MacMini: Where to Buy & Is it Good?

Hi all, I wanted to buy apple macmini but I don't know where to buy.I am never interested in computers but now I decided to start with mac but im tight on budget that's why im trying just macmini.You guys know any bad thing about Macmini? Can you please tell me where can I reasonably buy in HK? And lastly, do you know any place to buy any cheap display/monitor for macmini?


Thanks to all who would help me..

I believe there is at least one Mac reseller in the Wan Chai Computer Center.


I bought a Mini for my wife about a year ago. Here are some pros and cons:


Pros:

- Tiny footprint.

- Very quiet.

- Looks neat.

- You can use your existing keyboard, mouse, monitor or buy whatever combination you like. This is also a con I guess since you get nothing with it. My wife has the 23" Cinema Display and a Microsoft wireless desktop set.

- Mac OS "just works" without issues.

- The remote is neat. Nice way to run Front Row (Mac OS "Media Center).

- Solid hardware in a very small package.


Cons:

- Not really upgradeable. Limited upgrades are possible but opening the case yourself voids the warranty and I wouldn't recommend it if you don't have years of PC building/upgrading experience.

- Relatively slow HDD. It's a 5400 rpm laptop drive.

- Graphics are ho-hum so this is not a gaming machine.

- "Costly" for what you get. It does cost extra on paper. But you're getting a machine with a whole other level of quality compared to a "PC". Build quality is very good, support is good and the components are thoroughly tested to work together. Also it's really small, which costs extra.


Additional notes:

- You can run Windows, for example by dual booting with Boot Camp or even seamlessly in Mac OS with VMware Fusion. This latter works very well. My wife uses it to connect to work through Citrix (the Citrix client for Mac OS blows).

- You should get 2GB of memory. This is sort of expensive to buy from Apple but installing memory yourself is not for the faint of heart. I did it but I have quite a bit of experience.

- Upgrade to the multiburner. Upgrading yourself later is very hard.


In the end, my wife has pretty much forgotten about Mac OS and runs Windows with VMware Fusion. Even so, I think it was a worthwhile purchase. Even the smallest "PCs" with comparable performance are larger and more noisy. It is very discreet and elegant.