Yep, i've been waiting to jump ship for an updated mac mini but it's hard to justify based on that spec. For £200 more you get a monitor and a substantial spec upgrade (graphics and hard disc) once the keyboard and mouse are taken into account. i think it's a base imac for me - is there no way of VESA mounting an iMac?
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Apple Quietly Updates Mac Minis
- Thread starter anansei
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Yep, i've been waiting to jump ship for an updated mac mini but it's hard to justify based on that spec. For £200 more you get a monitor and a substantial spec upgrade (graphics and hard disc) once the keyboard and mouse are taken into account. i think it's a base imac for me - is there no way of VESA mounting an iMac?
If only they would have went with the GMA X3100 instead of GMA 950... Benchmarks indicate that its 2 times more powerful than the 950 and it only costs $1-$3 more.
Heck Intel hasn't even managed to tap the full power of its X3100 because they haven't activated its hardware acceleration of shader's and AA support.. its still using the same software emulation that the GMA 950 does. If the hardware acceleration worked it would actually make 3-D games usable instead of the slideshow that they normally are.
Heck Intel hasn't even managed to tap the full power of its X3100 because they haven't activated its hardware acceleration of shader's and AA support.. its still using the same software emulation that the GMA 950 does. If the hardware acceleration worked it would actually make 3-D games usable instead of the slideshow that they normally are.
I'm glad they kept it. I'm getting one for my mom who has never owned a computer and to keep her from getting a cheapo PC. I have an old monitor, keyboard, and mouse so this will be the cheapest option. The $1200 entry fee for an iMac is too much. 1GB standard now makes the Mini usable and it will be more than enough for her since she just wants to check email and use the internet, and maybe do photos. She'll be on wired DSL so lack of N is not a problem. For $600 she'll have a mac that is as fast or faster than my Dual G5 for most things.
$648 at New Egg For The 2.33GHz T7600 C2D Processor
Nope. $648 at New Egg. So it's a premium processor.
Price anyone? I'm thinking of buying one of those SuperDrive refurbs and goosing the RAM to 3GB with one of those 2.33GHz C2Ds. That sure would be sweet wouldn't it for still under $1k?
Nope. $648 at New Egg. So it's a premium processor.
Spit out that koolaid you got there.
If you cannot even make a factual and fair comparison don't expect to be taken seriously in turn.
Why bother with that? If you're going to mod it and void the warranty, just get a core solo on ebay and upgrade the memory and processor - it'll be even cheaper. But if you need the uberdrive, go for it...
Looks like I'm jumping ship on Apple as well. Time to look at what I can build with XP on it.
Why bother with XP when Linux can give you 95 % of what Apple delivers. Linux is very UNIX like and far more flexible user interface wise than either Apple or Microsoft.
Dave
Isn't the "silent update" exactly what they did to the G4 mini before it was discontinued?
Nice to see Core 2 Duos (finally)
Nice to see Core 2 Duos (finally)
*face palm*
I don't want to use Linux. It doesn't suit my needs for applications. I would have said that to begin with.
Well, it's not dead yet.
It's nice to see the mini get an upgrade instead of the axe, but I really don't think it will survive at the current price point (nor does Apple really care). Too bad -- it's a great form factor and potentially perfect for an HTPC.
It's nice to see the mini get an upgrade instead of the axe, but I really don't think it will survive at the current price point (nor does Apple really care). Too bad -- it's a great form factor and potentially perfect for an HTPC.
I can sympathize with Apple for not including the GMA X3100. Intel themselves haven't figured out how to activate all of the X3100's features like hardware T&L and VS on Windows yet so it's very likely that those features aren't available in OpenGL and OS X yet either. Apple's probably waiting until Q4, which I believe is when Intel said they should finally have full hardware DX9.0c support ready, and a refreshed MacBook and Mac Mini will probably come together at that time.
Going with the GMA X3100 would have also forced Apple to use 800MHz FSB CPUs since the GM965 chipset doesn't support 667MHz FSB Meroms. Apple probably wanted to maintain wider product separation.
Going with the GMA X3100 would have also forced Apple to use 800MHz FSB CPUs since the GM965 chipset doesn't support 667MHz FSB Meroms. Apple probably wanted to maintain wider product separation.
