So we get an MacMini with:
- external PSU
- Plastic top
- RISC CPU
/me parties like its 2005
- external PSU
- Plastic top
- RISC CPU
/me parties like its 2005
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High-End Mac Mini Said to Feature Thinner Design With 'Plexiglass' Top, Magnetic Power Port
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It’s an external power supply and they’re never going to use a standard barrel connector (especially if Ethernet is in the brick) so I don’t see the fuss.
I don't know why people keep repeating this. Magnetic connector =/= MagSafe easy tear away cable from the mid 2000s.
I know the tdp is much less but I’d rather have a larger fan that spins slower. I guess even that is overkill for these M SoCs.
Sounds nice. If the price is right, I will add one of these to my desktop set up along with Windows and Linux systems.
There's a version of the power brick without ethernet, the ethernet port has to be on the housing, due to all the cloud computing services depending on Mac Minis for the task.
Hopefully it'd at least give better BT signal strength.
Bluetooth and Wifi don't like metal.
Plexiglass is likely cheaper and more shatter resistant than a large glass panel, and you are just plopping this thing on your desk, not carrying it in a backpack everyday.
I suspect that if they do a redesign like this, they might also move the RJ-45 jack to the power brick like on the iMac, even though the renders for this article are showing RJ-45 on the back of the mini itself. Just a theory based on nothing.
Speaking of that, Cloud Computing (or any use as servers, however small that may be at this point) might actually benefit from having an external power supply that can be swapped out in seconds rather than close to never...
I know people keep saying this but, Apple does not have to design the Mac mini for server farms.
The headphone jack is part of the power brick too?
I like the direction Apple is taking for the entry level devices. Combining the nostalgic Apple hardware design of the 90s, with the "soft" industrial design of the early 2000s, with a dash of contemporary Apple. I'm hoping the community allows these designs/designers a little room to grow. I feel they are on the right path, and personally hope we will be getting more industrial/utilitarian hardware designs with the Pro level devices.
It's a way to make old computers look, well, old, and reduce their desirability. Apple is famous for making products that are hard to maintain, so that you don't want to buy them used, or if you do, you know that they're used.
It´s not like the M1 mac mini is suffering from cooling. Don´t really see the point in this right now other than "future proofing" the potential for something with M1X, M2 etc.
Except in reality what they will do is reduce the size of the machine and the heatsinks and fans, (should there be any). This thing may still overheat, assume that removing the largest source of heat is even more of an excuse for Apple to reduce the cooling apparatus.
'Even better for cooling' is this instance is conditional.
I think Jon may have been duped with this one. That spacing is way too tight on the ports.
The base iMac’s power brick doesn’t include Ethernet, only the midrange and up models do. It’s more than possible Apple is simply using the same brick as the base model and keeping the Ethernet port on the Mini itself.
Welcome back to the world of a desktop dragging a power brick behind it.
You realize even the iPhone has an external power brick, right?
It’s been 23 years. Can we let go of USB-A already?
Because:
(a) it is thinner.
(b) it is thinner
(c) it is thinner.
I know strictly speaking that is only one reason, but since making stuff thinner. for no adequately explored reason, at the expense of functionality, it is so important that it counts as three. If you don't understand why an already-tiny desktop machine has to be made even thinner please report to your local Apple re-education center.
Hopefully, this is just some speculative rumour, but unfortunately it does sound like the Apple we know and love.
The iFixit teardown of the iMac showed an ethernet controller chip on the main logic board. Suggesting that the new magnetic connector is just a glorified Ethernet patch cable, and the Ethernet socket in the power brick may be nothing more than a socket. $30 extra for a RJ45 socket sounds about right for Apple.