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Intel Preps Mac mini Look-Alike
boarder8925 writes "From Wired: 'A new Wintel prototype that openly apes Apple Computer's popular Mac mini is due out this week, giving Intel a showcase to prove its chips are a match for anyone when it comes to tiny PC designs. Working prototypes of the Mac mini look-alike running Microsoft Windows and based on Intel's Pentium M CPU have already been built by Taiwan PC maker AOpen at Intel's request, according to two sources in Taiwan's PC manufacturing industry who have seen them.' This isn't the non-working box Slashdot covered earlier."
Who cares if it ain't got no pictures?
The main reason for a small box is so it can be put on show, thus style and design need to be seen to make a judgement.
Weak as piss.
Long live AMD64
As long as they drop the MHz on the Intel chips, this could be a definite contender in the over-priced/underpower market.
...until the mouse has only one button.
I kid, I kid. I own a Mac myself.
Anakin Simpson: If you're not with me, then you're my enemy--ooh, donuts!
I like the idea of competition in this space. I would love to buy a Mac Mini (and probably will within the next year), but it would be nice to see either: prices drop, or features improve. Intel coming into the game as a chip-maker is interesting, and I hope that someone like Dell goes for it as well. I would wager that they will given their current thrusts into some home/game/media oriented PCs.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Silent PC Review has a couple photos.
Windows users have wanted really simple computers for a while, right? P.S. I am not the guy whose account I am posting this under. I just live in his house.
Paste!
The obvious next step is to put the computer in the keyboard. Oh wait, you say they did that with the VIC-20 and Commodore 64, etc. How about putting it in the monitor? Apple did that?
Seriously though, why not. You'd still need a power cord but you could totally do away with the whole cpu box. Connect everything by rf and get rid of all the cables except the power cord. Never mind making the box smaller, just get rid of it. Hey, I just realized, I'm describing my laptop. Bottom line: I don't need no steenking box!
Even the headline "Intel preps Mac mini lookalike" is borrowed verbatim from Wired.
PCs are designed to be easily upgradeable so I really don't see a point to this PC Mini.
built in hotplate and griddle for 3D in-game snacks (running solitare turns it into a plate warmer)
Apple isn't bothered but George Foreman better start worrying
So get a Mac Mini clone, and then run Linux/KDE on it. It looks (kind of) like and Apple, talks like an Apple with an accent but its still not a real Apple.
I'm tempted... but not enough yet. I will stick with the gray ATX box that has so far survived many, many upgrades (of OS & hardware)
Mini computers, with nice looks existed for a long time. But at least from my point of view, the coolness factor of the MiniMac is exactly this: it is a Mac - a cheap Apple computer, similar enough with its bigger brothers that I am not so interested to buy. A normal Apple computer although is very nice, is not useful enough for me to buy it at its price. But a MiniMac toy seems interesting enough at a right price. On the other side.. I don't want a small PC. I want a big PC, with enough free slots for the cards that I want to use. A compact PC card (like all those 5.25" and 3.5" motherboards with mobile processors) is very nice to use with a flash card as hard disk in various appliances - but a shiny tiny pc sits just in the middle. It is not flexible enough - no space for addon cards. It is not rugged enough (still a pc, with hard disk, not a compact computer designed to work in extreme conditions). It is not even a cheap solution because the PC market is very cheap already and I guess this mini pc will not be 50$ to mantain the price proportions of the normal Apple versus MiniMac.
OP doesn't justify calling the user an idiot. This is not insightful, but flamebait.
Intel probably sees the Mac Mini for what it is: a simple, practically disposable personal computer that'll keep a *large* percentage of the population happy for 3 years until they buy another one. You lose iLife going to XP/P-M, but there's Picasa 2, Windows Movie Maker, and various DVD burning programs out there to kluge together to get someone an "equivalent" experience. I "switched" to the iMac G5 when it was released for 2 reasons: iLife, and the fact that most of the "gaming" I do these days is less FPS and more plastic trucks with my 18-month old son. Never underestimate the extreme amount of digital pictures and MiniDV footage you'll accumulate when your first child is born.
