I am confused about Icloud. I have a 5 year old Macbook, a 2 year old macbook and a 5 year old mac mini. What exactly do I need to do to get all this connected via Icloud. I also have an Iphone 3G. Help please!

I am confused about Icloud. I have a 5 year old Macbook, a 2 year old macbook and a 5 year old mac mini. What exactly do I need to do to get all this connected via Icloud. I also have an Iphone 3G. Help please! Also, I still don't understand exactly what the benefits are. At the moment it seems a lot of hassle to change a system that's been working perfectly well and that I'm very happy with. I'm not at all sure whether the mac mini (1.66 GHz INtel Core Duo) can be brought up to the relevant spec to run ICloud.  Any thoughts?

There are two aspects to iCloud.  One is simply getting an account, or migrating a mobileme account to iCloud.  The second part is using the various features of iCloud to sync contacts, calendars, use music match or photo sharing, and store iWorks documents.
First to get an iCloud account:
If you have a mobileme account, you can migrate by simply logging onto www.icloud.com (ignore any references to Lion and just click through to complete the migration).  If you have OS X Lion or an iOS 5 mobile device, you can create an iCloud account on that device using any valid AppleID.
Once you have an account, you can use JUST the mail account if you wishi - it is a standard IMAP account so you would set it up like any other IMAP email account you have, in whatever client program you use to read email.
To use the OTHER feautes of iCloud, your computers will have to be running OS X Lion (10.7).  Your iPhone 3G will never be able to use iCloud as it cannot run iOS 5 (you need a min. of an iPhone 3GS to run iOS 5).
The requirements for OS X Lion are here - http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html  You need a min. of a Core 2 duo processor so you mini is not capable of running Lion.
So, in your case, the single reasons for iCloud would be if you have a mobileme account, then use the online www.icloud.com to migrate your account so you do not lose your @me.com email address.  You can use iCloud email (without using any other iCloud features) by setting it up as IMAP mail with these settings - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4864
If you want an iCloud account and do NOT already have a mobileme account, you will need to upgrade one machine at least to Lion in order to be able to create an iCloud account.

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