New Mini vs. iMac

When the latest iMacs were announced a few months ago, I was so ready to buy. However, their video in seems to be Thunderbolt only. This doesn't play nice with with my DVI/DisplayPort HP laptop that I use for work. In short, having a second monitor is a business requirement for work. I haven't heard more than rumors about a solution for this so I've held off replacing my aging PM G5.
These new minis are intriguing; small form factor, can still go into my 24" Dell monitor via DVI, modest price.
Pricing out the iMac vs. Mini that I have my eyes on is about $1,000 difference. What am I givning up by not investing that extra $1,000?
: Dual core vs. Quad Core
: No internal CD-R/DVD-R
: No Camera for Facetime
: Less VRAM
: No new keyboard
: Would't have a new HD monitor
: Only one instead of two Thunderbolt ports
My Mac use is for personal use. Web surfing, iTunes, occasional iMovie, light iPhoto editing, some web dev via Rapid Weaver, light gaming (more board gamey than FPS), GarageBand for sure, Evernote
One the surface, the mini could be thesolution I wasn't expecting at a much lower price.
Anything leap to mind that I am missing that I should consider?
Thanks!

I find myself considering almost the same choice. I fear my 2007 iMac is needing repairs again. It has been a bit problematic, unusual in my Apple experience. Trying to install Lion has caused the problems to reappear, although it is configured well enough to run Lion.
I am considering a 27" iMac with the 2.7Ghx Intel Quad Core i5 chip. But now I'm also considering a new Mac Mini, perhaps with the 2.7Ghz Intel Duo Core i7 chip, connected to the new 27" Apple Display Thunderbolt.
I'm not clever enough to know the advantages of the Quad Core vs Duo Core. The iMac comes with the 1TB hard drive minimum, and the minimum hard drive on the Mac Mini would be 500GB, but my plan is move my photo and video library to an external hard drive, perhaps a Time Machine, so my need for a large installed hard drive is lessened.
From my recent experience, I'm nervous about having an "all in one" computer/display again, and think it might be best to have an excellent display that might serve well for years as I upgrade computers along the way.
My configuration for the iMac is actually about $270 cheaper than the Mac Mini/Apple Display configuration. Perhaps I would be best served with the iMac after all??
Any suggestions or advice?

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Connect 24" Cinema Display with Mini DisplayPort to new 21.5' iMac

I'm having a bit of an issue attempting to connect my new 21.5' iMac to my Apple Cinema Display. The display has a mini DV port that used to connect into my MacBook Pro but now I see there is no such port on the iMac. They clearly state they offer support for it but I don't see a way to connect. Any suggestions?
Message was edited by: dbmtx

Well, a bit confused here, maybe TB...
http://www.apple.com/thunderbolt/
19. How do I connect my Mini DisplayPort monitor or monitor using a Mini DisplayPort adapter to my Thunderbolt-equipped Mac when I have other Thunderbolt devices connected?
When connecting a Mini DisplayPort display or a display using a Mini DisplayPort adapter to a Thunderbolt peripheral (except as described in question 14), make sure the display is connected at the end of the Thunderbolt chain. You can use only one Mini DisplayPort device in the Thunderbolt chain.
Note: Systems with more than one Thunderbolt port, like an iMac, can have more than one Mini DisplayPort monitor or monitor connected with a Mini DisplayPort adapter connected as each Thunderbolt port can support one Mini DisplayPort display.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5219?viewlocale=en_US#12

New mac mini and imac vs powermac G5 running FCP studio

I want to compare running the FCP suite on the new max minis and imacs that came out today vs what I am currently using:
Currently I am running FCP Studio on a Powermac G5 dual 2GHz with one gig of ram. I believe the frontside bus is 1GHz. I believe the stock video card isan ATI Radeon 9600 Pro (AGP 8X Pro) video card with 64 MB of DDR SDRAM.
With this being said, is it safe to assume that the new entry level mac mini would surpass my G5 in terms of performnce in both video (NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with128MB or 256MB of shared DDR3) memory processing (intel core2 duo 2GHz)?
If not would the two low end Imacs (using NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with 256MB of shared DDR3 memory) and processing power handle FCP studio better than my current powermac G5 setup listed above?
I am wondering because I spoke to a apple sales person who transfered me to a system engineer that said I'd have a slow time rendering video on FCP with the mac minis as well as the 2 low end imacs. This may be but Im wondering if it is still better than what I am using
I appreciate your opinions, but please only answer if you really know,
Thanks!