I guess eventually people reach the point where they begin to treat their computers more as appliances and less as sandboxes to play in; upgrading video cards, hard drives, and processors whenever the latest hot game is released. When I use a computer these days, I'm either modifying content I've created (pictures, movies), browsing the web, or logging into a shell at work to catch up on my tasks. I don't need a GeForce 6800 GT and a 4 GHz hyper-pipelined processor to do that.
'A new Wintel prototype that openly apes Apple Computer's popular Mac mini is due out this week, giving Intel a showcase to prove its chips are a match for anyone when it comes to tiny PC designs.
Few dobut that Intel's chips have the same potential for minturization as Apple's chips. Yet somehow it seems that 90% of all mini PC's and PC laptops out there still look like concrete slabs when compared with the Mac mini and the PowerBooks which has caused a not inconsiderable number of consumers to begin regarding the PC's as clumsy. Apple concluded that style and ultra compactness matters to some consumers more than raw computing power and apparently they were not entirely wrong. For a Mac user it is certainly satisfying to see Intel finally acknowledging that.
The average Windows luser no longer upgrades his system, at most it's a memory upgrade. These mini-systems were quite popular at Gateway in the late 1990s, remember the SFX form factor systems? At this point, a 2GHz Celeron with 512 RAM is all most lusers need. Grandma playing solitaire doesn't care about FPS.
I don't see the big rush for these Mini-machines. They are clearly aimed at a market where people want a very simple solution. The people that want email, internet access, and maybe Office.
I think Intel is better off with the normal PC market. For the same price you can get way more out of a normal PC. Apple might make a little money off the Mini mostly because the Mini looks trendy and that drives a lot of Mac sales.
The Mini design might start looking good for a media PC that would sit on top of a TV, but until there is a way to add way more storage for DVR and storing DivX, they won't cut it. Also, I am guessing the GPU in it won't play HD quality very well.
Intel might be a little better off enlarging the size, but adding more power to it. Call it the "Almost-mini" and sell it as a faster solution.
/. ++
"The PC is more powerful and popular than Apple systems because of its open architecture -- you can upgrade it. When the PC gets similar to the Mac mini, you have no space to upgrade, and you will lose this advantage," he said.
did it say how many ram slots it will have? i feel that is the determining factor when it comes to upgrades on these little types of machines.. if it did become popular enough, i could see other companies manfacturing mini-atx-like motherboards to fit in the small case.. who knows, it could become the new PC standard.. as long as it doesn't cost $400 to upgrade to a gig of ram.. we'll see..
btw.. the "To Confirm you're not a script" thing, is sometimes very hard to read..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
VIA's mini-itx mobos are pretty tiny... they tried to bump up the capabilities but Intel took 'em to court? (too x86-like?)
The Apple Mini is just one size too small, and thus sacrifices efficiency (laptop HD, little cooling).
If you are looking for a good office solution look at the ASUS Pundit. They don't get hot, have space for a decent harddisk and DVD drive and are very efficient with desk space (especially when used with a flatscreen and wireless keyboard)
There have been innumerable "Mac look-alike" models introduced in the Wintel space. I wish I could recall the name of the model some company introduced circa 1991 which had almost the same form factor as the classic Mac, 9" screen and all. I'll bet it left out the built-in handle; that's the sort of detail the Mac-alikes always forget.
There have always been Mac lookalikes. Remember the eOne from eMachines.
Apart from press interest at their introduction, all of them sank in the marketplace without so much as a ripple.
Anyone who says that there is much difference overall in price or power between a Mac and a PC is grinding an axe. The fact is they're using technologies that are pretty much on a par and the price/performance is pretty much on a par.
But the Wintel Bizarro-world Mac-alike machines usually ARE overpriced and underpowered. And the form factor and "look" usually look like a cheesy knockoff; it's obvious they are not using industrial designers of the caliber that Apple uses.
Love it or hate it, the original iMac, for example, showed an amazing design integrity in carrying the "translucency" theme throughout the entire design; not only the case, but the keyboard, the mouse, _and the power cord_ were translucent. I'll bet those power cords added cost. That's the sort of detail the would-be Mac-alikes never seem to include.
It's the overall integrity of the product design that gives Apple that "wow" factor. It's also the overall integrity of the product design that makes Apple's products so comfortable and usable.
