There's been an interesting discussion going on in one of the other threads comparing a custom PC build verses one of the new Mac Minis: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=84&topicid=45419

I was all set to buy a Mac Mini, but am happy to be convinced otherwise. I had assumed that it will be running Windows 7, as that seems to be the best PVR software currently.

So, please help. These are the features of the Mini that I was interested in:

Size: lovely and compact. I currently have a beige box (desktop case) and it's ugly as. The mini is appealing as it's in a tiny unit, and looks great.

Power Usage: at 14W on idle, this box seems ideal for a unit that is on much of the day. I hate to think what my present Pentium 4 based machine is using with it's large power supply and multiple cooling fans.

Quiet - These minis seem pretty quiet. Not that excited about a separate video card that needs it's own cooling system.

Video - it appears that the Mini is more than capable of 1080 HD playback with the NVidia video.

RAM - the 2 gigs (@ 1066 MHz) seems more than adequate for a PVR system. I am right?

Tuner - not too sure what to choose here. Was assuming there'd be a preferred DVB-T USB tuner that people are using.

HDD - The Mac Mini has a laptop sized drive in it. I'd have to either replace with a high capacity drive of the same size, or just plug in a cheap external unit.

CPU - the 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo seems more than enough, especially as the video card seems to do much of the work.

That's it really. I am assuming that a PC spec of the above requirements would be cheaper. But by how much I wonder?

I'd really appreciate help in saving a few $$$ and opening my eyes to the non-apple work of PC hardware.

Cheers

Nigel