Apple's Mac Mini Perfect For Home Users?

The home and business PC soon may have to move over to accommodate an unwelcome guest: a new Macintosh.

With its inexpensive, compact Mac mini, Apple aims to lure more users to the Mac platform and snare a bigger share of the home and office desktop--and maybe even space in the living room, bedroom, den or kitchen, industry observers say.

Price, along with a relative dearth of Mac-compatible software vs. the Microsoft Windows platform, has historically hampered Apple’s computer market share, which research firm Gartner pegged at 3.2 percent in the United States last year. But the Mac mini starts at just $499, putting it squarely in the budget PC market and well within reach of users who previously didn’t want to fork over $1,000-plus for a Macintosh.

What’s more, the book-sized Mac mini--which weighs 2.9 pounds and measures 6.5 inches square and 2 inches high--could easily find a spot in the living room entertainment center as the “brains” of a home theater system, in the kitchen for quick Web surfing, in the bedroom for music playing and e-mailing, or in multiple rooms of the house, as well as serve as a backup device, second computer or networked repository of digital photos, movies and music.

On its Web site, Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple describes the Mac mini as a desktop computer that can be carried from room to room, a capability that CEO Steve Jobs spotlighted in his Macworld expo keynote last month by holding the little Mac in the palm of his hand.

“With the Mac mini, [Apple] will be able to go into the [computer] markets where they haven’t been really strong and have been losing, especially on the consumer side and hopefully in businesses that don’t really need high-end machines but want something that’s reliable and virus-free,” said Sonny Tohan, CEO of Mac Business Solutions (MBS), a Gaithersburg, Md.-based Apple specialist.

The Mac mini’s price, portability, wireless networking capabilities and bundled iLife ‘05 multimedia software make it an attractive option to Windows-based PCs for consumers, according to Tohan. “But that’s probably not going to be as big of a market for it as, let’s say, a company that needs 100 desktops and all those desktops are doing is e-mail, Web browsing and word processing,” he said. “Why deal with 100 licenses for Windows XP and protection from viruses, spyware and adware? None of that will be an issue if those 100 people are connected via Mac minis.”

Apple is offering two Mac mini models: a $499 unit with a 1.25GHz PowerPC G4 processor and a 40-Gbyte hard drive, and a $599 unit with a 1.42GHz G4 processor and an 80-Gbyte hard drive. Neither model comes with a display, a keyboard or a mouse, but both have a DVI connector, USB 2.0 and FireWire ports, a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive, 10/100 BASE-T Ethernet networking, an ATI Radeon 9200 graphics processor, a 56K V.92 modem and 802.11g and Bluetooth wireless networking support.

“The base model of the Mac mini could make a fine second computer, possibly dedicated to music, movies and video, as its USB and FireWire ports enable storage, audio and video expansion,” Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds said in a recent report.

“Watch for the emergence of USB peripheral boxes that fully integrate the Mac [mini] into a home theater system, which will signal that the Mac mini has become a model for what a media PC could be,” Reynolds added.

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