Which mac mini for the same price?

Question

Hello. I am about to purchase a new mac mini. Either the 1.24 ghz w/combo drive or the 1.42 ghz w/combo drive..
here are the specs for the 1.25ghz model i would get:
1GB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 DIMM
80GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo Drive
Internal Bluetooth
56K v.92 Modem
Mac OS X - U.S. English
1.25GHz PowerPC G4
ATI Radeon 9200 w/32MB DDR video memory
Here are the 1.42ghz specs that I would get:
1GB DDR333 SDRAM - 1 DIMM
80GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo Drive
Internal Bluetooth + AirPort Extreme Card
No modem
Mac OS X - U.S. English
1.42GHz PowerPC G4
ATI Radeon 9200 w/32MB DDR video memory
Both models with the specs above will cost the same at the apple store at 774.00
I have heard the 1.25ghz model's hard drive is a bit faster at 5400rpm. Is this a good reason to go with the 1.25ghz model? The only other difference in specifications between these two models is that the 1.42ghz model also includes the airport extreme card(I dont plan on getting the base station, but it could always be a possibilty in the future).
The way I want these models configured costs exactly the same...the only differences being are the cpu speed, hard drive speed, and the airport extreme card.
I have owned a G4 dual 1ghz powermac, and a g3 800mhz ibook. Needless to say, I love apple and the OSX opperating system!
I am also considering the emac, but I am on a budget here. I will only be using this for the basic stuff(no cpu-intensive programs running here).
I also dont want the superdrive becasue if I ever need one, I will buy an external firewire burner.
Any and all advise will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer in my decision!
-jason

Answer 1

Whether Apple are, or are not, about to release bumped minis is not something anyone who has genuine knowledge is permitted to discuss or confirm. That there are rumors is true, but there have been rumors of all sorts of Apple products before - so proved true, but an amazing number proved otherwise.
Given the intended use the original poster described, it seems highly likely to me that ANY mini would be more than adequate. The more RAM the better, the faster the better, but where budget is tight and where there are no extraordinary user expecations or demands, a 1.25 mini with 512Mb RAM is a very capable system.
If Airport and or Bluetooth is required, the cost of adding them to the 1.25 model is sufficiently high that the 1.412 would make more sense. If a modem is needed and yet Airport or BT is desired, the 1.42 with built to order modem would be best. If using a RAM-hungry application such as Photoshop, the 1.25 qwith 1GHz RAM will run more smoothly and faster than a 1.42 with 512Mb RAM. Where processor hungry applications are involved (video editing for example) a 1.42 with 512Mb would generally perform a tad faster than a 1.25 with 1Gb - except when it comes to rendering effects and transitions etc.
If budget allows, the 1.42 model with 1Gb RAM and a modem added would be pretty much ideal for power vs cost. And if still considering after a week, who knows, there may be bumped up models - though the same general principles by which to weigh the options would still apply.