't fly. And the little fan is indeed fairly noisy under load.

[Mariner]

I wonder if we'll be seeing mini/nano-itx boards for AMD's Geode and Geode NX chips soon? It looks as though these could be a good option for one of these tiny PCs with decent performance and low power draw.

[Entropy]

That would be an interesting mod! Anyone know the peak consumption of these G4 processors?

As for running XP on the Mini, as G4 is not a native x86 processor it doesn't seem that it would work.

As measured by a power meter the mini draws less than 20 Watts, that is including PSU losses, unless you use the burner.

Running XP on the mini works just fine, but it will run slowly. It's difficult to make a true evaluation of just how slow, since it depends a lot on what you try to do. Install a 1GB DIMM if you intend to run VirtualPC regularly, and want to use Mac and PC programs simultaneously.

If all you want to do is run PC programs, however, I'd recommend a PC.

[Green Shoes]

Apple's OSX is extremely memory hungry. With 256m it won't feel snappy at all. 512mb is an option with the mini, as is 1gb. The last option is so hidous expensive that 512mb is as much memory any sane person would put in it. 512mb is ok-ish for OSX, but it won't fly. And the little fan is indeed fairly noisy under load.

What's even worse is that it also puts a pretty fair bit of the load for the GUI onto the GPU, much moreso than windows does. With enough RAM that isn't too much of a problem yet....but once Tiger comes out (OSX 10.4, expected by the summer) the word most will go to the word all. It might still be okay, but you might have problems if you try to use much of the very cool iSuite programs.

Also, if you want to stay up-to-date with Apple, expect to shell out $150 for an OS upgrade every 12-18 months.

just my $.02

[Entropy]

Apple's OSX is extremely memory hungry. With 256m it won't feel snappy at all. 512mb is an option with the mini, as is 1gb. The last option is so hidous expensive that 512mb is as much memory any sane person would put in it. 512mb is ok-ish for OSX, but it won't fly. And the little fan is indeed fairly noisy under load.

What's even worse is that it also puts a pretty fair bit of the load for the GUI onto the GPU, much moreso than windows does. With enough RAM that isn't too much of a problem yet....but once Tiger comes out (OSX 10.4, expected by the summer) the word most will go to the word all. It might still be okay, but you might have problems if you try to use much of the very cool iSuite programs.

Also, if you want to stay up-to-date with Apple, expect to shell out $150 for an OS upgrade every 12-18 months.

just my $.02

Ehrm.
Install your memory yourself, or, if you're too scared to snap the case open with a putty knife, have an authorized reseller do it for you and have them install memory you bought somewhere else. 1GB memory cost problem solved.

Apples ATI 9200 is a fair bit better than everything that comes integrated. It's a good DX8.1 level gfx chip. Apple does use the gfx-chip for its user interface. This is quite intelligent. The upcoming Tiger update of the OS will use the gfx chip even more extensively and make this available system wide in its CoreXX functionality, to be easily taken advantage of by developers. This is good stuff. There may or may not be instances where floating point shaders are used and where the mini will have to do these on the CPU, but this is not quite clear yet. But to spin this as a negative for the Mac mini vs PC solutions is pretty damn strange.

The machine ships with the most recent version of the OS, and it is continously upgraded and fixed for free. We're now at 10.3.8.
10.4 will cost money. If you want the new functionality, and don't want to pirate it, you have to pay. It's quite common in mac circles however to skip generations. OSX is quite stable and mature, so skipping an OS generation is perfectly OK if you don't need the new functions.

[nosoup_fouru]

I had a Via C3 1000 for about a month, it was generally sluggish for many common task with Windows XP. I suppose if you were doing nothing but web surfing, simple email and very basic word processing it would be enough, but ask it for much more and it sputtered. The last straw was when it couldn't feed my CD burner data fast enough to burn a disk at higher speeds. Maybe as a utility box but not as a day to day PC.

As for the Mac mini, I literally just sold mine on eBay last week (1.42/512MB/80GB/Combo/BT/AE). It is cute, and quiet; but also generally sluggish (even with 512MB of RAM some task were excruciating) and overpriced. Apple limited the performance to avoid cutting in to iMac sales and it shows. You can get a lot more PC (and a wider variety of apps) for the same or less money (depending on how you BTO your mini).

[nosoup_fouru]

Ehrm.

Apples ATI 9200 is a fair bit better than everything that comes integrated. It's a good DX8.1 level gfx chip. Apple does use the gfx-chip for its user interface. This is quite intelligent. The upcoming Tiger update of the OS will use the gfx chip even more extensively and make this available system wide in its CoreXX functionality, to be easily taken advantage of by developers. This is good stuff. There may or may not be instances where floating point shaders are used and where the mini will have to do these on the CPU, but this is not quite clear yet. But to spin this as a negative for the Mac mini vs PC solutions is pretty damn strange.

