Fantastic! I reckon this deserves a thread of its own! I recommend everyone takes a look at this.

Reminds me of my Ebay Make a Computer and be Disappointed Days.

OS X just works. While I had some kernal crashes with earlier versions, 10.3 and 10.4 have been maintenance free.

If you choose to get a PC, get disk imaging software, such as Acronis True Image and burn a backup image to DVD or save to an external hard drive. Then when the inevitable virus and/or spyware attack renders your computer useless you can simply restore your backup image.

Very funny schneb! Especially that audio guide at the end. :D

Oroberts, We still don't know how hard you will be pushing the limits of the machine you will buy.... Unless I slept while reading - I may have - who knows!

But having used both pcs for many years, built my share, and a Mac for little over one, I definitely prefer the Mac. The statements about properly configured pc's working well are pretty close to my experiences. (And you can find decent freeware on the pc platform for antivirus/spyware.)

That said, if the design of your "Mac of choice" is within the scope of what you plan to do - I think you will like the Mac experience better. he only reason to own a pc is for gaming in my humblest of opinions.....

I don't really know how hard I am going to push the limits of the machine. I am unfamilar with Tiger's features but I currently use a Mac for Email, Internet, Itunes, word processing, excel and powerpoint.

I am just getting tired of waiting for my Imac to perform simple tasks.

I want to upgrade to Tiger, because it looks really cool! :cool:

I have also had a go with the developer software

It is indeed. The Mac Mini does not support The Cool video effects though.... For that you've got to ante up the bigger bucks.....

What sort of video effects?

The "ripple" effect, for one. When you open a new Dashboard item, the area around it ripples as if you had dropped it onto water. It's a cool effect, but I don't know if it and others are worth spending more.

The "ripple effect" is simply one indication that you've got a Quartz capable video chipset. There are a lot of benifits to this in 10.4

So do these effects simple not appear on the Mac Mini or do appear but very slowly. There's nothing worse than a choppy effect!

Speaking of the Mac Mini I found an Imac G5 1.6GHZ on the Internet which is about £580 + Tiger which comes to £639 , faster than the mac mini but worth the extra cash??

The Quartz effects are only possible with video cards that support it. So, no, it is not slowed, just absent.

Picking a home computer for me hasn't always been easy either. For windows, I built them, for the Mac, I went with a machine I would not outgrow, and that would allow at least some changes (hard drives, video cards) down the road.

Do you play games....? If so, you'd be better off with a machine like a G5. Games push the envelope of home computers pretty hard. If you only will do internet/documents/iPhoto/iTunes - the basics, any Mac with enough RAM and a hard drive big enough will get the job done. Digital video editing starts to push the machines as well.

Do you have access to an Apple store.... I would seriously go there and play/ask questions, do some of the things you plan on using the Mac for. That may sway you one way or another.

Believe it or not the eMacs are a pretty good bargain... look at the specs and reviews. One of their biggest drawbacks is their all-in-one designs... Really though, try to play at a store, you may find the answers there. And whichever Mac you do get, I am certain you will get some enjoyment out of the OOB* experience!

*Out of Box - that initial wow of unpacking and using

No games, just the standard sort of stuff. I usually go to the Apple Store in London's Regent Street. Ok, well I might go up there and see what I can see.

Thanks for everyone's help and advice. I definitely won't be switching to Windows!

oroberts