So, someone else can throw just as many components into a little box as Apple can? I never doubted it for a second. The point is, Apple doesn't just throw components into a box.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
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it could burn DVDs (available as option)
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record TV
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copy DVD to HD
Of course, it should then also not cost much more than a typical HD/DVD recorder I can buy at the discounter and can do all the above, i.e. 400 euros.There are already mini-ITX systems out there. They have still have legacy brain damage like parallel ports which eat up most of the i/o port real estate. Some of the cpu cooling solutions seem unweildy. Cases are really expensive and not too flexible. Apple has nothing to worry about. The wintel industry is congenitallly incapable of producing anything that would threaten the Mac Mini.
5 months after Apple has a finished product in the shops, Intel manages to cobble together a working knock-off prototype?
This is the sort of tactic would I expect from a no-name box-shifter, not a supposed market leader in technology. The Mac Mini makes sense as a switcher's 1st Mac, as a cheap means to play with OSX, or as a design Icon (with an expensive pretty Apple LCD, wireless keyboard and mouse) in a high-tech setting, but this box has none of those factors in it's favour.
The only market for a small and pretty 'PC mini' that sacrifices upgradability for size is as a media centre, which puts this box into direct competition with those other recently announced small-box media centres the Xbox360 and PS3, where it's going face insurmountable competition on spec, price, and availability of games. If Intel really had the right stuff to be in this market would all 3 next gen boxes (and the Mac Mini for that matter) be using a different processor supplier?
Time to ditch the slogan 'intel inside' in favour of 'too little too late'?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
What's the point? Get a normal tower case and put it under your desk where you can't see it. I don't want to see any case on my desk at all, I'd much rather have the space clear for useful equipment or something nice looking like a plant. Everyone has plenty of room under their desk and having the top of the desk clear except for the monitor, mouse and keyboard looks much better than having your case there with loads of wires coming out the back of it. The only reason I need to use my case is to turn the computer on and put a CD in it once a month. A small case just means less expansion slots and having little room to move inside it when you're upgrading. A small, nice looking 'case' is good for a portable, but the point of this for a immobile home machine alludes me.
e x05/paradox.jpg
Look at the photos for the macmini lookalike:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/comput
It's nicer looking than a normal case but why would you want it on your desk anyway? It's a waste of room.
Having a silent computer is good though, but you can do that with normal cases.
But why use OS X an alternative? I happen to know a pretty cheap and powerful alternative. Hint: it starts with 'GNU/'. I'd seriously consider buying such a nice box if it would be supported by Free Software.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
I bought a mini mac because it ran os x, not because of its size. What I would like to buy is a not-so-mini-mac that gave me 2+ memory slots, a 3.5 inch hard drive and a dvd writer that wasn't 2002 technology and screws to hold it together.
I don't care if the box is cute and tiny, I want some ability to upgrade the stuff inside it.
Still, Apple didn't invent this the small form factor space - there's been lots of 'em over the years. Therefore as long as a PC only superficially similar to a mini (i.e. they're both small), I don't think any manufacturer has anything to worry about.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/compute x05/paradox2.jpg
My only real problem with tiny PC's is that you're stuck with integrated graphics solutions. That won't matter to someone who just needs a computer to work on Word documents or surf the net, but I occasionally like to play a game. If they could make a P4 or Athlon 64 SFF system that had enough room to stuff in an aftermarket AGP or PCI-X graphics card, I'd probably buy one to cut down on the desk clutter. It would be useful, even if it was double the thickness or length of the mini.
My ideal system would look something like this:
Athlon 64 3500+ or equivalent P4
512mb RAM
DVD+-RW
reasonable 3D graphics card
120-200gig hard drive
ethernet
wifi card
USB + Firewire ports
integrated sound card
Cheers,
"Never underestimate the extreme amount of digital pictures and MiniDV footage you'll accumulate when your first child is born."
This is why I keep on adding big HDDs to my mini tower. At 20GB an hour for full DV quality, it won't take you long to fill up a Mac Mini's storage. When you do this, you'll have to start adding external firewire drives, which isn't really all that neat...
It wouldn't be Apple-ish until the OS disk can do a clean install in less than an hour and by default preconfigures all components with the optimal settings for that model
It certainly would be possible to make a Linux disk that is designed just for a limited range of known PCs for which it gives 100% compatibility and a logical, no-silly-questions install process, I don't think anyone's done it yet though.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
machine anywhere near the desk?
