Improvements make Mini a good choice

Holiday mail has clogged the box this week; let's get right to it.

Q. It seems like the Mac Mini is a good way to get into Apple computing, but I am not sure it is powerful enough. Can you give an opinion about the Mini and if it is a good investment?

A. I was not a fan of the Mini when it first came out, but it is growing on me. For about $600 you can get a good computer, now with the new Leopard operating system, that will do most anything you ask. The main issue with the Mini is the lack of expandability in that you can't add internal drives or easily swap out the RAM. But today that is far less of an issue. You can order the thing with plenty of RAM to start, and external drives are cheap and plentiful now. So for about $600 you have a full-featured Mac for everyday use.

Of course, you're bringing your own keyboard, mouse and monitor to the dance, but the prices of those items have dropped to new lows as well. I have seen 19-inch flat panel monitors for less than $130 on sale recently. Expect that to hit a hundred bucks by summer.

This is not the computer to do high-tech video editing, but for general computing I could recommend it especially if you already have a good monitor.

It is also good if you want to add a Mac to an existing PC setup. You can add a KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) switch to your setup for a couple of bucks and switch back and forth from PC to Mac and use the same mouse and keyboard.

Q. I am ordering a new laptop, and I have the option of a 6-cell or a 9-cell battery. What is the difference?

A. Would you believe three cells? What about 40 bucks? OK, sorry. What you probably want is performance. It is well worth the price difference if you use your laptop unplugged most of the time. You will gain 30-40 percent more battery life from the larger battery. The trade-off is weight (the 9-cell is heavier). What I would do in your case is order one of each; they are very cheap during the new PC order phase and then you can have the lighter one installed when you don't need the long life.

Q. How long can we still order Windows XP on new computers? I do not want Windows Vista at all.

A. Microsoft has said it will allow retailers to sell XP preinstalled until June but may extend it yet again. It is available on only certain models at this point. However, Vista Service Pack 1 should be widely available for testing by the time you read this so that may help get the new operating system more widely adopted in the business community. My own personal experience has been pretty bad on upgrades and pretty good on hardware where Vista was originally installed. The Service Pack can do nothing but help.

---

James Derk is owner of CyberDads, a computer repair firm, and tech columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His e-mail address is jim@cyberdads.com.