Why should i buy a mac mini?

Comparing a iMac to a mac mini, there are a couple of issues:

-- The all-in-one footprint of an iMac is sleek and elegant

• if you have to buy a monitor, keyboard, mouse & dvd drive plus the mini, the cost will be a bit higher than the equivalent iMac
• the iMac is much harder to repair -- a fried mac mini disk, or even just an outgrown one, can be replaced in 5-10 minutes with basic tools, while replacing an iMac disk is utterly terrifying.

-- The iMac will take 16GB of memory (4 slots), while the mini will only take 8GB (2 slots). The max memory is the only obviously undersized piece of the mini hardware. C'mon, apple, with the optical drive gone there is room for 2 more slots, or even 6. A mini with 8 slots that can take 32GB now and 64GB with the next advance in memory technology would be an incredibly smokin hot piece of hardware!!!

Comparing a mac mini to a MacPro, the line is "you get what you pay for." The MacPro is hugely and easily expandable, and is a big honkin powerful piece of hardware. It will also cost you easily 3-5 times as much money as a mini.

I've just this week bought a mini (base i5 with 4GB). Like you I'm not a power user and am new to macs after being a PC user since the 1990's. The choice of a first mac was down home circumstances - we have got 4 kids so a movable laptop with, as one responded noted, with a likelihood of having drink split down it was a not practical. Also with four kids I've got no office so a big fixed mac pro was no good either (I've got no need to mess around with the innards and don't need all that power anyway). So mini it was!

It lives in our kitchen, tucked away in a crockery cabinet, hooked up to a 24" LCD with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse - you wouldn't know it was there!

It will be used for web browsing, photo editing, some video editing and a some Office applications. Its early days yet but I'm pleased with it so far and believe this is the start of wonderful Apple relationship 🙂