PC knackered....Any thoughts....Apple MINI MAC

[take5]

Our computer is long past its best, so we went looking for a new one yesterday, to PC world.

The assistant was trying to push an Apple MINI MAC.

This is something I know nothing about.

My needs are very basic. Mainly internet browsing and E Mails, with a little bit of letter writing/lists. At the moment I use a document file for this.
I would want somewhere to store photos that are sent to me or I download.

Stuff like streaming or downloading music, or watching films etc etc are not needed.

As I said.....Basic

The sales guy tells me the MINI MAC is perfect for my needs...................He would !!!

Any thoughts?

[orbscure]

Perhaps this thread is better paced in Digitial Expressions...?

That aside, not taking anything away from what Apple can offer Brian, take a look at this thread (http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?40213), there are some very cost effective small footprint PC solutions around these days...

[mikmas]

Stuff like streaming or downloading music, or watching films etc etc are not needed.

As I said.....Basic

The sales guy tells me the MINI MAC is perfect for my needs...................He would !!! Any thoughts?

A Mac Mini would indeed be complete overkill and vastly over-priced for what you need - check out the thread Pete has linked to and save yourself £££££

[take5]

Pete and Mike, thanks for your input.

much appreciated

[Audio Advent]

What's your old computer?

For the basic things you describe you use it for, a PC 4 years old would suffice. Mine is a laptop from 2011, cost me £240 secondhand and really speedy for anything I do. Is an i5 processor and has a fancy swivel touch screen which pushes up the price and which you don't need. Mine was a top model and is perfect for HD films and audio streaming - far more even than what you need.

I find that most problems on PCs are software related these days as they are plenty fast enough to handle every day tasks and then some.

For slow internet browsing though, I find it's the loading up of all the ads which slow everything down sometimes to a snail's pace so an ad blocker is essential (I use Ghostery).

[Audio Advent]

Perhaps this thread is better paced in Digitial Expressions...?


Not audio related.

[walpurgis]

Not audio related.

Correct.

[walpurgis]

I bought a new one of these earlier this year, it works very well. This refurb looks OK for the money. Seller has decent enough feedback.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/A1-Refurbished-Acer-Aspire-XC-603-Intel-Celeron-J1900-500GB-4GB-A1-DT-SVHEK-002-/141774585319?hash=item21026c7de7

[spm]

there have been some good deals for very small nettop computers (HP 260 G1, Dell Micro, Acer Revo One - these are about the size of router) for around £100 in the last month or so but the deals seem to have ended, it may be worth being patient to see what other deals pop up - Hotukdeals is a good site for checking for deals.

If you are not fussed about it being very small this customer return available from BT shop at £139 with 6 months warranty should more than meet your needs - it's still reasonably small for a pc but a lot larger than a nettop - actually just noticed this is very similar spec to the one Walpurgis has linked above.

http://www.shop.bt.com/products/lenovo-thinkcentre-e50-intel-pentium-j2900-4gb-500gb-windows-7-professional-64-bit-9YQ9.html#usedstock