Apple Releases New Sandy Bridge Mac Minis and Thunderbolt Display

[ri0ku]

How fast is the SSD drive in the new Mac Mini release today?

Also, is the Mac Mini all aluminum now, the top does not look white, or is that just an optical illusion?

Marcus

No one knows the speeds... they were only released on the website an hour ago so no testing has been done.

The Mac Mini has been all aluminum since the last generation. The only part thats plastic is the base that can be removed to upgrade ram and the back panel with all the ports on which is black.

 

[RBR2]

Stop trying. I know what Daisy Chaining is. Again you're not answering the question that was answered.

Maybe English is not your native language, sorry if this sounds mean, I'll try to re-explain my question even though it's moot now :

There's only 1 port on the monitor. To daisy chain, you need 2 ports, one for input, the other for output. My question was how exactly were you to daisy chain the monitors or other TB devices without that second port.

Arn pointed out how : The monitor has a built-in cable that serves as the input port. I should have remembered that part, I owned a 24" LED ACD for a while.

The second device will have the second TB port. The display is an end or terminal device. Not having two ports does not matter until you add a second device. That's pretty darn simple. Even someone from where you are should be able to understand that. Go sit in the corner for five minutes and calm down.

 

[deadturtle]

Apple and Netflix

Does anyone see a correlation between Apple dropping the ODD and Netflix breaking the streaming plan from the disks?

Maybe I'm just paranoid

 

[Shivetya]

2GB of ram LOL , lucky its easy to upgrade on these newer minis.

Are we sure about that? Dropping the optical drive means they could have changed the boards even more than losing that connector. They could have moved back to soldered ram.

 

[MattG]

$600 for a SSD upgrade is highway robbery. It should be less, and/or there should be an option for a smaller drive.

 

[paulro]

Interesting that Apple pictures the mac mini with a 27" cinema display.

Why would you buy a mac mini and 27" cinema display though ? The UK prices are £599 for the lowest config mac mini and £899 for the display.

Surely you'd just buy a 27" iMac with keyboard and mouse/trackpad for less money ?

I've never really understood the value of a mac mini though. Ridiculously overpriced in my opinion.

 

[weckart]

Quote from the Mac Mini's product page:

"Mac mini is designed without an optical disc drive. Because these days, you don’t need one. It’s easier than ever to download music and films from the iTunes Store. And you can download apps from the Mac App Store with a click."

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL... Yeah, right Apple. The Mac Mini is a 'hub' with HDMI, yet it can't even play DVD's? Rip CD's? And whats the point of having Boot Camp when you can't use a Windows disc?

Epic. Fail.

You can download Windows isos directly from Microsoft. Google for the links or have a hunt around sites like Neowin. I am happy not to have to pay for ODDs that just sit idle, so the £83 reduction is very welcome. External bus powered DVDRW units can be had for a mere £17.50 for those that still need to rip the odd cd.

 

[Rapscallion]

I wonder if the guts out of the 2011 mini will fit inside my 2010 with the ODD, I hope iFixit is going to rip apart the model with the AMD Radeon HD 6630M. It would be very interesting to see if this is a possibility....I will be watching out for any news on this.

 

[gmcalpin]

Are we sure about that? Dropping the optical drive means they could have changed the boards even more than losing that connector. They could have moved back to soldered ram.

They didn't.

 

[KnightWRX]

The second device will have the second TB port. The display is an end or terminal device. Not having two ports does not matter until you add a second device. That's pretty darn simple. Even someone from where you are should be able to understand that. Go sit in the corner for five minutes and calm down.

Again, I was talking about the display, not the Macs. English is obviously not your native tongue, let's just end this here. Again, Arn answered properly.

 

[dndlnx]

What does this mean for the "old" 27-inchers?


Do you think they will continue to sell refurbs? And if so, could there be a slight price drop?

 

[hexx]

Interesting that Apple pictures the mac mini with a 27" cinema display.

Why would you buy a mac mini and 27" cinema display though ? The UK prices are £599 for the lowest config mac mini and £899 for the display.

Surely you'd just buy a 27" iMac with keyboard and mouse/trackpad for less money ?

I've never really understood the value of a mac mini though. Ridiculously overpriced in my opinion.

not just that, check this page http://www.apple.com/uk/displays/specs.html, it says £529 and on store it says £899 for the display, i'm confused

 

[pmjoe]

Mixed bag. Overall, these new minis are nice, but the loss of the optical drive means you're out about $50 to get an external drive. I was hoping for quad-core on more than just the server model, and then with the server model can't get the AMD Radeon HD 6630M graphics processor.

