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New Computer

For the first time in a number of years now I have purchased a new computer. The last computer I purchased for myself (i.e. wasn’t a work computer) was my Macbook in 2006, itself now on its last legs and due for a replacement. My new computer is a new (face-lifted) Mac Mini, which replaces my old Mac Mini, which is also of 2006 vintage. The new computer has a dual-core 2.53 Ghz processor, 4Gb of RAM and a 320Gb hard disk. This is in stark contrast to my old one, which has a single core 1.5Ghz processor, 1.25Gb of RAM and a 60Gb hard disk, and as a result had become remarkably difficult to use over the past year ever since it became my main desktop machine. It’s now been turned back into a media centre, which it seems to be much happier doing. The new one is unbelievably fast. Its only bottleneck is the graphics controller which shares the main memory, but it’s not as if I’m going to use it for any hard-core gaming anyway (the most hard-core it’s going to get is Homeworld 2 and Spore).

One of the main advances of the face-lifted Mac Mini over the old design is the fact that it supports dual-monitors. Up until the release of this model last year if you wanted dual-monitors on a desktop machine you either had to get a Mac Pro or connect a second monitor to an iMac, both expensive options if you’ve already got your own monitors from a previous machine, so it was a dream come true when they added two monitor ports to the Mac Mini because it’s such a cost-effective option.

So yes, I’m very happy with it. Next is my Macbook as mentioned before, which gets replaced with a 13″ Macbook Pro later in the year, or whenever my Macbook gives up, whichever comes sooner.