There isn't much happening in the Apple world today as Apple is recovering from that fraud which happened in the app store earlier this week. So I had decided to make a video review of my 2.53ghz Mac mini and this is the late 2009 model. Last time I had a written review, but now that I have had it for around 5 months. I thought of making an in depth video review. This review is cut into three parts due to the fact YouTube only allows a 10 min upload per video.

Opera launched it's new web browser a few days ago to compete with Apple's mobile Safari browser. Opera mini does what it said it would do really well and that is perform faster than Safari. It indeed is incredibly fast but in my opinion after having a good look at Opera mini. The interface is great and the idea of having tabs is nice. Though zooming on pages can be quite a pain and words zoomed in always don't turn out right. The way I found out you can zoom in is by tapping the screen twice. The two finger inward and outward zoom feature which works smoothly on Safari doesn't really work that well on Opera mini.

Security wise it is said the Opera mini won't work so great if, you plan on going sites which require your password, and many people have mentioned Facebook crashing on Opera mini. The interface for the most part is clean and uncluttered, though moving up and down pages isn't as smooth. The top red and bottom black bar are a bit too big and make your internet experience a little bit smaller due to the bars taking too much space.

Opera mini isn't going to replace Safari in anyway which explains why Apple might wanted to put Opera on the app store, because many people in my opinion will stick to Safari. But if Opera make more updates in the future we could be seeing a new web browser for the iPhone but for now I will stick to Safari.

Reviewers seem to give the new Macbook Pro's a thumbs up but consumers aren't happy with the fact that with a $2000 laptop there is still no blu-ray or HDMI connectivity. You can find PC's with the same amount of power for a cheaper price. But then again this is an Apple product. The people at Cnet, give us a look and a review of the new Macbook Pro.



The graphics are also now much improved from the last nVidia 9400m compared to the 330GT which is now included on the 15 and 17 inch Macbook Pro's

The Mac mini continues to impress, considering it is my first Apple product and I expected that! Today I will continue on with the review of the Mac mini. Throughout the last post I focused mainly on the software part of the Mac mini but today I will give a review of the exterior.

Hello again everyone! It's usually not normal for me to write two posts a day but as you had read in my post before I had purchased a Mac mini and so far this little machine is a rocket! It is fast at multitasking and gets the job done better than my laptop PC. Setting up took nearly 10- 15 min and it was really simple! After firing up Snow Leopard you may notice slow downs in internet and programs opening up but that is just the system initializing and doing updates when you first buy it. 5 min later you boot the Mini again and it's extremely fast. A little comparison I did was the timing it took to boot up compared to my PC. So here is the comparison. First the specs:

My PC- Toshiba Satellite X200- 3GB ram and 250gb Hard drive and with a Nvidia Geforce 8800GT with 512MB as well as an Intel Centrino Processor running at 1.66ghz.

My Mac mini: 4GB ram, 320gb Hard drive with an Nvidia Geforce 9400m Graphics with 256mb. Also with an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor running at 2.53ghz.

Start up comparison speed
Mac mini: 0:33 seconds
PC: 1:18 minutes

Shut down comparison speed
Mac mini: 0:12 seconds
PC: 1:22 minutes

You could definitely see the difference in speed with the Mac mini and that is because of the Mac OSX and the less amount of hard drive space it uses.

Speakers: The speakers on the Mac mini are probably not the best I have heard but they are good for it's size. They do get loud but start to sound bad. On my PC the speakers were by harmon/kardon so between the PC and the Mini there is no comparison, the harmon/kardon is definitely way better.

Operating System /Software: Now this in my opinion wasn't hard to choose. My laptop PC had Windows Vista running and that was extremely slow in terms of boot timing and also opening normal applications. The Mac OSX is not only fast but also comes with some pretty nice software. The iLife suite. When comparing iMovie to Windows Movie Maker, iMovie hands down is a much better, easier piece of software to use and also comes with built in sound options and nice features. Quicktime X is also a nice add on to the OSX and Windows doesn't even come with a screen recording software. iPhoto on the other hand didn't impress me much, since it is good for storing photos and doing basic sharing but doesn't come near to the capabilities of Photoshop. Garageband is a software also on the Mac to make your own tunes and it is very fun to use in my opinion and you could end up making some professional songs on there and the capability of plugging in an instrument is also possible. iChat is also a nice chatting software on the Mac but I didn't use it much because, since I was using Windows for a while now I was used to Windows Messenger but that can be downloaded very easily on the Mac.