Wherever machine...notebook and network.
Home machine...notebook and network, adding second display(19" WSXGA) and desktop keyboard soon.
Network machines...a 2 X PIII at two miles and an AMD 64 3200+ at five miles from the house do the trick. No noise at all from these babies and the flexibility of network lets me use them from almost anywhere.
The above subject might be a stupid question on /.
But still, buy a microATX board, get a suitable small casing, done! Why is it suddenly 'innovative' when Apple stuffs a PC in a small box?
I must say that after taking a look at the pics it does seem like a blatant ripoff. But that doesn't invalidate the earlier point: Why was apple's machine news in the first place?
Very lovely. It makes me wonder why Apple didn't think of slapping a big beige power button in the middle of the Mini.
They'd also need a very popular rock star to be in colorful commercials singing "One... Two... Three... Fourteen!"
Marketing success, here they come!
Take a look at used laptop with a broken screen if you want a small, inexpensive, wintel box. WTB on craiglist.org should generate some leads.
once again Apple sets the standard of cool and the non imaginative copycats pop up out of the asian woodwork like termites. it's all about the software. sure, the Mac Mini has cool design and is dead sexy quiet, but the OS and bundled software is what makes it kick ass in features and value. yes, you can probably get 'similar' software if you go look for it for windows, but out of the box user experience, "Just Works" Apple poops on everyone.
I've to confess I've never used an Apple (Mac or anything else they might've made). But when I saw a Mac for the first time, I feel insanely in love with it. The only thing stopping me from buying a Mac is it's price - it's too high (well, it would be if you convert the price to Indian Rupees. $1 ~ Rs. 43). If Intel brings an Apple clown and if we can get GNU/Linux or any other FOSS OS running on it, won't it be cheaper? Lot of if's and but's but the future sure looks coluorful :-)
PicoBTX mobo from Intel. It's been announced for a while. Just imagine one running FreeBSD on a bookshelf somewhere, silent and serving 24/7. :D
Superdrive Option $100
Copy DVD to HD. Point and click, easy as pie. Freeware.
PVR over firewire. As low as $149 US
$499 mini+$100 Superdrive+$0 handbrake+$149 ATI Eyewonder USB 2.0=$648 US.
That's about 525 Euros... how attached are you to your price point? You get your PVR for 400 Euros, and on top of that you get the rest of the Mac for 125 Euros. You also have the benefit of using a general purpose machine, which means no lock-in, limitations on storage, whatever. Just plug in a firewire drive for more when you run out.
It doesn't really make sense to require it cost no more than a PVR when it is far, far more functional than one. Stickies and iCal alone can turn the TV into a great central life management area. Streaming video. iChat videochatting on the big screen makes it into a real videophone. Whatever.
Damn $x99 price points. $748 US, 606 Euros. Not as close, but still a pretty good deal.
Something like this would be great for sticking in a flat where space is at a premium and/or you want something that looks good and doesn't make a lot of noise.
It would be nice if companies now concentrated on size and quietness rather than mhz. If my next PC was smaller than a shoebox (and just as expandable) then I'd be there in a shot.
Of course I could just get a Mac Mini, but having lots of money invested in PC software, I'm not yet prepared to make the switch.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I have been purchasing pc's like that since at least 2002, with my total at 3 so far. I'm glad the big manufacturers have taken notice of the mac mini, it means the prices will be pushed down where they should be. In the $100 to $200 range for new systems maybe.
C sid=3c23d08bb22bf0f99259c3a8bd72e214/
http://www.thebookpc.com/index.php/cPath/68_33?os
Mac hardware has always been great, but I will buy which ever is cheaper. Mac Minis (like its mini itx predecessors) are not designed to be incredibly fast, but incredibly small. Their size makes them a nice addition to the home theater system, or pretty much anywhere.
They both run linux, so other than price, there really isn't much difference between them to me.
--dingletec--
I remember when the first iMac made a big splash, the Intel side announced with huge fanfare the "Aztec" computer which looked like a part of the city set from Logan's Run. This one never went anywhere.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
This summer, I plan to upgrade my pc from 256 to 768 MBram, and to a 120-160gb 7200rpm from the stock 60 gig 5400, I would love to do this kind of thing to my Mac but I cant get a mid tower foer under 1500, that sucks
It has all been tried before...
