Om Malik's thoughts on the Mac Mini

From this post at Om Malik on Broadband:

I think we are not looking at Mac Mini for its true potential. I think with this device, Apple might just have invented a new product category - the fixed mobile PC. Unlike a lot of us who jet around the country lugging around a laptop everywhere we go, there is a vast majority of people, who leave their homes early in the morning, get in their car, drive to work, where they boot up their computers and get to work. And then they do the reverse commute in the evening, and boot up their home computers. In other words, they are trying to sync home-and-work computing lives. Now with this tiny tot of a Mac, you can simply unplug and take your computer to go. It is light enough, small enough to become a fixed mobile PC.

This is an excellent point and should be considered carefully as no one has yet to crack the code on the fixed mobile PC.  Some manufacturers have tried to put standards in place that would allow you to take a box from place to place and simply plug it into a docking station, but no one had been successful yet.  Bear in mind, however, that these other manufacturers add features such as shock-mounted hard drives and heavy steel cases to protect delicate interior components from cracking; there is no indication that the Mac Mini has any such protection.  On the plus side, the adapter that allows you to change the DVI video to composite or S-Video means that you could theoretically plug it into a TV and would only need a keyboard and mouse to have a functional computer.

Malik also notes that Elgato EyeTV (although it costs $350) could turn your Mac Mini into a TiVo replacement.  Storage could be almost unlimited with the addition of external firewire drives.

Interesting.