[Quentin]

I have been looking at getting a mini as well, I have yet to see one, but don't they have an external power supply? I have been asking Apple for info on the power supply because if it IS external then a simple DC voltage regulator may be all you need to give it power from your batteries.

There are so many advantages to the mini from my point of view:

You can buy a spare (because they are cheap) for long passages in case it falls over
You can install bluetooth and wifi and simply stash it below a berth where the burglars won't find it
You can buy a DVI video signal splitter (http://www.cablewholesale.com/catalog/dvisplitter.htm) so that you can have a repeat display on deck.... I vote yes to ReeferJ's poll for a small daylight display, but forget VGA please, make it a DVI display please!
You can enter and display all of your other instruments.

BUT

Is it a simple matter to power it from the DC side of the boat rather than use an inverter? This part really hacks me off because we build computers and have to buy AC to DC power supplies because computers need DC. The notion of using an inverter to create AC from your batteries and then letting the computer turn it back to DC seems potty!

Has anyone got a mac mini and looked at the volts coming out of the external power supply?