With this bit of a review, I can tell you one thing for sure and that is I would highly recommend any Mac product because of it's nifty OS and the iLife suite it comes with. For starters a Mini is perfect to get used to the Mac world and I am enjoying it a lot!
Keep in mind my laptop PC came with a sticker price of around $1499 CAN and the Mini is around $899 CAN so I would recommend the Mini even though you don't get a keyboard or mouse, the OS pretty much evens it out.
I've just scratched the surface with this review in the future I will review even more things that I happen to find on the Mini. I hope you enjoyed this review!

As you all know Quicktime X is a screen recording software preinstalled in every Mac product. In this video below you could see that I did a test to see how the program performs. In my opinion being a free program I thought it was very good but when comparing to Camtasia Studio it lacks some features such as the automatic smart zoom capability, but then again Camtasia Studio comes with a $299 sticker price and Quicktime X is free on Mac. Keep in mind Camtasia also can record audio coming from the computer and Quicktime X can't, though it is possible to install a little software which allows audio! Using Quicktime X is very easy and user friendly and there isn't any lag when recording the screen. I am impressed overall with this software. The audio used in the video is thanks to the iLife suite and that was added later on using iMovie which is also very easy to use.

Here is a quick look:

 


*Note az100x is my YouTube username!

Well before remember how I had talked about how I was going to get a Mac mini or iMac soon. Well it just so happened yesterday, I was shopping at Best Buy and mind you sometimes they aren't so good at tech stuff when compared to the people at Apple but I talked them into a Mac mini with a 2.53ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4gb RAM and 320gb Hard drive. The original price being $899 CAN but eventually after a lot of talking about how it's a bit expensive, the nice store worker decided to sell me it for $739 and obviously I was up for it and got my Mac mini! I have to say I am really impressed with the speed on this thing and how silent the computer is! I saved a whopping $160 and I have to say sometimes buying at Best Buy can be a good thing. Snow Leopard takes quite a less amount of space on the overall hard drive and the computer is twice as fast as my PC! The Mac mini doesn't include an SSD but imagine how much faster it would be more than my PC! I have only been using it for 8 hours now and honestly never want to go back to PC again! They are really right when they mention that "once you go Mac you never go back" All in all I am really happy with this tiny Mac mini which is a beast on the inside! I will let you know more about this and all the applications very soon! The iMac was going to be my second choice but I held off since there were issues going around with the screen and graphics problem and also I had another monitor at home but overall I am very happy with the Mac mini and I think I will keep it! Stay tuned for more news only on 1-Mac! 

Today I will focus on two Apple products which people have a hard time choosing between the iMac and the Mac Mini. The iMac is a full fledged desktop without having to lug around both the computer and the monitor around, instead the computer is built inside the monitor. The good thing about this is that people won’t have to worry about plugging in a monitor or having to purchase them separately, we believe that people who are looking for a desktop strictly which is going to sit either on their office desk or at home should consider the iMac. The iMac is also more of an entertainment system as well because of it’s faster processor and you can also configure a better graphics chip. For the ideal computer which is going to be the main one in someone’s house we think you should consider the iMac. The iMac comes with the new Magic Mouse and a wireless Apple keyboard so everything is ready out of the box just plug them in and you are set. The iMac starts at $1199


Now there are other types of people who consider space to be a big factor and that is where the Mini shines. Not only is the Mini small it is also very affordable considering it is a Mac. Starting at $599 this is ideal for being used as a home desktop or an office desktop but can also be carried around easily. For people looking to switch to a Mac should consider the Mac Mini. Granted you don’t get a display or a keyboard or a mouse. Which is a bit of a disappointment, but the good part is unlike other Mac products the Mini can be used with any industry standard keyboard or mouse. So no need for people to purchase Apple’s keyboard and mouse which can be quite expensive. Display can also be from any company and the Mini comes with a Mini DVI to DVI adapter included to connect to any monitor. The Mini also shines when it comes to people requiring a small home server to store data because the Mini is so small it can be taken everywhere with all your data. Performance wise the Mini isn’t the greatest with an integrated graphics chip as an only option limits the Mini in terms of gaming and video editing and as a main computer one would require that. On the upside reports have shown that the Mac Mini is one of  the most reliable Macs.