Mac Mini Revisited

The Mac Mini has found a home in the living room. It uses the LCD TV as a monitor and is hooked up to the stereo for sound. The LCD TV only supports a resolution of 800 x 600 and is a temporary solution. My wife complains that the 800 x 600 resolution does not give her enough desktop real estate to view email or browse message boards. Garage Band 2 will work, but a pop-up message laments the lack of a higher screen resolution. iMovie HD is snippier and refuses to come out and play until resolution is at least 1024 x 768.

When we use the computer we put a small tray table and chair in front of the TV and have at it. The only problem I'm having is adjusting to a one-button mouse. I'm doing a lot of mouse clicks + control key to get the context menu to appear.

As someone who occasionally builds computers and is aware of hardware prices, I still feel that Apple charges top dollar on upgrades for memory, hard drives, and optical drives. When purchasing a Mac Mini, you can upgrade to a 4x Superdrive for 11,500 yen. On the Windows side, I can buy a top-of-the-line 16x DVD from NEC for 8,500 yen, but I'd have to install it myself and it would have a tray. I'm on the same bandwagon as the build-it-yourself geek over at aaronadams.net. Also noticed that some people are actually overclocking the Mini. It involves a soldering iron and removing resistors. Here's a performance report from Hardmac.com. Users who want a bigger, faster hard drive can check out replacement options and performance improvements here.

But I am still more than pleased with the Mini. I bought the iWork software for my wife. It arrived yesterday; I installed it and marveled at the way it localizes into English on my side, and Japanese on hers.