For FCP/FCS I would not save on anything but will get the max what my budget allow. You will be always doing more and the workflow in FCS will entice you to open almost all apps in FCS concurrently to make use of the advanced features. I think that the new iMac are powerful enough to handle FCS, but once again, the extra dollars will save you alot of pain. FCS is a pro app and is not to be underestimated. Good luck.

Migration woes (mail in particular) PPC iMac w/ 10.3.9 to new Mini w/10.5.4

Me: mac user for 20 years.. web master, and unix not-quite-guru .. so don't be shy and no need to use small words in suggesting a remedy.. at this point I'll hexedit raw HD sectors if I have to...
Mother has an aging iMac, Power PC, one of the "lamp" style.. which has only a CDRW drive, so w got her a new Intel Mac Mini for xmas.
Brought a Firewire cable along and figured Migration Asst would do the job, read a few web pages about it last week in preparation, or so I thought.
Booted her new Mini and opted to transfer data from another Mac... as directed, I rebooted the old iMac with T and saw the Firewire symbol dance around its screen.. I believe at some point it settled into the center and stopped moving.
The new Mini would not recognize it.. giving an error message along the lines of "there are no OS X volumes".. which is patently untrue since she is running 10.3.9 on the iMac (there is an old 9.2.2 System folder there too). 10.3.9 was selected as the "blessed" Startup folder.
So I saw the ethernet option and thought "aha, we'll skin this cat that way instead".. connected the ethernet cable and got the helpful instruction to insert the Install Disc #1 and copy Setup Asst over to the old iMac and then enter a 6? digit code to authenticate.. ok, nice idea, except the install disc is a DVD (dual layer at that I think) and the old iMac can't read DVD (smack some co-op at Apple for not considering that).. even worse, despite 15 minutes of searching I could not simply find this application anywhere on the Apple site for download directly to the old iMac....
so abandoning those ideas, I found a knowledgebase article about migrating manually.. so I continued the new user acct setup on the Mini and got that finished.. then launched the migration asst on the new Mini (from the Utilities folder) and it took quite a while, but finally the HD in the iMac appeared (the old iMac has one and only one drive, the original internal one).
So I copied her photos, music, addr book, ical, mail, bookmarks, keychains, etc info over.. and per the KB I copied the mail plist file from prefs.. the KB says that is all I would need and Mail "will do the rest"...
Not so much... I can see her saved mail folders on the new Mini.. .and I can see in Finder and in Terminal that they should contain old mail (~50 MB worth, these folders exist and are very non-empty).... but inside Mail, no messages appear at all, nor her Inbox (ie. mail she had downloaded already on the old iMac, but not yet saved to a folder, nor deleted)
I am totally at wits end.. ideas?

So in the end, I erased all the Mail I copied over originally, and the prefs file, and started a new acct with her info and imported all her old mailboxes (having saved her old Inbox to a "savedinbox" mailbox, in case Inbox importing didn't work).
Gotta say, couldn't have been more disappointed with the Migration Assistant, which in the end did not a bloody thing for the transition. Thankfully her usage of the old iMac was simple and not that many files... one would think it would be the easy and ideal case for Migration assistant to handle.
I'm marking this as answered only b/c I'm not going back to do this again.. she is up and working and I won't know if any proposed solution actually works.

Using old iMac Screen on new Mini

My trusted old iMac G4 700 (dome base) is just too slow these days, but I still love the design. The screen is also very adjustable and can extend to a comfortable working height.
Is there any way in which I can couple this with a new mini, ie. just use my old screen and some how connect to the mini, bypassing the old system base ?
Darren

Your best bet for quick and correct answer to this question is to post in either the iMac G4 forum, or the Mac Mini forum. This is the forum for the iMac Core Duo.

Can I use the new in December iMac monitor with the mini mac?

Considering buying the new iMac the Dec. issue. I wanted to know if this iMac monitor can also be used as a monitor for the new Mini Mac?