As always, Apple makes sure they leave you wanting something they don't sell.

The Thunderbolt monitor looks nice, but for $999 it's Thunderbolt only???

I may have to re-consider an iMac, as much as I hate all-in-ones.

 

[WvB22]

The only reason, and solely the only reason, why Apple drops physical media in any form (DVD discs) and don't adopt new media (Blu-Ray) is that they won't benefit from it.

If you buy Blu-Ray discs Apple won't get a penny. If you buy DVD movies Apple won't get a penny. If you buy software on DVD/CD Apple won't get a penny. If you buy music on a CD Apple won't get a penny.

But hey! If you buy all these media with the App Store / iTunes Apple gets a healthy piece of the pie. Apple has no benefit at all by making physical media available to macs. Now it doesn't seem like much but what about software suites that cost 1000's of dollars or more. Those companies won't be happy with the way this is going.

Do the math yourself

 

[InuNacho]

What does this mean for the "old" 27-inchers?


Do you think they will continue to sell refurbs? And if so, could there be a slight price drop?

I hope so, I'm torn between the Cinema Display and a Dell u2711.

 

[jdmagoo1]

Hopefully the HDMI port is capable of bit streaming the latest audio codecs, unlike the previous mini

 

[tech3475]

I think I'll stick with my windows Pc.

 

[ri0ku]

Again, I was talking about the display, not the Macs. English is obviously not your native tongue, let's just end this here. Again, Arn answered properly.

all the guy tried to do was help you by replying and you ended up replying talking to him like a piece of crap...

Really... thats how Canadians treat people who try to be nice?

 

[daniel335e]

Great Upgrades

When i first saw that the Mac mini was updated, I was very glad to see the optical drive gone. These days optical drives are obsolete as far as day to day use is concerned.

It is up to Apple to decide when something becomes obsolete, otherwise nobody else will. If Apple didn't kill the floppy drive, I wonder when other PC manufacturers would have?

Overall i was very impressed with the new Mac minis. One concern is the baseline model still has 2GB standard. In my opinion, RAM is one thing that Apple seems to drag out for as long as possible before they increase it.

 

[MattG]

Wow...this is stupid on a grand scale. This is the perfect media-hub computer, and it doesn’t have an optical drive. I have the revision before this, and I’ve been using it to rip my DVD collection. To just assume people don’t need it anymore…it’s stuff like this that make Apple bashers bash Apple, and rightfully so. And, it’s still the same price for the base model, no real improvements other than the processor. For this price without the optical drive, they should have at least thrown in the option to get an SSD for a reasonable price ($600 is not reasonable).

Fail, Apple.

 

[Kebabselector]

white macbook provides no benefit to us.

No benefit to you

it is heavier than macbook air, and slower than macbook pro.

That's true, if it followed the same upgrade path it would've been much the same as the MBP

macbook air and pro have facetime camera but WBA doesn't.

It has a camera built in - it wasn't called a facetime camera

we don't care if the white macbook is killed.

You don't care (along with a few others)

So where is the entry level Macbook with expandable memory and decent hdd capacity then? It doesn't exist. If I want to upgrade my Macbook now I have to buy a MBP, which costs £150 more.

 

[ArcaneDevice]

You use CDs?

I like music, why wouldn't I?

I can buy a CD that I can play in almost any music device in the past twenty years, rip into any format I want to, it comes in an universal storage format so I always have a backup, it includes liner notes and from more creative artists, cool packaging.

For the same price as buying it on iTunes.

So, yeah why wouldn't I buy a CD? Why would anyone who likes music not buy a CD?

 

[capwkidd]

Does someone make software that lets you use a Mac Mini solely with an Apple remote? So you can play podcasts, BluRay rips (MKV) from your network, iTunes (which would come from my main Mac), etc?

Basically an ApplyTV2, but with more horse power and capabilities....

 

[dustinsc]

While I don't think a desktop computer should have lost the optical drive quite yet, external DVD drives run as cheap as $30. It's not a big deal. I just would have thought that they would have packed something else in there or made it smaller without the Super Drive.

 

[capwkidd]

I like music, why wouldn't I?

I can buy a CD that I can play in almost any music device in the past twenty years, rip into any format I want to, it comes in an universal storage format so I always have a backup, it includes liner notes and from more creative artists, cool packaging.

For the same price as buying it on iTunes.

So, yeah why wouldn't I buy a CD? Why would anyone who likes music not buy a CD?

I will *NEVER* buy music from Apple, unless they go to full quality.... why pay the same or more (used CDs) for less quality?

Come on Apple! Start offering Apple Lossless!