PC Competition for the Mac mini?

Omega1045 asks: "When Apple announced their Mac mini last week for US$499, it caught my eye. Wanting to buy/build a small PC for my already cramped breakfast bar, I started pricing out similar PC hardware. The results startled me. It was very difficult to price a PC as small (6.5" x 6.5" x 2") as the Mac mini with comparable equipment cheaper than the Mac mini. Indeed, most of the configurations I found were more than the humble $499 of the Mac, often much more. To match price I often had to configure with a much bigger shuttle-style case. What computers are currently on the market to compete with this? When my wife asks for the 'cute little Mac', what PC can I buy instead that will take up as little space and do as much for the same price (or less)?" How long do you think it will take PC manufacturers to answer Apple's latest entry into the market?

Comments

Nothing

[arson1]

what PC can I buy instead that will take up as little space and do as much for the same price (or less)?

Nothing comes to mind that can do as much for that price, but I'm sure someone will post all the components that they got for some price you'll never be able to find. They won't account for the OS price, the time spend building the computer, or the lack of any warranty.

Buy her what she wants!

[True Freak]

"When my wife asks for the 'cute little Mac', what PC can I buy instead"

Why would you want a PC when a Mac can be had for that low price. What does the PC have that the Mac doesn't?

Re:Cappuccino

[iluvcapra]

I bought a fanless mini pc from CappuccinoPC.

I looked this up and it is a pretty awesome box for an embedded app. For someone who just wants a computer, I think it's probably not worth the hassle.

I get a total of $808 configured thus:

Pentium mobile at 650Mhz (the fastest they'll install for you)

PC133 256MB RAM

40GB 4200 RPM drive

Slot-loading combo drive

DOS-formatted drive (add $159 for XP Pro)

Integrated graphics, (no VRAM cited, so I assume this is shared.)

it does have PS/2 and serial ports, but only USB1.1. It includes a firewire.

I don't think this is the right machine for the application, and even though it is a much lesser machine than the Mini, it still is more expensive.

Cool box, just waiting for hacking, but not for the punters.

Re:Sorry, has to be said

[Golias]

If OS X actually does scare away a smart guy like you, why not buy the Mac mini and then load Linux on it.

Seriously. If a Linux box is what you want, and you want it as small and quiet as the mini, than a mini running Debian or YDL is hands-down the cheapest way to do it.

However, before you reformat and pull out those Debian disks, I suggest you give OS X a brief trial.

- It's pre-loaded with the only browser that compares favorably with Mozila's offerings, and Mozila runs fine in OS X if that's your preference.

-Bring up the terminal window and you have access to a bash prompt.

- It has a remarkably simple e-mail app with thread tracking and spam filtering, but feel free to run command-prompt mail programs if you are a hard-core Linux/BSD CLI guy.

- It comes with Apache pre-installed. Launching httpd is as simple as clicking a box in the network preferences.

- The remote desktop tool works great, and also comes pre-installed. ssh is loaded up and ready if you prefer.

- The developer disk (which is not pre-loaded, but ships with every copy of OS X) contains an outstanding set of programming tools.

- Aqua is a more consistent and functional GUI than anything the free *nix world has ever offered. The Finder window in 10.3 or later alone is worth the price of admission.

- BBEdit, the preferred text editor of most Mac users who do dev work in text-based environments, is fairly cheap and far in advance of TextPad (the best inexpensive Windows-based text editor I've seen to date.) If you are a text-based programmer, start using BBEdit and you just might turn into a raving Mac Bigot. Plus, if you really love *nix tools, you can just run Emacs or vi.