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Apple Releases New Mac Mini

Swissfondue said:
Notice that the iBook can now be upgraded to max 1.5 MB Ram, whereas the PB can be maxed out only to 1.25?

How can one now justify the price difference of buying a PB 12" over the iBook 12"?
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Hmm. Maybe because the 12" Powerbook doesn't have that cheesy iBook keyboard, it has 64MB of Vram instead of 32MB, has a 1.5Ghz G4 instead of 1.33Ghz, has a 5400rpm HD instead of 4200rpm, 167Mhz system bus instead of 133Mhz, has an audio line in jack, is smaller and weighs less than the iBook, and has a brushed metal exterior that won't get all scratched up the second you open the box....

I don't know if having a better, smaller, lighter, faster, more powerful laptop is worth paying extra for for you, but I know it's important to me.
 
These two updates are terrible. Not so bad for those switchers who seem not to be bugged by this and keep buying systems. This tells us how awfull Motorolla has been for Apple and IBM would have brought them down even further.

This tells me we will not see a big upgrade in any machine for another 8 months or so. In fact I now believe that Intel machines will come out in January with reasonable upgrades. But as far as some kickass PowerBooks or PowerMacs, we might have to wait another year and most likely only get another 200 mhz or 300 mhz bump.

Only silver lining is that Apple for the first time can afford to be behind for such a long time. Thank God for the iPod and the iMac. They are also lucky that many people in the past year have decided to switch to laptops.
 
terrible....
can't it be a faster G4 with faster HDD?!
and still 32MB VRAM?!
where is our core image support?!
 
No mini for me

So much for buying a mac. I'm not buying a crippled machine that cant even take advantage of all the features the os has to offer. A simple GPU update would have done it for me. Simply horrible.
 
I for one can't understand why anyone expected so much more. If apple delivered wide-screen, digital optical out, and high-end video, in an iBook, who would bother with a PowerBook? The major differentiating factors would be a light-up keyboard and a couple hundred MHz on the CPU (which is more FSB constrained than anything anyway).

Once the Intel chips roll you'll probably see iBooks and Powerbooks converge in form factor (wide screen) and function (ports) with the high-end PBs being differentiated by processor family and video capabilities (PCI-E upgradable video). That's the way life should be....

:D
 
:rolleyes: What do you people expect? Apple has had no corroperation from IBM so the speeds and updates of computers have hit a wall, even PC's are having the same problems.

Apple has a line of products for a reason people.

I have a 14" ibook 1.3 w/o supperdrive and it kicks the **** out of any pc. I work with a PR firm and use thier pc's some of the time, well guess what it crashed on the FIRST DAY! The only programs I had running were illustrator, photoshop, outlook and dreamweaver. I run 10 times that on my mac and it never misses a beat.

The ibook is not a pro model and it's not suppost to be. If you want more features, pay more money, just don't expect apple to overstep thier own "pro" line of computers when the update a lower line.

Geez.

Apple is a great company that makes some great products, give them some time to catch up with the processor transition and then you'll see. If you want to be brainwashed go buy a pc.
 
Jo-Kun said:
the Pb has a DVI output (allows to connect the 20" & 23" ACD & other DVI screens) wich allows screenspanning (without need of a hack)
more Vram (comes in handy since adding a 2nd screen splits vram in 2)
aluminum casing better screen quality than iBooks

but if none of the above are needed go iBook ;-) I know I would because I would need something portable on location, colour corrections etc are done on my G5 anyway...
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...don't forget the 12" PB is avail. with SuperDrive...12" iBook, not so much.
 
Yvan256 said:
21%!!! :eek:

And I thought it was bad here, with a 7% tax applied on top of a 7.5% tax...

The point is, the price difference isn't as big as it seems when you remove your taxes.
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Hehe you haven't seen anything friend. Here (Sweden) we pay 25% VAT on everything we buy except basics like food. And we pay 32% income tax, except if we make enough money to "qualify" for paying goverment taxes. In that case it can sometimes be as much as 48%. And in addition to this our employers has to pay about half of our wages to the goverment as "social fees". So, basicly, if I cost my employer 60,000 skr a month I get to see about 18,000 skr, and the rest dissapears as different taxes.. Then again, we do have free health care, free education, including colleage and university etc etc wich is great, but it still sucks paying this much taxes.
 
ajshades said:
...I work with a PR firm and use thier pc's some of the time, well guess what it crashed on the FIRST DAY! The only programs I had running were illustrator, photoshop, outlook and dreamweaver. I run 10 times that on my mac and it never misses a beat...
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I'm not sure if I even own 40 programs for my Mac...let alone run them all at once...
 
Lacero said:
Wow I was going to get one for my dad, but I think I'm going to wait. I wouldn't even consider this an update. Inflation just made this mini even more expensive to own than the first one.
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Inflation means that money you got in the past will be worth less in the future, because prices will go up. I thought that with this update prices did not go up, in which case, if you count in inflation, than the real dollar cost went down.

