messiah

Been looking into buying a Mac mini for a while, but after a recent visit to the Apple Store on Regent Street I'm now even more undecided...

My plan is to get a Mac Mini and later on get a "big" Mac and relegate the mini to under the TV as part of the home cinema (and get a cinema display in between).

One of the minnions in the store told me that the replacement for G5 wouldn't be the first mac to get the Intel chip and that they wouldn't be due for at least 2 years anyway - and that the first Mac to get the Intel CPU would be the Mini and it would arrive next year. Given that the most powerful Mac Mini is only a 1.4GHz and the bottom end Intel 64bit chip is what? 3.0Ghz? is it worthwhile waiting? or is there likely to be CPU upgrade for the Mini in between.

My XP Dell Laptop, which I must admit has been a very reliable workhorse for AutoCAD - is getting long in the tooth and it's replacement is due - but I'm just concerned that I'm going to make the switch to Apple just before a substantial technical leap forward.

Rumours & news of Apple's plans seem to be bit harder to come by than info on the PC's future - so any information would be welcome.

Also - can anyone direct me to a good Mac Forum?
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angrynorth

The Intel switch is coming but it will take some time yet. I'd go for what suits your needs now then move on when the new chips come out. If you need the power now then get it now.

I like the Macintoshian Achaia forum over at Ars technica.

Markus

Bottom line here is that it's all rumor and speculation at the moment. There have been no official announcements as to what type of machines the MacIntel machines will be. The people in Apple stores are the last people to know about what is going to be released. If you'd asked them a month ago about the iPod Nano they'd not have had a clue what you were talking about.

The rumor sites (macrumors.com and thinksecret.com) have not, as far as I'm aware made mention of the new Macs being mini's, but there is some sense in that thought though. I think it'll probably be a laptop and/or mini as the first machine.

Anyway, as for waiting, hmm, tricky. There might be an update to the Mini, but I doubt it, new hardware is on the way, so why update obsolete hardware?

The new machines will be nice and quick, that's for sure. The DTK (developer transition kit) machines are as quick as, if not quicker, than a Dual G5, or they certainly feel that way from my viewpoint Plus there's the fact that this impression is based on pre-release hardware, the final machines will no doubt be better specified and quicker

If you can wait, I'd wait until the first Apple event of 2006, that might give an indication of what will be forthcoming. I'd expect final machines to be announced/released at the WWDC (worldwide developers conference) in June next year

Daryl

There is a rumour that the Mini will be updated soon. The Apple Expo is in Paris next week and any updates will be announced there, so it's worth waiting for a few days, just in case

Markus

There may well be updates at Expo, but nothing that major, my thinking for this is that there isn't a Keynote at the Expo this year, and usually if there were going to be announcements they'd do it as part of a Keynote, plus they had the special event last week for the iTunes phone and iPod Nano, and it would have made sense to roll things into one rather than having two separate events, but Apple have been known to just pull things out of the bag and suprise everyone.

I've just seen rumors that Apple may well be upgrading the G5 in the very near future possibly using the dual core version of the PPC 970 (G5) chip, so it's possible that might be what is mentioned at Paris.

LanCat

<quote> Given that the most powerful Mac Mini is only a 1.4GHz and the bottom end Intel 64bit chip is what? 3.0Ghz? </quote>

Hardly comparing eggs with eggs eh?