When I was in high school, I worked at the local public access TV station after school. This was my first introduction to actual modern Macs (I don’t count my days in elementary school playing Oregon Trail on a Mac Classic which was already 10 years old at the time). At the public access station, we originally had two Power Mac G4s. These were later upgraded to a Power Mac G5 and an iMac G5. I remember we loved the screen on the iMac, but rendering video took forever. We often found ourselves editing on the iMac and then mastering to a file or a DVD on the Power Mac.
At the time, I was actually harshly critical of Macs. It’s been so long, I don’t even remember why. Cost? I liked Windows better? Who knows. I was young. I remember I hated them a lot less when we got the iMac because that was my first introduction to OS X. Up until that point I had been using OS 9. So considering my past dislike of Macs, my present praise of them might seem odd.
If someone asks me today why I’d recommend a Mac, my primary answer would be: longevity and reliability. In 2009, I was given a Core 2 Duo Mac mini. I could never really think of what to do with it, especially when I got it. Over the years it served many functions. During a few periods in between other computers, it was my primary machine. The most impressive thing to me though is that it’s still running with no major problems. No, it’s not a great machine (2.6Ghz Core 2 Duo, 120GB HDD, 1GB RAM). No, it can’t run the latest OS (without upgrading the RAM, I can’t even get it past 10.5.8). All that aside though, it’s been incredibly reliable.
I’m sure eventually I’ll hit some insurmountable road block that will prevent me from using it anymore, but as of today, it’s the center of my home network. It hosts and serves my media library. It hosts all of my websites. It hosts a RAID I use as a redundant backup destination for Time Machine on my MacBook Air. If I need to run a big download that will take a long time, I let the mini take care of it. All the while it just sits there faithfully, working away 24/7. As a bonus, it doesn’t even consume that much power. Even an old mini like mine typically consumes 15-20 watts at idle.
I’ve considered replacing it. I’ve considered building a micro-ATX linux box that’s more powerful—one of the biggest letdowns is that Apple doesn’t seem too keen on building performance Mac minis anymore—but I just can’t do it. My mini is just too reliable. When I finally do replace it, it’ll likely be with another mini.