[retropyor]

Why'd you buy it? What made you interested in a netbook in the first place?

I bought mine, because I'm a student who's barely making it by with part time jobs, so I needed a cheap computer to write out papers and get online. Seems to be the best use of my money for the time being.

[WolfKeeper]

I wanted a laptop in my backpack that was a few pounds lighter. All I need it for is basic stuff: web browsing, chat, occasional Office documents, programming routers and switches.

I'm not playing Crysis on it, I'm not crunching protein matrices on it. Simple stuff.

[anguish]

Learning OS X. Learning W7. Great for portability for basic stuff (email, Internet, work docs). Also great for configuring routers and such, much easier to carry than my full-sized laptop.

[belfastbiker]

Wanted a cheap Mac. The Mac Mini is stupidly over priced.

Anywhere I go I bring a bluetooth mouse, which works incedibly good, and I leave an Apple bluetooth wireless keyboard at my PC station at home. Therefore some of the limitations, I'm not really experiencing.

I use Warcraft on it - only for basic chatting, setting up and rearranging raids, but it can be used for basic farming/grinding/questing too.

I'm doing our guild web page on it with iWeb, and it looks lovely so far, far better than the CMS-based nonsense we currently have.

Via Wifi I'm finally sorting properly 16GB of photos stored on my PC HD, using iPhoto. No decent PC package that I could find which works as nicely.

I'm currently being frustrated by iMovie though, with the Mac's poor support for Fraps codecs, so using Youtube instead, and integrating those into my web page.

I have a MobileMe account with my iPhone, and I'm stunned at how well and how easily MobileMe integrates with various programs on the Mac. I've left the Bloatware Outlook behind on the PC, Apple Mail/Calendar/Contacts does all I need.

Firefox is fantastic on it. I use the Foxmarks (now xMarks) addon on this and my PC Firefox, to share passwords and bookmarks flawlessly.

iTunes is getting a workout - there's not yet room for all my music, but my iphone podcasts are synced to the mac, while music and all else is synced to the PC. That works well. Means I can sort my podcasts in peace in bed. EDIT: Just loaded iTunes on both machines. it loaded on the Mini9 in a few seconds, I think single digit seconds, and loaded in about 2 minutes on my quad core 7200rpm PC with plenty of space on the HD. Jeez!

VLC used to me my main video player, but it's relegated to the bin of un-use now.

ScummVM lets me play Monkey Island and Indianan Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

Tweetdeck is a lovely Twitter app, but I'm considering Tweetie for Mac, which is already on the iPhone, and is fantastic.

MAME OS X let's me play Black Tiger. I'm a happy camper, but I suspect I'll be happier when I get a Logitech USB gamepad, which will work with it.

XCode is helping me learn programming. Ain't programmed for years, and back them it was Clipper and FoxPro.

Ventrilo let's me communicate with 35 other warcraft freaks at the same time on our personal guild ventrilo server. Works bette rthan on my PC, which introduces an unacceptable delay with some people.

Appcleaner let's me remove apps cleanly.

Disk Inventory X shows me where my big files are stored. Handy for seeing where installation programs have left huge files strewn.

Logmein let's me remotely access other PC's and Mac's, without faffin around too much. I've used it to troubleshoot my friends Mini9 space issues.

ScaleResolution let's me fit more on screen when I'm using iWeb and others.




Now.... my favourite package.

I use Plex for all my video needs, online and wirelessly from my PC. Words cannot describe how impossibly cool, slick and capable this package is. Think Front Row on speed. It even grabs all the meta info about my various TV programmes from a web page - I just name the files sensibly, it grabs EVERYTHING I need and presents them beautifully.

[T-Keith]

I use mine for web surfing mainly. I also would like to use my OBD2 scan tool with it, but haven't got it working 100% yet.

[Rikki]

Typing, net use in bed, Excel, a monitor for my camcorder, showing photos and HD 720p video to clients, MSN, Email etc

[citizenfrye]

Got ours to use for travel. When we go on vacation we don't want to carry a 17 inch monster personal laptops or our work laptops ( to temped to do some work). But this is perfect, use it to store pics from the camera or upload them using picasa and edit them when we get home. and check our webmail. and I'm thinking when the boys get a little older they can use them ( we have 2 ) to watch moves that I've ripped onto them when we travel or they can video chat with one of the grandmothers.

[weber72]

I'm a pilot, and so I was looking for something portable enough to throw in my flight bag that would keep track of my schedules and documents. I was trying to decide between a netbook and a smartphone. The Mini 9 was cheaper than a full-featured smartphone, more customizable, and because it's a full-size (almost) computer, it was more convenient and allowed me to be more productive. (I mean, I know people complain about the keyboard, but try typing nearly this fast on an iPhone or Blackberry!) It also allowed me to carry around some of my favorite games and programs, at no extra cost.

Since getting it, I have also used it as a platform to experiment with different OSs. I'm currently dual-booting Linux Mint 6 (which I personally think is great...everything just works) and the Windows 7 RC, learning the pros and cons of both. I've enjoyed scouring these forums for ideas, and I vicariously enjoy a lot of the mods and upgrades, since I lack the money to make too many extra purchases.

[Carnifex]

My main machine is a Dell laptop, unfortunately it is no longer all that portable with monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, external hard drive and external DVDRW all hooked up to it. Sure, if I am going on a long trip I unhook everything and take it with me. However, if all I want to do is move to another room or go meet someone for coffee, it is not worth the effort to unhook everything. With the Mini, I unplug the power, drop in the battery and I am on my way.

I use my Mini for exactly what it was designed for, checking email, light web surfing and very light document production. I removed OpenOffice from my system, never bothered to install any replacement for it and instead, I use gedit for anything that needs doing. If I need to write anything longer than 1 or 2 pages or I need fancy fonts and advanced formatting, I go to my main machine.

[danmanx]

I use my mini 9 mainly for that go-between system for when I can't use my desktop. At work, I am on my mini playing classic arcade games or retro systems to many cheering fans.

At home, I might use it a little bit for some web browsing, but it really stands out outside more so.