Actually it benches pretty poorly and underperforms the 9100IGP shipping on the Windows side of the fence. It is a passable Direct X 8 part, but hardly good. The current crop of integrated graphics (from Intel's GMA900 and ATIs latest revisions on their own boards) are faster. While offloading some aspects of the GUI to the GPU is smart, it's only smart if it has enough memory to work smoothly. Crank the mini's resolution past 1280x1024 and watch Expose' puke on itself and slow to a crawl. Tiger will pass most of it's eye candy operations to the CPU since the mini is already graphically anemic, I predict a lot of pissed off mini owners after the tiger upgrade. Since OS X locks the user out of settings like turning off transparency and menu fading (without third party apps or haxies) I think it is fair to consider it a negative.

The machine ships with the most recent version of the OS, and it is continously upgraded and fixed for free.

Same with Windows, same with Linux, this is not a selling point. And as a long time Mac owner and veteran of Jag and Panther I think it's safe to say I patch/update my Apple boxes about as much as my XP boxes.

We're now at 10.3.8. 10.4 will cost money. If you want the new functionality, and don't want to pirate it, you have to pay. It's quite common in mac circles however to skip generations. OSX is quite stable and mature, so skipping an OS generation is perfectly OK if you don't need the new functions.

Unless you want to use new software, ask iChat AV fans about that one (and honestly, that is one example of many). I like Apple a lot, but OS X is a little over-rated and the mini is a poor bargain based on perfomance alone. I know the Apple sites all heaped praise on it, and the general press are in love with the form factor, etc... But take an entry level XP box (especially after the release of the Celeron D) and load it with MS Movie Maker, MS PhotoShow, Adobe Elements and iTunes and turn someone loose on it. The Windows box will not only bench faster, but feel faster as well. There are tons of equivalent software to iLife on the Windows side, some of it not quite as usable as Apple stuff, but there is almost always a choice and a solution for everyone.

The mini will disapoint many people and I highly recomend anyone who is thinking about one to visit a retailer and really spend some time with it. I emphasize this statement for anyone who has spent time on a faster PC, where the difference in feel alone will be drastic. I'm not saying the mini isn't a nice computer, or that Apple isn't doing some cool stuff, but both are quite over-rated.

[BSRS]

So, I'm looking for a system to replace all the 4 in my office. I'm thinking no fan motherboard with 64bit, 1 gb mem w/heatsink, no fan graphics "5700", no fan CPU heat sink, no fan power supply, raid card with 4 hd, dvd-cdrw combo, one system fan 120mm case running win-xp. ...how would this compete?

[Straker]

it would compete like a ferrari vs a british laundry-hamper-with-wheels car, not really fair to compare them.
a PC like that would end up costing somewhere between a fair bit more and a whole lot more, would need to put a lot of time into choosing components carefully, particularly the case. will probably need to spend some time modding too, especially if you want to try with one fan, doubly so if you want those drives to last more than a year or two.

[johnc]

I acquired a Mac Mini for a programming project and it arrived today.

This machine is pretty remarkable.

Unpacking and setup took less than 10 minutes and were essentially effortless.

I am holding the computer in my hand as I write this. It is barely warm and is nearly free of vibration. It is like holding a fairly small book. It is audible if I hold my ear close to it.

The display is beautiful, compiling is very fast.

No complaints at all.

For the vast majority of computer users, this device is probably ideal. It is an appliance that works with little fuss and bother. It is tiny, quiet, fast-working, easy to use and cheap. It has more features than most users will ever need.

Peak power draw during boot-up was 36 watts. Up and running, it draws about 16 watts.

Also: It's beautiful to look at.

Wow.

[grandpa_boris]

i bought a mac mini for the house and have these comments about it:

form factor: excellent.

noise while in operation: low, but not silent (my P4/2.8 was quieter until it recently developed a disk whine).

noise while idling or in power save mode: very low, comparable to my fanless VIA systems. you can hear the disk warble if you put your ear right to it, but that's about it.

ergonomics: they sacrificed some ergonomics to the styling. having the USB and 1394 ports on the front or side of the case would have been a lot more convenient. same with the headphone jack. note also the absence of a standard microphone jack: you have to use a USB microphone with this system, so the cheap but functional $5 logitec headset is not an option here. with mini's form factor, it's likely that it will be placed in a way that will make access to its rear ports awkward, so occasionally attaching your video camera to it will be a nuisance unless you leave the firewire cord dangling in front.

features: some chipset/board features were sacrificed to the form factor. only 1 1394 port, only 2 USB ports, no microphone port (as noted above). yet unless you buy a bluetooth keyboard & mouse, one USB port will be immediately consumed by the keyboard (with the mouse attached to the 2 port hub in the keyboard). this can be remedied by buying external hubs, but it adds to the cost of the mini.

functionality: os/x 10.4 is NOT installed on the system. it comes WITH the system. my first 2 attempts to upgrade resulted in system hangs. i did a full reinstall to get the 10.4 installed. the "free" iLife add-onrequire .mac subscription for a lot of its features, so "free" isn't really free.

pricing: the base system is priced attractively. but the low base price somewhat deceptive. you can't possibly run that system with 256MB of RAM. apple's upgrade pricing for memory is usurious, charging several times the price you'd pay for high quality RAM on the web. the base price also doesn't include the USB mouse and keyboard (no PS/2 connectors on the box!). when you add everything up, including a decent quality display, you will find that an equivalently configured iMac isn't that much more expensive and it comes with a next generation, more powerful CPU. if you already have a display and are not allergic to prying open the box with a putty knife to replace memory or take the whole system apart to put in a larger drive, the mini is a reasonable bargain.

