Jun 22

Mac mini: The Maytag Of The Computer Industry

Macintouch did a poll this week, asking Mac mini users about their experiences with the machines. Of those responding, a miniscule 3% reported having problems with their minis, compared to 11-12% for the rev. B iMac G5. And according to Consumer Reports, Apple desktops and portables have for years had some of the best reliability numbers in the industry, even without the mini’s stellar ratings.

Actually, it’s easy to understand the reliability difference between the mini and the G5 iMac; the additional complexity that comes with the integrated display — an LCD display no less — in the iMac would naturally create a higher failure rate than the beautiful simplicity of the mini’s design.

But you know, usually when Apple gets problem hardware back from users, they spiff them up and resell them as refurbished units (see the Special Deals section.) The mini has been selling since mid-January (Apple won’t say how many, but analysts estimate that 138,000 were sold in the first quarter, and the second quarter has been even stronger) so you’d think that there would be some refurb units available, but I sure haven’t seen them. And I’ve been watching.

In case you’re wondering whether Macintouch’s numbers are accurate, they have done polls like this in the past, and the results they got were very close to the numbers that Consumer Reports published for the same machine. So although their methods are not terribly scientific, they have proven that the numbers are an accurate reflection of the real world.

by Dave   June 22, 2005 4:06 PM   |

Comments

by danielcole,   June 22, 2005 9:03 PM  

My Mini is the first Mac I've bought, and I can't be happier with it. Calling this thing wisper-quiet is an understatement. God forbid I do have a problem though - it's going to be a real pain to get this thing open.

by Dave,   June 22, 2005 10:11 PM  

Getting them open isn't a huge deal. I upgraded the memory on the one I bought for one of the users at work (saved $100 by not paying Apple price for 1GB). The instructions are all over the net, along with videos. All you need is a putty knife.

by K.Moett,   June 22, 2005 10:30 PM  

Here's a list of instructional videos for do-it-yourself Mac upgrades, including the Mac mini.

http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/index.cfm?page=Video/directory.html

by ,   June 23, 2005 8:37 AM  

I did some really quick math and figured that I've probably seen something like 250 Macs in the last 6 or 7 years. Out of that we've had 2 that had to go back for warranty work and 2 that died 2 or 3 years after we bought them.

That's not counting the occasional dead hard drive, like pretty much every single Western Digital drive in the 233 G3's. Those things failed like clockwork. "Let's see, we bought this Mac on Oct 9th of last year, so we'll be replacing this drive next Tuesday at 3:00, give or take 4 hours."

I had read somewhere that the bulk of the G5 iMac failures were all caused by a bad batch of capacitors.

by Michael,   June 23, 2005 9:16 AM  

Apparently I like making anonymous comments with LOTS of white space.

by Hick,   March 15, 2006 10:16 AM  

I used to play a lot of games using play money at Golden Casino. But I don't learn a lot from playing because maniacs will call all in on every hand. I don't get to improve my games that much when I play with pratise money in games. As a matter of fact, I'm not even enjoying myself when I play games with manics using practise money.

When I actually move to a real money game, I found the games to be more enjoyable, as I am playing against much more better players and I am slowly improving on my game.

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