One of those Apple 27" ones would be cheaper: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/mac_accessories/displays

Move data from old iMac to new Mini? HELP

I have a dear old iMac 233mhz (rev. a)., running OS 8.6. I need to move some Appleworks files and Netscape Communicator 4.7 emails and address cards to my new Mini Core Solo.
OS 8.6 doesn't talk (easily) via either airport (the iMac is cabled to a snow base station) or direct by ethernet. There may be work arounds, but I find them too complex for my feeble brain and patience.
I have a CD burner, but the old iMac apparently can't burn discs without 3rd party software. Toast 4.x is suggested; my old copy of Toast 5 complains that it needs at least OS 9.x to install.
ebay and yahoo auctions come up dry when looking for Toast 4. Can anyone help, or suggest another method? Emailing the appleworks files does work, but is too slow. (I bought the current AW for the Mini). Thanks.

I'm happy to report total success with my file transfer. My Dad's old iMac ran 8.6 and had no Firewire BTW.
I tried plugging my iPod into the old iMac's USB port but the mac reported it did not have the proper software installed to interact with that device.
I then followed the excellent instructions given in this link (provided by Grant Bennet-Alder elsewehere in this thread):
http://homepage.mac.com/car1son/os9xnet_nfilesharing.html
It worked like a charm! I needed a crossover cable.
Thanks everyone!

HT1766 How do I back up my iphone5 to my ICloud account, when my restrictions password. My restrictions pass code has my icloud a account greyed out? Can i backup to a wd external harddrive, or try to backup to a new mini-mac, i jUst purchased?

How do I back up my iphone5 to my ICloud account, whqen iI have forgot my restrictions password. My restrictions pass code has my icloud a account greyed out? Can i backup to a wd external harddrive, or try to backup to a new mini-mac, I just purchased yesterday? This is my first iMac and IPhone5, so i am kinda out on my own, and can use some pointers!! My phone is full of pictures, and will not download anything, until i store my pictures somewhere!!

If you don't remember your restrictions passcode, you will have to force the phone into recovery mode and restore it using iTunes. Do NOT restore your backup. The restrictions passcode is part of the backup.
Everything on the phone will be lost.
You can extract the photos from the camera roll the same way you would from any other digital camera. Having a restriction passcode set should not prevent that. do that before you put the phone in recovery mode and restore it.

How can I connect an external monitor to the new 27 inch iMac?

I have an old PC monitor that I want to connect to my new 27 inch iMac, it's the latest edition, the one that doesn't have any mini display ports.
All I have are four USB 2.0 ports and two Thunderbolt ports. No mini display port of any kind. So is there an adapter for me? My old monitor can use either VGA or HDMI and I'm not really fussed which one I use. A link would be most helpful, surley that are more people with the same problem.

If the monitor supports vga and hdmi you probably what to use the digital hdmi over the analog vga. You need a mini-displayport to HDMI adapter. For this application mini-displayport will work when plugged into a thunderbolt connection (TB is sort of a superset of mini-displayport, the plugs and sockets are physically compatible).
Here's examples of each kind of adapter:
Mini DisplayPort | Thunderbolt® to HDMI® Adapter w/ Audio Support
Mini DisplayPort | Thunderbolt to VGA Adapter

Can I link an OS10.4.11 Mini to a new Mini with Lion?

After lightning fried the video card in my Mini, which runs Tiger, I'm looking at a new Mini. My question is: Can I link the old Mini to the new one and use it as a back-up hard drive and CD/DVD burner? What do I need to do to make it work? Aside from the video card issue, everything else seems to be in working order, just no color on the display. Also, I have an old iMac drive (OX 9) in a Mini Stack case hooked to my current Mini. Can I still use that for data storage too, or are 3 different operating systems just going to screw up everything?

You can either boot the old Mac mini in 'FireWire Target Disk Mode' which turns it in to a glorified hard disk, or you can boot it but have Screen Sharing turned on so you can remotely control it from the new Mac.
When it is booted in FireWire Target Disk Mode all disks on it will appear on your new Mac. You would plug it in to the new Mac via a FireWire cable. With Screen Sharing you would access it over Ethernet not FireWire.