Get your Unix fortune now!
but I could already build an 8086 mac mini size box already for about half the cost of a mac mini.
not that I would but I already had priced it for friend who was interested but then decided he wanted something that would be upgradable/expandable.
I have an imac for my daughter and I like a lot and it is very mobile I can move it from room to room and it is sort of upgradeble - i.e hard drive/memory but that is about it. It is still a very usable computer - I have ubuntu on it and it is pretty snappy and I find myself using for a desktop sometimes - and it does look pretty cool I have to say.
That said I will probably buy a mac mini when you can get a used one for at least half the price of the new one.
Surely the Mac Mini caters for those who want to flirt with running OSX or those who want an Apple computer but find the eMac too big and the other Macs too expensive?
So the Intel machine just seems like yet another small form factor PC, a bit of a low rent Mac Mini.
I don't see why the Mac Mini is so revolutionary other than for the fact that Apple made it and it's $500. The size isn't the selling point. Small-form-factor PCs have been around for years. I remember seeing ads for the Cappucino PC at least 2 or 3 years ago on Slashdot/Thinkgeek. The form factor isn't the selling point, it's the fact that you can get an OSX system for $500.
rooooar
Apple concluded that style and ultra compactness matters to some consumers more than raw computing power and apparently they were not entirely wrong.
.. another Mac zealot who thinks Apple invented the idea of tiny PC's .. .. how fudgeing stupid is that?
.. someone even made a matchbox size 486 PC.
Oh Gosh
The mac zealots have now convinced themselves that "anyone who makes a tiny PC is clearly copying Apple's idea"
Nevermind that the PC world has been moving in this direction for a while
And ASUS has an NForce 4 mobo with PCI Express in a micro atx solution.
I priced the above with a A64 3200, Gforce 6600, 1 GB RAM, DVD RW dual layer, 250 GB HDD (the rest except for Wifi was onboard) for under 1G CDN.
And that's a pretty nice box, and a killer system!
This article was written from the point of view of the mac lover, and it's so obvious it's stupid. In the very first paragraph he's already calling them "Wintels" - a slang term used only by people who only have something negative to say. If this article got any more slanted, the bullshit would be rolling off of it. What really gets me, is they claim that it's a mac mini knockoff, but they can't show any pictures of it other than a "concept photo" that they may or may not be using.
Frankly, if I was wired's editor, I'd fire Simon Burns and find someone who actually learned how to report facts rather than his own slanted brand of fiction.
If you think Joe Average will _ever_ say "hey, I want this computer because it runs Linux", methinks you got it all wrong. And it's this kind of getting it wrong that's why Linux is still a nerd-only OS. Not saying that Linux is bad or anything, but I'm saying that assuming everyone will see it as a goal, rather than a means, is the awfully wrong assumption and the awfully wrong way to market anything.
Frankly, other than die-hard nerds, noone gives a damn about the OS. The point that all the "Linux rules, Windows blows" or "MacOS rules, everything else blows" flamewars are missing is just that: that the OS itself is really the least important part.
In the real world what matters is what can you _do_ with a tool, and the computer or OS are just such tools to an end. What matters is what concrete goals can you achieve with it, not what a cool Apple logo it has on the box. What Joe Average asks is stuff like "Can I edit my digital photos with it and burn them on a CD"? What Joe is seeking just a solution to some clear problems, never "but I really wanted to try Linux, although I have no clue wth will run on it, or what can I do with it".
That solution means: apps. And the OS exists only to load those apps. Most people would run any OS just as gladly without an OS, if they could just pop the CD in and have the application start up.
Don't believe me? Look at the some 100 million game consoles sold, and how noone said "nah, if it doesn't show a Windows boot-up screen I'm not buying a PS2". What they _did_ however ask is: "what games are available on it, then?" I.e., they asked about the _apps_.
That's it. The apps are the alpha, omega, and the whole alphabet in between.
So all this OS brand zealotry is really like saying you buy only a certain brand of car for the dashboard, and not to actually drive it. Or better yet, saying that you're buying a microwave oven instead of a fridge because you like the interface more. It's... missing the point, to put it very diplomatically.
