Remember how I talked about getting a 12″ PowerBook to have as a “back-up” Mac a little while ago? I really loved that form factor and was really intrigued by one I saw for sale on MacRumors.com, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I really should go with an Intel-based Mac and even get something a little more powerful than my MacBook Air if I could. One of the new iMacs was first on this new list, but those are out of my price range, particularly for a secondary computer. So, I kept searching and came across a Mac mini someone was selling for a good price.

Here are the specs of the refurbished Mac mini I ended up buying:

• 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo
• 4GB RAM (upgraded from the stock 1GB RAM)
• 350GB HD (upgraded from the stock 120GB hard drive)
• Integrated NVIDIA graphics processor
• Superdrive

I had honestly forgotten what it’s like to have a CD/DVD drive built-in and admit that it’s a welcome change to my MacBook Air.

The original owner had done the upgrades to the hard drive and RAM and included those at no additional charge. He had purchased it refurbished earlier this year for $499 and sold it to me for $450. It’s still under warranty until May 2010 as well. All in all, I feel like I got a very good deal and am quite happy with my purchase.

The Mac mini got a clean install of Snow Leopard as soon as I received it and I’ve attached it to my 20″ cinema display and paired it with my aluminum Bluetooth keyboard and Magic Mouse. I’ve actually decided to make the mini my “main” computer, though I’m having a bit of trouble making it happen, purely out of indecision on my part. My MacBook Air will be the Mac I take with me when I leave the house, of course, and will be my main workhorse when I travel. So how much do I remove from the MacBook Air to free up some hard drive space and truly make the mini my new main Mac? This is the dilemma I have.

I’ve moved most of my work-related documents and such to my iDisk so I can easily work on them from either computer. But what about my iTunes library and photos? I’m thinking I’ll use the mini as my main iTunes library repository and will remove some media from my MacBook Air to free up space. Regarding photos, I think I’ll be doing the same. Regarding my Documents folder, I may investigate moving this completely to my iDisk if I have enough room there. I’ve set up my iDisk so that it keeps a local copy of everything on it on each computer and then syncs periodically so I can access the latest version of a document on either computer as needed. I’m a little worried about this since iDisk has acted up on me before, but so far, so good.