Major problems with my new intel g5 imac

I recently purchased a the new Intel duo imac (20", 512 ram). The computer has been a total nightmare and I finally have a little bit of time available to hopefully start addressing some of the major issues. When I first got the system, I easily hooked it up and starting using it, everything appeared to be fine. However, I began to notice almost all the applications were unstable and always lagging. For example, the pinwheel idle icon would come up for seconds at a time while switching from safari to itunes on the bottom dock. I installed CS2 on it and realized it was barely useable, it would always crash at least once or twice during a session. The application itself was so slow, it was painstaking just to clone or resize an image. I was really frustrated at this point because the system ran extremely slow compared to my 4 year old PC, which ran photoshop and the internet flawlessly. I thought that maybe I needed to start updating the OS, because I was always prompted to do so when I would start the system up.
I was hoping maybe the updates would make the system more stable and fix the problems I was having. I went ahead and approved all the updates to the OS etc. The update on the OS was around 190 megs, so I went to dinner and came back. When I got home it told me the updates where complete, I just needed to restart. Upon restarting I was met with a flashing Apple, the system would not allow me to get into the OS, it was stuck at start up with a flashing apple with an X through it. I did nothing but download the updates and restart. After an hour of trying to boot up in every why possible, I finally had to boot from CD, nothing solved the problem (disk repair etc). I finally had to break down and reinstall the OS.
Now I am back to square one again, the system is useable but every application is painfully slow. I can't for example, Use Safari, listen to itunes and type in Word. It has to be one or the other, if not the lag is unbearable. Photoshop CS2 is once again barely useable, when you start the application up you can literally read every name that comes up in the splash screen because it goes so slowly (on my PC all that start up info flew by so fast I couldn't make out any of it).
I am at my wits end with it because I love the system I just need it to be functional. I was on some other forums and people suggested I had bad ram, but I have no way to test if the ram is actually bad. Others said I was a moron for trying to run CS2 on a intel mac because it barely works (go figure). They said my only option to running decent applications like photoshop consistently was to install boot camp then windows. I don't want the solution to my problems to be the installation of an OS that I am trying to move away from, because of its supposed inferiority. I think it's sad that people need to install windows just to run photoshop and/or any software with high requirements because the new Intel mac does such a poor job. I know I need to update the system and the OS, but I don't want to have to reinstall and lose everything if it fails upon restarting again. I want things to stop crashing out of no where. Can someone please help me.
Some screen captures of some crashes.
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f384/brad561/crash1.jpg
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f384/brad561/Picture1.jpg
PS: I Xbenched my Imac I got a score of 50.05 the average for all is 65.48 Why is that?
Respectfully,
-sb

I do know that it is easy enough to test the RAM yourself to a fairly good degree.
Memtest is simply the best ram-testing utility for the Macintosh platform with the ability to find intermittent memory problems that are the frequent cause of unexplained crashes or freezes in Macs running MacOSX. Memtest can identify random memory problems that commercially available utilities miss completely.
Memtest 4.13 is now distributed as a universal binary. Just double-click the OS X image file to mount it and then double click the package file to install. Besides providing support for the new Intel-based Macs, version 4.13 also adds improved status reporting for each of the individual tests.
http://www.memtestosx.org/
Memory: 512MB is very minimal. Meaning programs may not have enough to load into memory or take advantage of OS X memory management. Rosetta is almost a mini-OS but very RAM hungry. If you can, I would add another 1GB of memory at a minimum. But first test what you have now.
Also, do run Apple Hardware Test fully as well.
In a very rare case, it could be the disk drive itself that just needs to be erased.
Have you tried repairing your disk drive from the Install DVD? good idea. And backup your system and files to FireWire goes mostly without saying as essential.
If your system does do a forced shutdown/freeze, I would not rely on it repairing itself, I like to boot into Single User Mode (command + s) and run the fsck routine.
CS3 will not be out for -?- 9 months or more and then be "Universal Binary" format. Until then, well, CS2 is itself memory hungry and people buy G5s etc so that they can use 4GB RAM or more.
The ideal would be to upgrade to 2GB RAM, Micron/Crucial or Samsung as well as RAMjet, some place reliable and that warrants their memory fully. I don't think you'll be happy with just the 512MB. And everything was fine to begin with, so that's good.
And there probably are some special concerns with Photoshop, with plug-ins or other applications, or just a corrupt plist/pref file.
Without "adequate" or enough memory, any OS is going to page itself to death, 'thrashing' as it is unable to page into memory enough to run properly.
OS: 80-200MB
Safari or web browser: 80-400MB
etc.