_Noone_ other than geeks will want to buy a computer for Linux or any other OS. In the real world they'll buy it for what they can do with that box.
Tell them "yeah, you can get this machine and you'll have a cheap, secure and very easy to use computer, that can edit your digital photos, surf the web, encode and decode movies and music, etc" and you'll have the people's attention. That's what Apple did. _That_ is the message that people want to hear.
But tell them "give me your money to try a new OS that exists just to fight MS's evil empire", and you've lost them. _Noone_ sane blows their paycheck just to fight in some idealistic nerd rebellion.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
If they make it half as nice as the Mac Mini...and $100-200 cheaper...I will buy one to go along side of my Mac Mini. I'd love to have a cheap PC, that isn't outdated or 10 times the size of the Mac Mini. I miss a few PC only apps.
I must be wakewalking through dreams.
>>I'd seriously consider buying such a nice box if it would be supported by Free Software.
Trouble is, nobody apart from geeks would seriously consider it for a moment if it didn't run either Windows or OS X.
Intel do not do Power and do not do RISC... and Windows do not run on any RISC...
I have nothing against a nicer looking PC but this is bullshit. If Intel wants me to buy a machine of theirs, they should give me one that can be upgraded component by component. I'd pay another $100 if I knew I could seriously upgrade performance in a year or two. I bought a Dell Inspiron 7.5K partly for that reason but it turned out their promise of a spacious extra hard disk was a lie, I ended up looking through their expired retreads forum. As it is they are going to have to take a major cut if they want me back now. Makes me want to buy a Mac!
While it's almost as ugly as a mini, I don't think it resembles a mini very much at all. I could easily tell the two apart with glimpse of no more than a fraction of a second. The mini has a very prominent white top, not to mention the traditional giant Apple logo.
Both are small, silver, and square with rounded corners. Does Apple own any or all of those traits? I don't think so. Small is something that most products strive for, and mini-itx PC have been around years before the Mac mini. Silver, well, my brothers TRS 80 coco was silver, and that was at least 20 years ago, Oh, that TRS 80 had rounded corners too, but then again just about all corners on every product are rounded to some degree.
When Apple borrows design elements people credit them with inventing the wheel and then anyone that ever uses those design elements again are ripping off Apple. It's ridiculous.
The days of assembling a wire warren of a shrine unto your computer are gone for an awful lot of people already. There is no desk. The lamp-style G4 iMac I bought years ago has displaced everything else in the house. All the old CPU boxes are in the storage room except for the work ghetto of PC stuff I have to keep set up in the back corner of the basement for the off late night's server testing. Partly the trusty iMac did that because sits dead center in the kitchen, on a countertop that's narrower than the narrow side of my veal cube here in the office, with space to spare. There, it takes on basically all the work for the adult and the two kids in my household.
And no, a tower wouldn't fit under the counter. That's where the dog's food and water dishes go, and our feet. (They're big dishes: she is a Newfoundland.)
Someday soon here the TV industry will get with it and give us affordable ways to avoid the Entertainment Center Shrine unto our TVs, too. (And a few older folks will be wondering why they can't buy a console TV for the entire wall of their living room any more.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
But analysts said they don't see big consumer demand for a clone of the stylish and popular box, or much of a threat to Apple.
Well, they must reckon without people like me.
I bought a Mac Mini soon after it came out. Now that the eye candy honeymoon has worn off, and 'damn this is annoyingly sluggish' takes over, the only thing that attracts me to the Mac Mini is the neat form factor and quietness.
I took my kids to the Memorial day parade. As usual, there were a lot of people riding in "classic" cars, which when I was a kid meant model Ts and old 50s era Chevy sedans. Now the cars we rode in to the parade are in the parade: late 60's Chevy Impalas, Plymouth Furies, and the like.
Several things struck me about these cars. First, the overwheliming impression is that they were huge. I bet that Impala weighs more than a Lincoln Navigator, and takes up more road space. Granted, we're only seeing the cars that were somebody's pride and joy; the Novas of this world are all in junk yards. But no doubt, these cars were the dominant automotive species of my childhood.
Second, despite quite a bit of creativity in the application of chrome and paint, to modern eyes these cars are strikingly uniform in their primitiveness. They project ponderous massiveness, not refinement. A modern economy car such as a Honda Civic boasts elegance beyond any but the most luxurious of the 60s cars. SUVs like the Ford Explorer that by modern standards are clumsy and bulky have a lightness and agility that only a sports car of 60s era could match.
