you can buy an external DVD for the mac. [link]

Right, omnis.

I'd still love it if I could find an older all-in-one.

The nice thing about the newer ones, is HDMI output for vdieo. But, I hear ya. It's a hesitation for me too. Why did they get rid of the optical? It's a great media center computer, except it doesn't have an optical drive. And no bluray either.

I have to confess that, having been an Apple user since the II, I'm totally bewildered by the choices the company is making now.

I understand upgrading but this is getting ridiculous.

Their opticals have always been reliable, as far as I have experienced. It just doesn't make sense.

Are the gazillions of dvds and cds in the world _that_ passe?

Mercy. I must be getting old.

Are the gazillions of dvds and cds in the world _that_ passe?

They're not selling their OS that way anymore. At least they're being consistent.

I've had too many system meltdowns over the years to not prefer having the physical operating discs on hand. Again, I'm old.

The more I shop around, the more and MORE I am kicking myself for not buying a mini last year.

Stuff and bother!!

The speed difference between the old Minis with the optical and the new ones is pretty striking.

To be honest I'm fine with the lack of optical drives. In my experience it has been the part most likely to fail in machines, and they just aren't needed us much. If you want something on physical media, then you can use a flash drive. There are even ways to make a flash drive that can do a full system install for Mac OS. The new macs all have a safety partition on them that you can do a clean install from, and if that fails, then they just need a broadband connection and the pertinent clean install will download. I've used all of these methods for various machines, and they all work pretty well.

As for media delivery, I do think that the DVDs, CD, and such are going away, all you have to do is look at something like a local Best Buy. In the case of CDs the one nearest to us has one short aisle of CDs at this point, and it is smaller almost every time I'm in there. Even the DVD section is only three aisles at this point. It's a long way from the days when 1/3 to 1/2 of their retail space was dedicated to selling things on optical media.

Of course, that is right. I just look at my extensive collections and want to weep at the idea of replacing them, or even taking the time to transfer them to new media.

This comes from a woman who still has 200 cassettes...and nothing to play them on, so don't mind me.

I still need a strategy for putting together a video blogging set up though.

If I fork out for the new mini...and the dvd drive, the overall cost will be roughly 2 bills more than if I'd just ponied up last years. My regret, let me show you it.

The fact that I'm working from a 7 year old tower right now that works beautifully, thanks very much...but can't be upgraded...burns even more.

It works! Except when I can't find anything to work ON it. In fact, I have two of these towers, plus a 1999 iMac that also works like a charm.

Technological paperweights. Argh.

Sadly that is the way of technology. It's part of the reason that I tend to cycle through most of my hardware on a three year plan, that way I'm selling it while there is still a reasonable amount of value left in the hardware.

I've been going through the process of putting all my DVD and BluRay media onto a server. It's sitting at about 4 TB right now. It's a bit daunting getting there, but once it is done it is so nice to be able to grab anything in the collection from anywhere in the house on any of our devices.