File Transfer to Mini from Imac G3 (no firewire!)- Set Up

Reading the instructions for setting up my new mini, it says to use a firewire connection to move files to the mini using the Set Up assistant.
The G3 Imac (slot loading) does not have a firewire port (that I know of).
Will the Set Up Assistant work with and Ethernet connection?
If not, any best practices or resoures to refer to would be appreciated!

The Migration Assistant will not work with Ethernet; click here for instructions on transferring the files manually after creating the account.
(27207)

Just bought new 24 inch iMac, what a monster!

Just got back from Apple retail store in Brent Cross near London in the UK with my new 24 inch iMac.
All I can say is BRILLIANT!!. What a stunning machine. I had a 20 inch that I bought just 3 weeks back, but I managed to get rid of it to buy this new one.
Now that I have it on my desk at home I can really appreciate the extra 4 inches, it seems like a lot more than that.
As the Apple retail store is a 1-hour drive for me I insisted on taking it out of the box and booting it up in the store to check it out before the drive home. It was just as well that I did as there was a single stuck (black) pixel in bottom right hand corner. This would not bother most people, but I do a lot of Photoshop work and I can only imagine that I would be constantly trying to airbrush a speck out of a picture, only to discover that it was a stuck/dead pixel.
Anyway, the salesman said no problem and got me another one, which I also checked there and then, second one was perfect.
Anyone who has a 20 inch, get rid of it and buy a 24 inch straight away. They are just awesome.
Even the staff at the Apple retail store were standing around me in absolute awe as I was checking mine out and filling in my personal details, as they did not have a demo unit on display at this time.
Other people were standing around too, a little crowd gathered; I felt like an Apple God for a moment there
The edges are not dark like somebody else mentioned, mine is nice and bright edge-to-edge. In fact is is brighter than my old (3 week old) iMac 20 inch as I have to reduce the brightness on this new 24 inch monster a little bit more to get a nice brightness that I'm used too.
I put in an extra 2 Gig of ram (2 x 1 GB sticks from my old 3-week old iMac 20 inch model), but bought the standard 24 inch model with standard graphics card. Didn't see the point in better graphics card as I don't do gaming, just inDesign and Photoshop on this machine.
This screen is also 1920x1200 so it is TRUE HD for playback of future 1920x1080i or 1920x1080p Bluray or HD DVDs, nice. If you think about it, if you popped to a local store and bought a HD-Ready TV with this resolution it would cost you a lot more than the price of the 24 inch iMac so it's like getting a HD TV with a computer thrown in for free, only cheaper
Had it turned on now for about 3 hours and have been spinning the hard drive a lot as I transfer a lot of old files from external Firewire HD and it is warm near the vents on back/top, nothing excessive though.
The fan is ever so slightly louder than old 20 inch, but again, negligible.
Well I'm off to play some more and test some DVDs etc.
In the meantime they are fantastic machines and I highly recommend them to everyone.
Buy one today, I don't care how, just get one!!!

