MacMini Vs MiniPC?

[klowngoblin]

im looking for a 2nd HTPC for my hometheatre room (already have a huge one for the TV room)

thinking ill get the aopen

http://minipc.aopen.com/us/

Lowest voltage/speed Pentium M (maybe 1.5GHz) so i can minimize heat. the 1.5GHz is MORE than enough to play xvid/dvd/etc, hell i can play xvid with no loss of frame rate on my 200MHz dualcore pda

512 Ram (i can get 512MB ram super cheap)

40GB HDD, i would stream movies off my server instead of storing them on the minipc

what do you think? im looking over the specs and i see these items that make the mini PC superior to the macmini

- A/B/G wireless over BG wireless (airport extreme), also a CHOICE of wireless card which means you can also use it to wardrive if you can get an atheros minipci based wifi card. also some wifi cards are paired with routers to extend range and transfer speeds where as you only have 1 option with apple, and IMO its a rip off for what you get

- Choice of hardware, you BUILD the minipc so you can throw in whatever HDD, CPU, Ram, MiniPCI card you want. apple wants you to buy their products and charges you a rediculous preimium while thieir at it

- the apple only has a choice of a couple slow 5400RPM drives, the minipc has the option of any laptop drive (100GB 7200RPM)

- Choice of ram, i have no clue what apple uses, but with the minipc i would choose OCZ 4200 or mushkin redline over whatever apple is using.

-choice of OS, i can run windows, windows media center, linux, etc, probably just xp pro since i have all the software already

-money im saving by not going with apple
2GB of no name ram does not cost $300, its more like $200 Canadian for Kingston/micron/crucial ram
a 120GB drive does not cost $125 MORE than an 80GB its closer to $100 Canadian (5400RPM + 8MB Cache)
a generic KB and mouse does not cost $80 when my microsoft bluetooth KB/mouse that works from 200ft away costs $30 (200ft means is Guarenteed to work from the other side of the room with no lag or skipping)
a modem does not cost $50 i probably wont use it but stil... $50 can buy you 3 wireless cards

am i wrong to choose the minipc over the macmini? are there any other points im missing or something i overlooked ?

 

[zerokarma]

I would probably go with the MiniPC over the Mac Mini, you might also want to consider one of these fanless mini pc units if you are going to use it for a home entertainment system:
http://www.stealthcomputer.com/littlepc_fanless.htm

 

[AltTabbins]

I would probably go with the MiniPC over the Mac Mini, you might also want to consider one of these fanless mini pc units if you are going to use it for a home entertainment system:
http://www.stealthcomputer.com/littlepc_fanless.htm

Yup. Silent is the way to go with theater pcs.. I made the mistake of building a fan-dependant pc for my home theater and it quickly got annoying during the quiet moments during our movies.

 

[Cowcaster88]

Yeah, the MacMini would be a great choice for your application but I'm thinking you want choices and the Mac won't give you that. Build it yourself you'll be much happier. But if you're looking for simply functionallity out of the box the MacMini could do that with the Apple remote and Frontrow, but if you want TV tuning and such, just build it yourself.

 

[valve1138]

I'm getting ready to put together an aOpen Mini PC.

In the end, it seemed more cost effective to go that route.

Although, I did look at getting a Core Duo Mac Mini and using that.

 

[IDversusEGO]

I like the Aopen option better myself.

 

[Mistrblank]

Build it yourself. You will almost always save money. Even if they were the same cost, there is the added benefit of knowing what is in your machine when you buy it. The side effect is that you have to deal with your own support, but again it's usually easier to get a single piece replaced/fixed when you can call with a definite problem rather than go through support for a whole system where they will try to find problems all over the system when you know the item that's broke. And you have the ability to substitute in your own replacement hardware because you know compatabilities and capabilities of everything else in the box.

That said, I'd probably still buy the MacMini just because I don't own a Mac yet and I really want to get my hands on one to play around with OSX