I have heard so much on the Mac Minis lately – on the news, in newsgroups, jokes on TV – that I just had to look into it for myself. I thought I’d share what I learned. (This isn’t meant to be an endorsement for Mac – just an effort to keep us all in the know.)

The Mac Mini is touted as “the most affordable Mac ever.” Costs start at $499. That price, however, does not include a monitor, keyboard, or mouse. Mac calls it BYODKM or Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, and Mouse.

The Mac Mini seems to cater to folks who have other computers and want more computing/storing power and/or a cheap way to make their files more portable. It will work for storing music, playing DVDs, downloading pictures or video from a digital camera.

It comes with the following software: email, chat, web browser, calendar software, Quicken 2005, an address book, some games, faxing and a way to download your contacts to your cell phone or iPod. You can balance your check book with.

Here are the hardware specs: 1.25 or 1.42GHz G4 processor, 40 or 80GB hard drive, a slot-loading CD-R/DVD-ROM optical drive, 256MB DDR SDRAM and ATI Radeon 9200 graphics chip with 32MB dedicated DDR SDRAM.

So, am I going to get one? Probably not. With 3 kids, my computers suffer most from peanut butter in the keys or fingerprints on the screen. So if I go new, I want it all to be new. And I’m not in the market for a boost for my other computers at that price. But I think it’s an interesting concept.