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Intel's Mac Mini Look-Alike

maverick18x said:
Who really cares what wintel does? Unless you become an innovator you will always stay a step behind. Who knows the specs on this thing anyway? It's just for those stubborn PC users who don't want to switch, so they can say "we have them too." It isn't this media center that was ripped off before though, it's completely different.

And who wants a mini if they have to buy an adapter and don't have USB/firewire anyway?
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being an innovator doesn't guarantee anything, actually followers do quite well... Microsoft has followed in everything and i think they do quite well!
 
Wired has added new photos--and ther's an Intel logo and a Microsoft logo on the exhibit, sure enough, alongside AOpen:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,67664,00.html?tw=rss.TOP

23_minipc_f.jpg


Of course this won't sell well, it's something to showcase not something to change anything really. And it probably helps Apple more than hurts--press = mindshare! And yes, Apple should sue them too.

Some details that make this no Mac Mini competitor in reality:

* Not in production until Fall!

* Rated louder than the Mini (not sure where I saw that today).

* If it's like other compact PCs, speed will suffer, and cost will be high, and it will lack hundreds of dollars of features found standard on the Mac Mini.

* It appears to have fewer expansion ports.

* It's almost certainly cheap plastic instead of aluminum (since it's available in both silver and white).

* No iLife software bundle.

* No Tiger :)

The people most interested in something a little "different" like this will be good candidates for an open mind about a REAL Mac anyway.

Oh, and I like the Shuttle VP's quote explaining that for full size computers, PCs are better than Macs because Macs are not upgradable :rolleyes: but that PCs lose that advantage when made in a compact size, thus becoming non-upgradable like Macs. Hmmm.....
 
really is worths less, get a biger computer that cost less, mac mini is a cheap way to get used to osx(but the tiny size does help, my bet the mini is faster then the copy. I saw soemwhere the used the mini's cas and put a pc in ( it was crap compared to the mini.)
 
Point taken - it is very similar.

I guess my problem is that as soon as any vSFF computer is released, it's immediately slated against the mini. Granted, most of them ARE ugly, though.

Stand corrected.

andy.
 
Can Apple protect their designs from being ripped off? I wasn't really angry before, but this rips Apple off big-time. Its not that I really care what they do in the PC World. I'm not in that world. However, Apple does work hard and takes risks and for AOpen to basically get a great design for free..... :mad:
 
Abstract said:
Can Apple protect their designs from being ripped off? I wasn't really angry before, but this rips Apple off big-time. Its not that I really care what they do in the PC World. I'm not in that world. However, Apple does work hard and takes risks and for AOpen to basically get a great design for free..... :mad:
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Yep you're right - it's a rip off. But really, how complex a design is it? The Mac Mini is just a little flattish box with a slot in the front. It's not like an elaborate piece of craftsmanship or anything hehe...
 
zap2 said:
my bet the mini is faster then the copy. I saw soemwhere the used the mini's cas and put a pc in ( it was crap compared to the mini.)
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The whole point of this exercise is that Intel wants to show off their mobile technology in a desktop box. Pentium M technology is very quick now - I expect a 2.13GHz CPU would *comfortably* dispatch a 1.42GHz Mac Mini for pure processing power. It's all going to come down to what they bundle with it, ie, graphics card, expansion ports, etc.

Ultimately PC owners enjoy choice with their hardware, and this provides just another choice. Intel may not make much money on this due to the competitive nature of the PC industry, as opposed to Apple who have a captive market.

Personally I'd go for the Mac Mini, because I have enough PCs already. But Intel's new mobile chipset features some great things such as PCI Express graphics, and 7.1 channel high definition sound (with SPDIF outputs). If they use this chipset in their 'mini', then it'll be an awesome TV box.
 
Bonte said:
if its priced ok i want one next to my G5, beats VPC in performance and almost in price. Maybe i can stack a Mac mini and a Win mini later on. :)
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That would be great!

It would be small enough to pack in my computer bag next to my Powerbook.

VPC is really slow
 
PCMacUser said:
Yep you're right - it's a rip off. But really, how complex a design is it? The Mac Mini is just a little flattish box with a slot in the front. It's not like an elaborate piece of craftsmanship or anything hehe...
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Then why did Intel/AOpen need to copy it? ;)

It isn't that simple.
 
So it's small and looks like the Mac Mini, big whoop.

What is interesting, and some people have passed over this, is that it uses the Pentium-M chip. I'll repost a link from the previous Intel-Mac thread.

Pentium-M has great performance

Let us try to sum up the insights we have gained during the course of this little project.

With the help of a simple socket adapter card and a BIOS upgrade, certain mainboards using Intel's 865/875 chipsets can be upgraded to use a Pentium M instead of a Pentium 4. Such a system offers up-to-date performance paired with low power requirements.

Additionally, we were able to raise the FSB from 133 to 160 MHz without any trouble at all. The result was that our 2.13GHz Pentium M 770 ended up running at 2.56 GHz! At this clock speed, our two year old platform was able to beat the processor heavyweights Athlon 64 FX and Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition in all 3D games!
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Beating $800-900 chips is pretty amazing, but doubt this sucker will be able to do that.
 