Hey guys, didn't mean to scare anyone with that dead-pixel thing. I've had about 7 Macs over the past 5 years (since moving over from the muddy waters of Windows) and I've NEVER had a single problem. To be honest I was amazed the first 24 inch iMac I pulled out of the box actually had a stuck pixel and so were the staff. One of them tried to 'massage' it away, to no avail. It was hardly noticeable; I'm just a fussy git.
I doubt any of you guys will take delivery of one with a dead/stuck pixel, this is very rare as Apple only use grade-A LCD panels that have a high quality-control-production-line.
Anyway, howwow, you really must get a 24 inch; here's why.
I had 20 inch and spend a lot of time laying out an A4 magazine in Adobe InDesign. I thought my 20 inch Intel Imac was great until I got the 24. Now I can have a full two-page spread across the screen zoomed in 25% bigger than actual size and still have room for my pallets down the left and right hand side. With my old 20 inch iMac I had to collapse or hide certain pallets away or they were over the top of my page on the top/right hand side, which was a pain.
Another advantage of 24 over 20 is that it is much easier copying files from external to internal hard drives and vice-versa, especially when in Column view as you can have 5 columns on each window; plenty. On my 20 inch I could not get anywhere near this and had to move windows around the desktop to get them into the best space; not anymore.
Two of my friends came (almost literally) to see me last night and when they stepped into my study room and clocked the massive 24 inch iMac they both almost creamed their jeans right then and there. They were speechless; they are both windows PC users, or should I say were. The 24 inches was more than enough to convince them; well, they were both ladies They are heading for Apple retail store as I type this to buy one each. Now we all know how bloody hard it is trying to convert Windows users to Mac, the 24 inch iMac has no problem doing that.
I had a large high-def Quicktime movie playing, 6 smaller Quicktime movies playing, a DVD playing with Photobooth open and a bunch of other things, when I hit the exposé button to reveal them all at once it is just amazing on this large screen.
I've also noticed that running Adobe Photoshop and InDesign on this latest 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Due with 2 GB of RAM is a lot faster than my older (3 week old) iMac 20 inch Intel Core Due machine, that extra '2' really pushes Rosetta programmes along the rails a lot faster; it's sort of turbo charged now. This is great for me as I view InDesign stuff in OverView mode (higher res, but slower).
This new machine takes just 31 seconds to boot from a cold start by pressing the power button on the back. Fast or what. Ever watch a Windows user switch on their machine and go have a cuppa coffee whilst they wait
The graphics (and I only have bog-standard card it came with) are brilliant. Pin sharp and I've set up a custom colour calibration for the screen because of Photoshop and InDesign and it is stunning.
Only slight drawback is if you sit too close and are a fast typer, it's like watching tennis as your head looks from right to left as you type across the screen

VIDEO IN on new Quad Core iMac?

Hello FOlks.
I have a Digital Night Vision Monocular I need to connect video in on my Quad Core iMac.
Can anyone tell me WHICH CABLE is the cheapest and best for this?
I need a standard video like from a camcorder plug, I've seen converters with multiple video input sources even.
I already read discussions about it, I just need to know WHICH MODELS work with the new video input feature of the newest iMac's like mine.
thanks
A
Message was edited by: Host <Corrected title to reflect OP question>

Your topic subject line says "VIDEO OUT on new Quad Core iMac."
You will not be able to use RCA input (or any other composite input such as S-Video) on the new 27-inch iMac's Mini DisplayPort. The only input that works there is DisplayPort, which can be from regular DisplayPort or Mini DisplayPort output. There are some costly adapters that convert DVI to DisplayPort, but I do not know of any other type. One issue is going probably going from an analog signal to digital.
You may instead find success using a USB video input interface device. The most popular are by Miglia and Elgato. Such devices usually come with software that allows you to display and capture video input from various sources.

File sharing between Mac Mini and iMac "breaks" after reboot of either device, and won't restore. Why? Running Maverick 10.9.1 on both. File sharing is setup on both. Help.

I'm a new user - recent convert from longtime Windows to Apple. Thought having desktops and computing aligned with phones and tablets would help. Not so far.
I have a MacMini running Mavericks 10.9.1, and an iMac running Mavericks 10.9.1. File Sharing is set up on both. If either device is rebooted for any reason, file sharing from the Mac Mini to the iMac "breaks" and will not easily restart. Various things eventually brings the connection back - usually having to do with checking and unchecking File Sharing, the AFP button, and/or the SMB button on the iMac - but never the same procedure twice in a row. File Sharing from the iMac to the Mac Mini is never disrupted - always comes back up without a problem. Screen Sharing also works between both without fail, and comes up after reboot of either. No problem there. Only difficulty is from Mac Mini to the iMac.
Why? Any ideas?

Should also clarify - usually takes multiple hours of checking/unchecking file sharing settings in order to restore the share between Mac Mini and iMac. NEVER happens automatically.
This is disruptive because I've got the Mac Mini pointing to several file locations on the iMac for various things - photos, music, etc. - and they all hang up unless the share is restored. Real bummer.

New Mini vs. iMac

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