My point here is that we're at the end of the muscle car era of computer workstations. We can choose between the equivalent of a massive Plymouth Fury or a "small" alternative like the Chevy Nova. A few odd people are driving the equivalent of the original Beetle, which was too cramped and underpowered for most peoples' tastes. In thirty years or so, we'll look at the computers we use today, and we'll scoff at how inconveniently bulky and primitive they are.
And we'll expect these small, powerful, elegant computers to be far cheaper in real terms.
What Apple has done with the Mini is introduce the equivalent of the Datsun (now Nissan). It was a car that combined economy with refinement, fun and quality. The Japanese invasion of the US car market raised the bar such that there is no comparing a car from 1975 and 1985. Detroit was slow to respond because this kind of innovation wasn't in their business genes, and they paid. Intel is trying to keep its customers from making the same mistake.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The whole point of the Mac Mini is OS X. You are right, up to a point. However, having discovered that OSX is (in my opinion) highly overrated, I would still place importance on the form factor and relatively silent operation of the Mac Mini. Those features transfer equally to an intel box. They're especially important for someone like me who has to share a relatively small flat with his computer, and doesnt want it humming away noisily in the corner of the sitting room, as standard PCs tend to.
I have a dead horse you can beat. Oh wait, you already are...
This is what we have come to expect from the whole PC market. Although it is good to see a legacy hardware free pc I am still looking for a legacy OS free pc like the machine. The main reason that some PCs are cheaper than macs is that those PCs are built with low quality or highly reproduced components. what happens to the price of a PC when you use all custom boards and case?
You said this like OS X is somehow a mainstream choice, not the territory of zealots.
I'm not trolling or flaming here, just pointing out the real world.
Its sort of ludicrous to compare a ix86 to a PPC, especially on the basis of form factor.
"my *red* GM car is better then your *blue* Ford car"
Is this moron day or something?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Putting a computer in a mouse has been done before, too.
Does anyone remember the dreadful FishPC iMac wannabe, not to be confused with the eMachines iMac knockoff?
It's worse than that. If you get a Cappuccino PC with anything like the Mini's specs, and with Windows XP Pro loaded, it's over a thousand bucks, and *still* has a slower processor.
Because Intel and AOpen are doing it? This kind of thing has been around for Windows and Linux machines for quite some time, using Intel devices: http://simplifiedinnovation.com/
I was liking the article until I read:
...running Microsoft Windows...
Can these damn companies offer Linux on these damn machines. With the size should come reliability...
$sig$
Apple tends to set a price point and add more stuff to that point rather than keep the stuff the same and lower the price.
Witness the white iBook - the bottom-of-the-line notebook has always been $1000 - $1200 or so. Instead of changing that price much, Apple has upped the standard equipment over time: CD -> CD Burner/DVD, 128 -> 256 MB RAM, wireless card optional -> included.
If you must have the absolute lowest price up-front, you regrettably don't want Apple. If you're willing to spend a little more up front to get something you'll keep for a long time, Apple starts looking better - I just installed 10.4 on my 500 MHz G3 iBook (purchased early 2002) and expect to get a few more years out of it.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
I smell "mee too!" in the air.
I always thought the biggest advantage with Mac was the OS. Having a Mac Mini lookalike with Windows does not a Mac Mini do. Unless Intel do some serious shaping up on Windows too this is just an ordinary crappy PC with Windows on it in a smaller package.
HTTP/1.1 400
A lot of posts here applaud Intel for offering a viable alternative to Apple's Mac Mini, but if I remember correctly a large percentage of the "Mac Mini's no big deal" posts on /. previously were that small PCs were already available. If that was the case before then this Intel announcement is "no big deal" as well. Besides, this is only a prototype, not an actual shipping product.
The main reason people were excited about the Mac Mini was that you got a small form factor, Apple quality and style, and OS X for $499. Frankly, it's not hard to beat the Mac Mini on style. It IS a box after all. But the included software and OS X at an entry price was what the Mac Mini was all about anyway. According to the article:
"The Pentium M and Windows XP are pretty expensive components. It would be hard to hit the Mac mini's $499 price point with that combo," wrote IDC's Kay.