Wow. Seriously. After seeing actual pictures. Sort of speechless. Seriously. Did they actually think Apple WOULDN’T sue them? I was somewhat kidding before but this....wow. :eek:
 
holes in the top

holes in the top - great. Wait til the average pc user decides it's a good place to put a cold drink. Even if it doesn't spill, condensation will drip down. Darwinism at work... literally :)

Like I said before the Mac Mini came out, take some design principles from Sun's IPC and IPX "lunchbox" designs.
 
Oh no, they forgot to copy the name of the product correctly, too.

It should be "PC Mini," not "Mini PC."

I guess they didn't copy EVERYTHING.
 
This is bad for Apple. No doubt the ensuing legal battle (I imagine there will be?) will stir up interest in the products, and heaps of people will say "What's this new PC? Wow, that's cool. Hang on, what's that Apple thing? What a ripoff."

Ripoffs can help improve the image of a product, but only when the public actually knows about the product in the first place. Look at people bagging the iMac ripoffs and naming (how quickly did everything become iEverything?), but that's because the iMac was popular with everyone first - no-one knows what the Mac mini is yet.

They needed to have done a big advertising and/or press coverage deal on launch (I mean like a front page article in the IT pages - or even the front page for big-time exposure - of the NY Times or something. I don't know, I'm not in the US?) so people didn't have to go hunting for the thing, instead they get shown it on the news. Look at the news coverage the XBox360 and PS3 got - now EVERYONE knows what they look like. And they're not even out yet.
 
sluthy said:
the iMac was popular with everyone first - no-one knows what the Mac mini is yet.

They needed to have done a big advertising and/or press coverage deal on launch (I mean like a front page article in the IT pages - or even the front page for big-time exposure - of the NY Times or something. I don't know, I'm not in the US?) so people didn't have to go hunting for the thing, instead they get shown it on the news. Look at the news coverage the XBox360 and PS3 got - now EVERYONE knows what they look like. And they're not even out yet.
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The Mac-mini is being sold in BestBuy stores throughout the US. America's largest consumer electronics store has them sitting out for people to play with and use... no doubt (hopefully) anyone in the new PC market will see one.

It's a shame that there aren't mac fans working in Best Buy locations whispering things like "buy this and your machine won't crash." The timing of the switch campaign could have been corrdinated a little better with the macmini certainly... along with a announcer guy saying "See the new mac-mini at your local BestBuy!"

But no... Apple has to be all upidy and refined. :rolleyes:
 
Well if it has a pentium M, it's going to be a hell of a lot faster than the Mini. Get it together, Apple.
 
Fender2112 said:
Well, all cars have four wheels and a motor. But they don't all look the same. I think it's a pity that these Wintel folks can't come up something original once in a while.
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Apple needs to be sued by RIPING off Konfabulator... don't you think? Of course not fanboys!
 
Like the saying goes,"You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." When all is said and done, it is still a PC running Windows.

While the form factor of the Mac mini encouraged me to switch, it was my dis-satisfaction with Windows that was the primary reason.

Does anyone think the "Pandora" will get a Mac user to switch to Intel? I don't think so. The MAC OS is the driving force behind Apple.
 
Why shouldn't the WinTel folks rip off the mini? Apple created a great design but refuses to spend real money promoting the thing.

Instead, the PC folk will rip off the idea and market it like crazy. I predict sales will dwarf Apple's within weeks of it going on sale. It's all about marketing and sales power.

Come on guys, if it's quality that sells, then why is Apple's marketshare so poor. The WinTel guys know how to market.

Last thought: my mini is destined to sit next to the TV. Since the only real programs that will be important then will be the browser and the media add-ons (iTunes, Real Player, WMP) the OS will be less important. With the exception of viruses, there is no overriding reason why it has to be a Mac versus Windows machine.

But I'd never buy a PC running Windows as my desktop or laptop -- that would be going too far!
 
But think again about those articles:

https://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/05/20050523070726.shtml
https://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/02/20050225022048.shtml

Apple want dedicated hardware for its operating system. No self build PC clone can give this, and that's exactly the problem for the Microsoft Operating systems. They're big and bulky cause of the many devices support and in the weirdest combinations. (And M$ has to support al those)

Now that new little Mini PC is exactly what apple wants, if they would porting the OS X to intel (M) series (they talked .... only guessing about what ? :) ). So users can only add USB devices and some ram, but they cannot reswap the core processor like many custom clone PC's offer.

And if you can map more routines and code to dedicated hardware, the transition will be easier with that transitive software. And again running an OS x on Intel (M) against 80% processor isn't so bad. Virtualising wil gain and gain more power in the big computer industrie, grown out child-shoes and is rock-steady now.

If Apple won't do a thing about the rip-off, then they're sitting in the middle of a big upcomming hit: Hell froze over (again). They will put a wooden stick in the wheels of the upcomming longhorn rival (that also try to clone the new features of Mac OS X).

Apple can't promote new iPOD's and Mac models in a bigger way, only upgrades in memory and HD sizes. But apple want slam-the-doors with innovation, and what's cooler to say than: Hey, our Mac mini has a brother (no so nice, but close), and we like it. And we thought, why not give it the same feeling with our Tiger on Intel M.

Look at iTunes for windows, a legal rip-off of the original iTunes on OS X. They will do it again, but with Mac OS X on Intel M (compatibles) ....

Time will tell ...
 
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