opinionmaker's Full Review: Apple Mac mini (M9687LL/A) Desktop
I purchased the "fully loaded" Mac Mini as my Apple rep put it. Superdrive, bluetooth, AirPort, 512 RAM (only thing I chinced on, only because a few reviews said you can find the 1GB RAM cheaper elsewhere, like crucial.com).
I also added on the wireless keyboard, iMac (for Virex), and an Epson printer 4600. Grand total? $1225
Boy, was I excited to use it. I felt cool walking through the mall with the bags in my hand. I knew I had the new "it."
Getting it set up
Forgive the long section on this part, but the story needs to be told -- because none of the reviews I read before making my purchase clued me in that this could happen.
I was a bit nervous with this purchase, not being a Mac user, and also never having purchased a home PC before. I work with them all day, even have a minor in computers -- it always seemed like work to do anything with them at home. Someone once gave me a cheap, pieced together system that I used for email, but that's all I ever did at home. But I have a new iPod and all the write ups about the Mac Mini being a media hub - I thought the Mac Mini was the perfect thing to make computing fun and not work. So, I felt nervous in that excited way. Knowing (hoping) I made the right decision but waiting for confirmation. Plugging the baby in would surely calm my nerves and confirm my 1st computer buying choice.
In actuality, the exact opposite happened. After getting all setup and pushing the little On button at the back of the Mini, the OS started going and POOF, command windows and lines of code started flashing at me and it stopped at one little pop up window that was asking me something about "Installing TIA" or "Skipping TIA." Huh? That wasn't anywhere in my Getting Started instructions.
So, I page through the little manual again, this time looking for Apple's Customer Help Line number. Nope. No phone number in there anywhere. Can't look it up on the Internet because my computer is sitting in front of me, not working. The Apple store rep who sold us the machine, had given us his business card, so I called him for the help number. He said, no problem, just call 1 800 APPLECARE. So I do. That number doesn't work. I call him back. Oops, he says, he meant 1 800 APL Care. That's nice.
I call and after a 5 minute wait, get a Apple Help guy on the phone. I talk to him and answer questions about my name and address for 10 minutes before I can even describe the problems I'm having. Then he says, "strange, what you're seeing shouldn't be happening." He said he didn't know what was happening and put me on hold for 10 minutes while he "looked into things." He came back on the line, told me he has never heard of this happening and there were a few things we could try before.... Then he stopped and left it at "before." Before what, I asked. Before I need to take it back to the Apple Store, he says. What?! Take it back? You've got to be kidding me. We can all see where this is headed. Of course, none of his workarounds did anything and he told me to take it back and have it replaced. He told us we were "one in a billion."
Now I'm a little ticked. My husband and I actually took a half day of vacation for this and I'm taking the thing back? I thought Mac was known for their reliability and ease of use.
I call the Apple Store where I purchased it and was told that they would replace it for us. (How nice of them.) But that they couldn't/wouldn't do anything else for us. No discount, no money back, no coupon for future purchase from store, no nothing. And if we didn't like it, we could "pack everything we bought back up and bring it all in and return it all." I hung up and told my husband. He called back in disbelief. The employee stuck to his story. When we asked to speak to the manager, he told us he was the manager. When we asked for the name of his district manager he told us there wasn't one. He was it. He ruled the Apple company.
I came this (you can see me holding my fingers 1 mm apart) close to returning it all and going back to my normal PC life. But we were "one in a billion" and I shouldn't hold Mac Mini responsible for a very bad customer service experience. Now it's time to go back to the store and, of course, it's rush hour traffic and what normally would be a half hour drive there, is going to take much longer. I send my husband because I don't want to deal with it.
He comes back home and reports, "I got $30 back." Wow, I thought. That's cool. Actually it wasn't. Turns out that we were overcharged the first time and they simply refunded the money they owed us. True to their word, they didn't try to compensate us in any way for our "one in a billion" experience. If it's true that my situation was entirely odd, then they could have afforded to give us a bit of money back or a coupon for a future purchase. I didn't want or expect much. I felt let down by the store and, what was a happy nervousness, was now an angry nervousness with low expectations of my computer and any future customer service.
Actually getting it set up
Unwrapping the computer for the second time, was still like opening a treasured gift. It's simply too slick, tiny, and cool looking to ignore or let bad feelings get in the way of. It only took a few seconds to get back to where I had left off. The monitor adapter worked perfectly with my old Gateway CRT monitor. The external power supply was easy to plug right in. And there was just enough room to plug in my new Epson printer (1 USB), my Logitech Optical Mouse (2nd USB), my iPod (Firewire port), and my cheap, old speakers into the Audio jack. All filled up. (Note to self - Go buy a hub expander!)
I pushed the little "On" button again and this time I'm in. And I hear a sort of ring/beep come from the Mac Mini, which confirmed that the Mini does come with a built in speaker (the Apple rep at the store told me it didn't, when I asked).
This time, all went smoothly and the computer automatically took me to OS X setup where I could begin to set up my account. Connecting with my landlord's network/Internet was a little tricky because Mac threw in a screen that has some optional settings (which weren't marked optional and we could have bypassed the whole time). But other than that, it was easy as pie. Disks for iLife and Mac OS X were included in the Mini's box, but we didn't need them, everything was there. I almost thought that everything was installed and ready to go. It wasn't - each program needed to be activated separately. No big deal compared to what I've gone through in the past when loading 8 hours of software onto my work's PC.