[scruzbeachbum]

If I bought one, I'd get the lower speed version to replace a very old g3 beige tower system. Got a monitor, got a keyboard, got a mouse, can buy a usb hub for $20, can buy a thin putty knife for $5 and add a 512MB or 1GB stick to round out the system. (Seen the video on memory replacement and it's probably lower risk than say....modding my vid card). The big benefit to me would be the upgrade to 10.4 (from my ancient 8.6 as well as still being able to run classic mode programs. A couple of years down the road, I'd turn it into a media center PC. Use an external firewire/usb hard drive.

[Entropy]

If I bought one, I'd get the lower speed version to replace a very old g3 beige tower system. Got a monitor, got a keyboard, got a mouse, can buy a usb hub for $20, can buy a thin putty knife for $5 and add a 512MB or 1GB stick to round out the system. (Seen the video on memory replacement and it's probably lower risk than say....modding my vid card). The big benefit to me would be the upgrade to 10.4 (from my ancient 8.6 as well as still being able to run classic mode programs. A couple of years down the road, I'd turn it into a media center PC. Use an external firewire/usb hard drive.

A friend of mine bought two when they came out, one for himself and one for his wife. The Mac Mini is the quietest mass produced "desktop" computer I have encountered so far, those 2.5 inch disks are very discreet.
They both like their new computers. A lot.

[REMF]

OcUK Value 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-004-OK)
£49.95 £49.95
LG GSA-4163BA 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-029-LG)
£26.60 £26.60
Shuttle XPC ST20G5 Aluminium Barebones System - AMD 64 (Socket 939) (FS-047-SH)
£215.00 £215.00
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-130-AM)
£77.50 £77.50
Samsung SpinPoint P SP1614C 160GB SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-012-SA)
£55.95 £55.95
Subtotal £425.00
VAT £74.38
Total £499.38


• 512MB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 DIMM
• 80GB Ultra ATA drive
• SuperDrive
• Internal Bluetooth + AirPort Extreme Card
• Mac OS X
• 1.42GHz PowerPC G4
• ATI Radeon 9200 w/32MB DDR video memory
Free Shipping
Price: £424.68
VAT: £74.32
Subtotal: £499.00

two caveats:
> no OS with the Shuttle, but i consider a £60 for SUSE 9.3 an adequate compromise.
> 512MB with the Mac is not enough, so add £60 to the price for a 1GB dimm of PC3200.

Shuttle has:
better CPU
better graphics
twice the HD space
very high quality onboard sound

Mac has:
quieter
smaller
WiFi

Equal:
both reasonably attractive
similar price
both have DVD burners

i'd rather have the Shuttle personally.
you could add a card reader in the 3.5" bay.
you can add a powerful PCI-E graphics card if you want
you can add a TV-Tuner card in the PCI slot if you want

[REMF]

updated to reflect the new mac-mini specs/prices.

[Henk Poley]

noise while in operation: low, but not silent (my P4/2.8 was quieter until it recently developed a disk whine).

I'd be happy to know how you'd done that (the P4 system).

I would replace my current MythTV system in a snap with the Mac Mini if there were reasonably priced TV cards (erm, Firewire/USB devices) that would work with mythbackend.

[who1zep]

The AOpen XC Cube MZ855-II is the PC's best answer to the Mac Mini. If you care about standard components and upgradeability, it may not get better while we still use components as big as PCI & AGP cards and 5.25" optical drives.

The Mac Mini is 165 x 165 x 51 mm (6.5" x 6.5" x 2"). The MZ855-II is 200 x 320 x 106 mm (8" x 13" x 4"). The MZ is only slightly wider (1-1/2" more), twice as deep (5.5" is alot) and twice as high (2" extra). Is there an advantage to being bigger? Yes, the MZ855-II uses standard components & connectors.

The barebones unit has one open AGP and one open PCI card slot. Both require "low profile" cards. Since the board supports Pentium M and up to 2GB PC2700 ram, you can build a very fast system. You can also fit one 3.5" hard drive and one notebook-sized optical drive in the base unit. If you want two additonal, full size 5.25" drive bays (one of which will hold two 3.5" drives) then you can get the expansion box that's the same size as the main unit.

The barebones white unit supporting 533FSB sells for for $331 USD (the 400FSB unit is $292 USD). If you prefer black, you'll need to order from Europe.

[Firewireguy]

Does anyone have any experiance of Tranquil PC's T2 : http://tranquilpc.co.uk/T2_spec.htm

I'm tempted to get one for just listening to mp3's flac's etc and playing divx videos out through the svideo port on my TV. I think it's just about powerful to run XP and decode divx films, even on not a lot of memory. I won't be using it as a desktop replacement, just as a media centre and keeping my noisy workstation for what it's good for. The Mac mini is out of the question for me atm because it doesn't have s-video out, otherwise i'd probably get one.