Category: Geeks r Us
Apple has just introduced most affordable mac ever. The mac mini. The mac mini has two different G4 processor speeds you can choose from. You can choose the 1.25ghz or the 1.42ghz. They start from $499 for the 1.25ghz. Ive been thinking about getting the 1.42ghz with other options on it like bigger hard drive and 1gb of ram and many other options. My question is should I get one of these little computers or stick with a PC? I havent used a mac since they introduced the imac color. So im not that fimiliar with its operating system but ive heard that they have greatly improved. Should I take a chance with the mac mini?
they look extremely cool. I was also thinkign about getting one myself. I'd have to go out and buy a keyboard and stuff, but.. they do look neat. I hear the new OSX has support for blind people. not sure of what it has though. I need to research more.
Well ... the most intreaguing feature of macs will be the built-in support for visually imparied users (speech etc) in the O.S. I would personally wait for another year or two while they are developing this technology a little further. They claim to have the equivalent of a fully fledged screen reader built int the operating system, which basically means no screen readers needed and hardly any compatibility issues. This will be extremely cool once a usable version comes out. I'm sure though they will take some time to come out with something truy imprssive. They are new at this, I have not seen them try to solicit much blind user feedback yet and I think the initial version will be somewhat primitive (of course this is only based on rumour I've heard and I could be wrong).
Performance wise, well, the system, quite frankly, sucks, $800 got me a 3.0ghz processor 1gb ram, dvdr+- wrw drive, keyboard and mouse, a cd drive and 200gb hard drive with Windows. The computer Mac is introducing, well, it's almost the same price once you add the keyboard and the extra ram needed (a 512 chip for pc pc3200 retails for about $130, I would imagine the Mac stuff is more expensive than that). I honestly think despite this seeming a good computer it's not exactly a great bargain, the processor speed is too slow to deal with music/games and say word editing all at once. However, once a usable screen reader is built into a mac I'd start out buying this one to test it out. I think Apple is promising but I still firmly believe as of right now they are over hyped.
Cheers
-B
Well I'm not sure about the ram but we did do something concerning processor speed in my APCS class... the main message was that you shouldn't just gauge a processor on how high the hertz count is... some processors like the intel split up instructions (or somethign like that) so that it processes fewer at a time but runs at a faster hz rate, whereas the G series (G4, G5) is capable of running more instructions at once but has a lower hz rate. I'm not exactly sure on how this works but it sounds logical to me.
James
Sounds logical, James. I've actually enver used Macs, though what I've heard about them is that they're really inaccessible. But built in speech sound totally awesome. I'd like to lear nmore about this. Though if it's anything like Narrator ... well ... enough said, right?
Caitlin
Well there are a couple caveats about the Mac Mini: 1. You have to supply your own keyboard and monitor. Apple's been rolling out these "scaled-down" products lately because they've been accused of being overpriced. Instead of giving you more for your money, they're taking stuff away. For example, they just came out with a new I-pod that doesn't have a display. So now, instead of just us not being able to choose the songs we want to hear, sighted people will be in the same boat we are. What does this solve?
2. Don't get a Mac Mini if your goal is saving money. I still think you're likely to get more for your money onthe PC side for the reason I already mentioned.
If you want more info on the Mac screen reader, check out www.apple.com/accessibility
Has anyone used OutSpoken?
For information about VoiceOver, the new screen reader for the Apple
Macintosh due out in the middle of this year, send a blank message to
voiceover@topdotenterprises.com.
I used outspoken years ago, and didn't like it at all. My computer would constantly crash, and it was just not a good experience!
supposedly voice over is already availible or is on some release of OSX. not sure though. I can't wait to muck around with it
The official apple website has nothing but marketspeak. I won't buy anything until someone (not paid or associated in any way with apple) puts out a good mp3 demo of the system. acbradio, maybe? Has this already been done?
Ya I heard about this screenless Ipod. Does this mean it's accessible? I posted a topic about it but no one seemed to care or know or something.