Heheh, not quite. The 1.5 Ghz G4/64mb radeon Minis were never officially admitted to by Apple, nor posted on the spec pages. They just kind of magically appeared.... even the boxes still said 1.42/32 (I know, cause I bought one... and then an intel mini.... and today another intel mini.)
Whatever. I simply purchased an "n" card for a mac pro and put it in my mac mini. Works perfectly. No they are trying to get rid of all those none "n" cards.
I don't know whether or not to laugh or cry at some of these comments.
For those that haven't figured out Apple's strategy yet, they're a business and their goal is to make money, and they seem to be doing a pretty good job at it.
One of the ways they do this is their product parts cycle. Right now they've got a pretty good line from the MBP down to the mini using all laptop components. Even looking at the new keyboard you can see this parts reuse strategy. It's easy to see that the next MB's will get the guts of the current MBP. The next mini will get the guts of the current MB. The iMac kind of fits inbetween the MBP and the MB. This all reduces their overall costs. The MacPro is kind of on it's own, and that's why there's a larger premium on it.
So, the mini is there for the last of the line, left over parts. But they're still selling it a decent premium, and they'll keep selling it until they run out of parts more or less. They really do sell, despite what people here might think.
Just think of all those people saying, well, the
tv doesn't quite do everything I want it to do. What do people tell them? Buy a mini!
For all those people saying, well, the mini doesn't quite do everything I want it to do, I think I'll get an iMac or a MB.
For all those people saying, well, the iMac or MB doesn't have the ooomph I really need, then get a MBP or a MP.
So you have
tv -> $299 and $399
MacMini -> $599 and $799
consumer (all in ones) -> $1099, $1199, $1299, $1499, and $1799
Pro -> $1999, $2499, $2799
See what they're doing? They keep bumping you up the line. Eventually everybody has their limit, but their goal is to squeeze the absolute most out of you. Ideally everybody would have a fully stocked MacPro with 2x30in ACD's.
As long as Apple has something like the mini to get people to look at their computers, its easier to upsell them on something better. They just need that $599 price tag to at least be there for people that normally would only be looking in that price range. Plus, it's a great way to get the last bit of money out of their older parts AND it really is a great machine that a lot of people have put to varying and interesting applications.
For those that haven't figured out Apple's strategy yet, they're a business and their goal is to make money, and they seem to be doing a pretty good job at it.
One of the ways they do this is their product parts cycle. Right now they've got a pretty good line from the MBP down to the mini using all laptop components. Even looking at the new keyboard you can see this parts reuse strategy. It's easy to see that the next MB's will get the guts of the current MBP. The next mini will get the guts of the current MB. The iMac kind of fits inbetween the MBP and the MB. This all reduces their overall costs. The MacPro is kind of on it's own, and that's why there's a larger premium on it.
So, the mini is there for the last of the line, left over parts. But they're still selling it a decent premium, and they'll keep selling it until they run out of parts more or less. They really do sell, despite what people here might think.
Just think of all those people saying, well, the
tv doesn't quite do everything I want it to do. What do people tell them? Buy a mini! For all those people saying, well, the mini doesn't quite do everything I want it to do, I think I'll get an iMac or a MB.
For all those people saying, well, the iMac or MB doesn't have the ooomph I really need, then get a MBP or a MP.
So you have
tv -> $299 and $399MacMini -> $599 and $799
consumer (all in ones) -> $1099, $1199, $1299, $1499, and $1799
Pro -> $1999, $2499, $2799
See what they're doing? They keep bumping you up the line. Eventually everybody has their limit, but their goal is to squeeze the absolute most out of you. Ideally everybody would have a fully stocked MacPro with 2x30in ACD's.
As long as Apple has something like the mini to get people to look at their computers, its easier to upsell them on something better. They just need that $599 price tag to at least be there for people that normally would only be looking in that price range. Plus, it's a great way to get the last bit of money out of their older parts AND it really is a great machine that a lot of people have put to varying and interesting applications.
You can't, he is lying. I already asked this question. Lets see him prove it. The mini will only take 2gb of ram.
Why do people keep saying it can?
The Apple store has a VESA mount adapter for the 24" iMac. Doesn't look like Apple has a VESA mounting option for the 20".