Even Snow Storms Can't Keep Me From the mini

Your intrepid blogger wanted to be at the Apple store first thing this morning but mother nature had other ideas.



After digging my self out, the drive that normally takes a half hour took twice as long. But a little snow wasn't going to keep me away.



They had two minis on display and a few people where using them. I talked to the staff while I was waiting and they said there where six people waiting at 9AM when they opened and they all bought minis.

I asked them if I could upgrade to Airport (WiFi) and Bluetooth after buying the mini. They said yes but didn't have the upgrade modules yet. They also said they would recommend them installing the modules as it's very hard.

Then I asked about the high price for the 1GB module. They said Apple uses the highest quality RAM and was working on finding a cheaper supplier. In the meantime they said it would not void the warranty to upgrade it myself but they don't recommend it for most people.

Next I asked if they got special putty knives. Which made them chuckle and they said they had but they didn't have Apple logos on them or anything.

No one yet had complained about the lack of keyboard and mouse. Overall they where super nice and great guys.

Finally I got to use the 1.42 mini. I picked it up and couldn't believe how light and small it was. You really have to see this in person.



I started playing around with it. It was very snappy until I loaded four or five apps and maxed out the 256MB of RAM. I downloaded VLC and several high quality DivX files which of course it had no problems playing.

The internal speaker isn't very loud. I could hardly hear it in the store. So I plugged in my head phones and the sound quality was very good.

I ran through the iLife and iWork apps and as long as there was free memory things were smooth.

I even downloaded Xbench and ran it. Here is the results file if your interested in that kind of thing. To sum them up it compares very well to a G4 iMac Flat Panel.

It really is a great system for most people and I can't wait to get mine.