What I think you're refering to is the technology trend of prices going down as manufacturing costs go down and retailers pass some of those savings to their customers. In this case that still happenned, it's just that I guess not as much as you wanted.
 
emotion said:
well yeah, but to raise the price!?!?! (in the UK at least)
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This kinda' sucks, but we, here in Europe, should've gotten used to Apple's weird price policy by now. :(
Yvan256 said:
I guess we were at least expecting the Radeon 9550/32MB, like the new iBooks.
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MacsRgr8 said:
Better grfx like like the Radeon 9550.
If they can put it in an iBook, why not in a mini?
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I guess it's all about cost. Either Radeon 9550 are more expensive than Radeon 9200 or Apple have stockpiled a hell lot of Radeon 9200 chips and are trying to sell them off somehow. BTW, I have another guess in these lines, but I must say I'm not very knowledgeable about notebook type MoBo design or about ATI Radeon chips' interfaces, so I may be wrong here. However, I think R9550 may have different pinout from R9200, which means the PCB should be redesigned for such an upgrade and then a sufficient amount of the new MoBos should be manufactured, and so on, and so forth. All of these look to me like an unnecessary waste of money. If the mini had an easily upgradeable video subsystem interface like ATI's AXIOM or Nvidia's MXM, both based on PCIe, then not only would be a snap, but Mac mini's video chip would be user upgradeable. Then again neither R9550, nor Apple's G4 chipset support PCIe. We'll see what will happen after the Intel switch.
 
Wow, look at the ratings on this... Apple sucks.

God, intel isn't going to cure this...the sad matter of fact is it's going to cause greater heart-break and dissapointment.

Right now.. we don't know what motorola has tucked up their sleeves, we really don't know what Apple has hidden behind the curtain... but once Apple goes to intel, we'll know exactly how fast the intel chips are.

We'll be sitting on the side-lines, waiting for an update... we'll jump on pricewatch.com and see "Oh.. Intel has a new 4GHz chip.." and then on Tuesday we'll see that Apple decided to use the old 3.6GHz chip in the new machine. That will suck, morre then even this sucks.

****ers.
 
Chalk me up as very disappointed in the new Mac minis. All they did is reshuffle the accessories. No upgrades to the video processor, no speed increases. I'd've bought a new one if the video was fully Core Image-compliant, but there's absolutely no reason at all for me to buy one of the new ones... my existing Mac mini is already as fully loaded (1.42 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HD) as I need it to be.

Phooey.
 
bewing77 said:
Hehe you haven't seen anything friend. Here (Sweden) we pay 25% VAT on everything we buy except basics like food. And we pay 32% income tax, except if we make enough money to "qualify" for paying goverment taxes. In that case it can sometimes be as much as 48%. And in addition to this our employers has to pay about half of our wages to the goverment as "social fees". So, basicly, if I cost my employer 60,000 skr a month I get to see about 18,000 skr, and the rest dissapears as different taxes.. Then again, we do have free health care, free education, including colleage and university etc etc wich is great, but it still sucks paying this much taxes.
Click to expand...

You know, here in Brazil we always took Sweden as an example of tax justice, just because you pay high taxes, but you do have a great return from the government. Here we pay a lot, but instead, wejust don't get anything from in return... Always the same old problem: Corruption still very bad here.
 
uv23 said:
The lack of core image support means it's already obsolete with regards to Apple's current operating system,
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Obsolete because Tiger supports hardware that the bottom Mac doesn't have? You may as well say it's obsolete for not having a SuperDrive and dual processors. Tiger supports those too.

Core Image IS supported with less than 64 MB VRAM. The CPU is used instead of the GPU. If you have a 64 MB GPU, or a SuperDrive, or dual processors, Tiger will use them.

What were you planning on doing with Core Image that you won't be able to do now?


brianus said:
This is just another way of saying that the hardware makes no difference, it's all in the software. In which case, why give a **** about Apple's hardware products at all?
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No, it's saying that hardware makes LESS difference than OS and software. (Yes, many people are ignorant of that reality.)
 
Vis said:
So much for buying a mac. I'm not buying a crippled machine that cant even take advantage of all the features the os has to offer. A simple GPU update would have done it for me. Simply horrible.
Click to expand...

even if there was a cpu update it would have been minor i really dont see how this gives you a reason not to buy a mac mac mini are still prettyu quick for the money
 
cr2sh said:
Wow, look at the ratings on this... Apple sucks.

God, intel isn't going to cure this...the sad matter of fact is it's going to cause greater heart-break and dissapointment. ...

****ers.
Click to expand...

A well-reasoned conclusion to draw from Apple doubling the Mini's RAM ;)
 
Anyway

Back in the Mini update topic, I truly believe that the mini is a very good option, it does still represent a great value for the money you invest to get one, and it will keep helping people, as me, get out of the dark side and see that there is a better place nearby...

C'mom, don't complain about the price drop. Everybody have so great expectations estimulated by big expectations and now are sad because Apple did not fulfiled theur dreams...

I've even heard people talking about 1,67 Mini, with 7k 100gb HD, 512 mb ram, 64 mb video, bluetooth and airport express built in, all this for just 599!!! I'd bought 2 Minis, not one, if Apple release this!!!

Wake up, man!!! A killer setup like this, for under 700 dollars price, only in a sweet summer dream...

MINI is a great value yet, indeed.
 
What would you rahter have had? - improved graphics card/processor and hard drive or the bluetooth and Aiport extreme - i wonder if Apple chose one over the other.
 
i honestly think we're going to see minor incremental updates until the Mactels appear. i have a feeling they will look slightly different and be more feature loaded too. just a feeling though.
 
tell me about Core Image

sorry about being stupid, but could someone tell me if Core Image is important not only for developers but to normal users as well? and if so, how?

I kinda saw this coming....if there was going to be a major update, I don't think it would've gone quiet.
 
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