With the growth and popularity of Apple computers and the Mac OS, people have started heading towards exploring the Mac Operating System but usually the problem arises when it comes to the cost of these tech machines. It would be inappropriate to say that apple is charging too much for these devices rather it would be safe to mention that these devices are worth each and every penny you pay for.
Whether it is the built of the device or the performance, the apple devices will never disappoint you. Moreover, apple has made sure to add all the necessary factors within their Operating System to give everyone the reason to move from their current desktop or laptop Operating System to the Mac OS. The first and the foremost thing is the addition of performance and reliability, for which the Mac OS has been considered the world’s most reliable Operating System.
Mac has been designed in a way to provide immunity against Viruses and Malware, which makes the Operating System more secure and also neutralizes the factors that may cause an effect on the overall performance of the Operating System. On top of that, the interface is just as good to the eye and as pleasant as one can think of.
What is the Hackintosh?
To overcome the issue of the heavy price tags stuck to devices that run the Mac OS, developers and users started finding cheaper ways of getting their hands over the Mac OS as a result the Hackintosh made its way to the market. It would not be a surprise to mention here that the Hackintosh started becoming popular among the users as soon as the idea started spreading and it took over most of the users from the Desktops that Apple was offering at that time, namely, the Mackintosh.
Hackintosh is basically a normal desktop, consisting of hardware that is not necessarily manufactured by Apple. The common thing among the two is the Operating System. Both the Hackintosh and Mackintosh ran the Mac Operating System, although Hackintosh users had to purchase Mac OS separately from Apple, where as, it came built into the devices the devices that apple provided specifically the Mackintosh and the Macbooks.
The advantage that Hackintosh had over the Apple Mackintosh was that it was cheaper than the Mackintosh yeah it had the advantage of customizing the hardware, such as, adding a powerful GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), adding extra ram memory chips, adding internal storage memory and even sound card to an existing motherboard chip.
What is the Mac Mini?
In competition with the Hackintosh, the Mac Mini was released in 2005 which was the same year as that of the release of Hackintosh. Apple rather took a good approach towards the Mac Mini by decreasing the cost and providing an option of customizing the Mini by adding extra ram and storage memory.
Until the year 2011, the Mac Mini were considered weaker compared to the other desktop PCs that apple had released at that time. The Mac Mini has been considered as one of the most popular products by Apple after the release of the Mac Mini 2011. Apple has been rolling out the Mini every year and it has been holding pace in the market attracting several Hacktintosh users the towards itself.
Although every year the Mac Mini has been changing its layout, in the Mac Mini 2014 the option of customization has been no longer provided and for the same reason there are only a handful of people moving towards the latest Mac mini. Although, Apple has provided a remote control functionality to their new born Mac Mini which is the 2014 version and some performance advancements has also been added but again you would be restricted to 4Gb RAM since it has been soldered onto the motherboard similar to that of the Ultra laptops.
The Conclusion
It has been over 4 years and the confusion has still been out there in the minds of those who do not have much of an idea about whether to build a Hackintosh or to directly get a Mac Mini. If you are considering this question then you are certainly new to the Mac and you are exactly at the place where you need to be right now.
Which type of hardware would suit you best if totally up to you, I would certainly be deceiving the readers if I say either of the two is perfect and you just just head onto the market and get one. There are deficiencies in both the setups but it depends on what sort of a user you are.
If you are one of those people who would want to use their desktop particularly for the purpose of surfing through the internet or just use it for running software that may consume low to medium amount of processing power then you need to go with the Mac Mini 2014.
If you are more of a power user and use your desktop for audio/video editing and rendering or even if you are looking for graphic designing then you can do one of the two possible things, mentioned below.
- Get a Hackintosh, but be sure that you do your research about the hardware that you want to choose. If the components are not the ones you supported by the Mac OS then you might end up wasting a large amount of money on hardware that might not even work for you the way you want it to.
- Get a Mac Mini 2012, and increase the RAM and swap the internal storage memory by adding a fast speed SSD. This will not help with gaming but it would certainly work good enough for rendering and editing purposes.
There is also an issue of upgrading the Mac Operating Ssstem with Hackintosh. If you are investing in a Hackintosh you are adding up to the performance of the hardware but you are at a risk when it comes to updating your Operating System because you never know when Apple would stop supporting the hardware that it once supported. With a Mac Mini you would get the OS update for sure and that way you can enjoy the advantages of features that Apple adds up with every update they add into their OS.
