Is the 2011 Mini worth it?

[Dre180]

I'm very new to the HTPC thing so i appreciate your patience with me. I apologize if this has been asked to death, but before i drop $600 on the Mac Mini, I'd like to be sure it's a wise investment. Here's my deal. I really want an HTPC. A Boxee box would probably be sufficient for what I want to do, which is mainly accessing my local files, but that being said i'm a huge Plex fan, and would rather go the way of the Mac Mini. Only problem I'm having before pulling the trigger, is seeing the amount of complaints - one after another it feels like. So I ask all the 2011 owners, are these performance issues (ie: hardware acceleration, fan noise, etc) valid concerns? Am I better off with the 2010 model? I'm not sure if the issues have more to do with Lion itself or the actual hardware, and was just looking for someone to point me in the right direction...

[Dre180]

Well, I bit the bullet and gave it a go. I tried the boxee box out and it just isn't going to suit my needs. I'm excited to see what i can do with this thing and look forward to being a part of the forums and chatting with everyone here...

[Bandit Bill]

I'm uncertain as to "the issues" you speak of.
Keep in mind, this is the forum most people come to when they have issues with their mini. There are many, many people using minis as HTPCs without complaint.

Let us know how things go. Welcome.

[ez061111]

You should be pleased with your purchase. There are several of us that use Plex with our mini's and are more or less pretty happy. It's not without it's issues but it works rather well for me. I actually use an older, 2009 mini as my HTPC and it does 1080p without issues on my end.

Let me second BB's welcome sentiment!
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2.0 GHz i7 Mini 8 GB RAM, OWC Merc Extreme SSD & Samsung Spinpoint
2.6 GHz i7 Mini 16 GB RAM, Samsung 830 & Hitachi
15" 2.3 GHz i7 MBP 16 GB RAM, OWC Extreme Pro 6G SSD & WD Black