Mini and display recommendations welcome. Thanks I'm leaning toward a a Mac mini as a music server, if I can figure out what they are doing with the optical ports and if I can get a bigger drive in there.The new one definitely has a better graphics card but it isn't anything special. The box looks good and like all Macs it won't disappoint. Mac's displays are fine.
The main problem with Macs are that many last 'forever'. I have a Mac museum of perfectly good Macs that are too old and too slow, so I trade or donate them--the Mac SE still works v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.
Yes you can put a larger drive inside the Mini or get the matching [or nonmatching] drive case that stacks. The audio port--you'll like it--that looks like a typical audio miniplug is a combined analog/digital jack with fiber optical like a toslink inside. There's a mini to toslink cable. We have one but I don't remember offhand where we got it. Probably at monoprice.com
Yes, Mac's displays are excellent. Cavan's iLamp still looks great and my new 24" iMac is almost surreal [can he turn the iLamp into a display?]. But the Mini doesn't have a display, and Apple's cheapest display costs $300 more than the Mini. According to http://www.flatpanels.dk/panels.php, the panels that Apple uses are the same as the Philips panels used in HP LP2065 and Philips 200P monitors for somewhat less. Some Dell [UltraSharp 1908FP Black $129 refurb] displays use Samsung panels.
Are those good? What's a sort of good 20" display that he can settle for, even with a TN panel for <$150?
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