Using it for the first time
I have to admit that I didn't expect to be as "out of it" as I felt in the Mac environment. Since I work on computers 8 hours a day, every day, I didn't think much of learning new ways of doing things. It was worse than I thought it would be. I felt like I had moved to Japan or something and everyone was speaking a different language than me. I'm fine with this transition, but I guess I wasn't expecting it and was overly confident. I'm learning as I go and have found a few tip sites on the Internet about adjusting to the Mac environment if you're used to PCs.
The speed on this computer is decent. It's not mind blowing, but it's definitely not slow or excruciating (like using my mom's 6 year old computer). My iPod took forever to load songs using my old PC - usually 5 minutes or more per song. Now it's about 1 1/2 minutes per song. Which isn't 10 seconds, but it's still better than 5 minutes. I can't report on using the CD burner or DVD burner because I haven't had time to do that yet, but I'll definitely report back as I test it out. Surfing the Internet is great, especially since I'm hooked up to my landlord's wireless network (the AirPort card was great and required no special effort to find their network). I've downloaded some software off the Internet, like Netscape (was trying to get Yahoo's LaunchCast to work -- which it doesn't. It keeps saying that for my browser, OS X, I need Netscape 4.8, but when I tried using that version, it wanted me to install Mac OS 9. Whatever.) and downloads were super quick and semi-easy to install, after figuring out that different software installs different ways and how to move installed software executable files off my desktop.
The bluetooth keyboard was immediately recognized by the computer and functions excellently. My mouse does some strange things and constantly jumps around the screen, which I'm not sure if it's related to Mac or is just a problem of Logitech Optical Mice. Also, my monitor has suddenly began to fade in and out (sort of like quick screen flashes) randomly. I did a couple quick Googles and think it may be because the monitor is dying or because I have too many things plugged into one outlet. I'm buying a new flat screen in a day or two, so I'm not going to worry about it right now.
The software that comes with the Mini is cool, but a little intimidating. What do they all do? How do I use them? Do I even want them? The iLife Suite seems good, but I'm too overwhelmed with the rest of the system to try to learn too many new things at once. So those programs will have to wait. I figured out how to use Safari, the browser. I like it, but I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with it or go back to FireFox. I don't want to judge it until I get more familiar with it. The iMac membership seems good for Virex, but other than that, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with that either. It was only $68 bundled with my Mac Mini, so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm not big on paying for yearly memberships and will likely end up canceling and buying a boxed version of some virus protection software (the Apple store guy, when I said I was buying the Norton virus software told me to buy Mac's iMac with Virex instead - that Norton slows down your system and Mac people like Virex better. I'm not sure it that was just a sales pitch or if it's true.) I'm really glad the Mini came with Quicken (a money management program) because that was one of the main things I wanted to begin using a computer for. My coworkers have raved about the ease of online banking and I feel safe doing it with a Mac, that has a built in firewall, and their virus protection.
It was hard to figure out where AppleWorks, the word processing software was, which is again related to my shock of the Mac system. But once I found it, it was easy to get a document open and write a complaint letter to Apple about my first experience with their company (actually, this was the very first thing I did when I finally got my Mac Mini going - even before hooking up my iPod or printer).
Speaking of the complaint letter, I hope they turn my initial experience around and show me why their company is known for it's outstanding products - and good customer service - as I had heard BEFORE making my purchase and which I'm questioning now. As soon as I hear anything back from the Apple corporation regarding my experience with a broken Mac Mini and the customer service provided at the Apple store, I will come back and let you know the result.
I'll end by saying I realize this isn't the tech-iest of Reviews, but I didn't mean for it to be that. There are so many recent news articles available that put the Mini to the test and report on system specs and big tasks like Photoshop projects. I'm writing from the perspective of an average home user - you know the ones. The person who wants to surf the net, send some e-mails, maybe burn a CD, (or like my husband, who thinks he could just pop in a Blockbuster DVD and burn it to some CDs just for the fun of it. He was pretty disappointed to find out it doesn't work that way). I don't plan to use my computer for too much; maybe my iPod, playing songs, printing some color photos, and using Quicken and online banking. Also, in this review I wanted to share what it felt like to move from XP (windows) to OS X (mac). I bought the computer knowing that I wasn't buying a high end machine, but that it would definitely accomplish my daily tasks from home. Despite the initial problems with my first Mini, and what I believe was a missed opportunity on Apple's part to show that they do in fact provide great service, I am happy with my purchase. It's as great looking as I expected, surfing the web is fast, and I know it will get me through the next couple of years. I hope I begin picking up on the new OS more quickly, but I'm sure it will take time.
However, the Mac Mini didn't change my life as somehow I guess I started thinking. It's still a computer. Just a simple computer - that does what you want it to. World peace will not be accomplished by it.
Also, I will be back in about a month to say how I've eased into the new OS and to report if I've received any news back from Apple about my complaint.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 883 Operating System: Macintosh Processor speed: Under 200 RAM: More than 256 Internal Storage: SuperDisk Hard Drive (GB): Over 50
The Mac mini is aimed at anyone looking to get started with Mac OS X and features iLife '05. Just two-inches tall and weighing only 2.9 pounds, the Ma...More at eBay
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