At $499 minus $129 for OS X and another $79 for iLife (Apple's digital software suite), the Mac Mini's hardware is only $291. I suspect, instead, that Apple is practically giving their software away instead of losing money on hardware. It's not impossible to compete with them on pricepoint there, but not profitable unless the software bundled with the AOpen machine is compelling enough to offset the box's non-upgradability - something that the Mac Mini takes a lot of flak for.
The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
1v p-p is.
And 32MB is fine for any video editing, I don't know what kind of machines you work on but the framebuffers on the video editing machines I've used are more commonly 8 or 16MB. What would you need more for? You're not wanking textures about.
...just out of photo range is a 23-pound power brick, right?
I put together an Athlon64 PC together a few months ago that is more powerful than a Mac that would cost double the price. 50% cost != on par.
The modem is handy for sending and recieving faxes. I have not experimented with Mac OS's fax utilities yet. Fax capability is critical for small and home business.
One thing that would have been killer is for voice mail capability, but I have not heard of such functionality.
Also, a lot of non-technical people still use dial-up because they don't have a need or have other financial priorities. The cost of a Mac mini without a modem is exactly the same price as a mini with one, so an unused jack doesn't hurt anyone that doesn't need fax or modem capabilities.
it would be more cost effective just to buy another mini altogether.
With those god-awful riser cards and sculpted curved front bezels, I don't see how anyone who buys these things cares about upgrading.
A more apt headline may have been, "PC maker builds small PC"
but that that's not news is it?
oh wait, it's like a mac mini. really. no really. stop laughing!
yeah, no one ever thought of putting intel gizmos into a small box.
http://www.littlepc.com/
I missed the big to-do about these guys. of course these guys are actually SHIPPING something.
then again, they don't advertise as a "mac mini=alike"...very un-news worthy.
ciao
for this chip set, Apple would sell millions of more boxes, and MS would sell millions of copies.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm late to the party here, but hey, I got to read all the posts.
I see stuff like it should be a PVR, it should be a gaming computer, it should be the silver bullet that kills the Wintel werewolf.
The Mac Mini is the shot across the bow in a war that is about to begin. Sure there has always been drive there for Apple to take back the market, but they were lost. The Mac Mini is Apple's epiphany. They thought different.
After looking at my (soon-to-be) in-laws usage of a computer, the what and why of the Mini makes sense. First, I thought why bother with a modem? Well guess what fellow nerds, most of America still uses AOL dial-up! Second, why not make it expandable? How many average users acutally crack the case on that Dell and install new components? I don't have numbers, but I'm guessing that is what keeps the Geek Squad in business.
I looked at what my in-laws used it for and found that it is about email, pictures, web surfing, and light word processing. If they could actually get out of the AOL mentality they might get broadband and use it for video chat too, but thar might take them out of the comfort zone. These are people who are looking for a new digital camera with a floppy disc drive.
These people are the real consumer market out there. Apple understands that these people are fed up with the virus, slow running PCs (that they try to install XP on), and general hassles of system maintenance. These are the sales that will make Apple a real player again. At $500 the hardest sell of the Mac is getting people to leave the comfort zone of Windows.
"Give me taste, give me funk, give me fury, gimme some more."
I never really understood it before! Electronics have a tendency to get smaller over time. The whole goal is to make things smaller and more powerful.
However, if you notice, Apple is the only company that is ever "emulated", "copied", or as this screwy teaser states, "aped"?! wtf is that?
You never see, the "Moto Razr Clone", or a comparison to any other manufacturer when one company finally catches up and comes up with the trends or the norm. Why is this?
If you are a mac fanboi you might make some self serving fanboi comment like, "Well Apple creates a successful line of product and the others copy it!." Well. I would argue that either Dell or Gateway (can't remember which) actually had the computer in an LCD package before the half globe imacs were ever rumoured to be released. Apple didn;t copy Dell or Gateway, that was the trend and a natural progression. Make computers take up less space.
Interestingly the media completely ignores anything remotely interesting unless Apple has it's name attached.
Wonder why? Because alot of "media types" who consider themselves above the fray use Mac's. People have a natural tendency to rally around their own flag.
Nothing to see here really.
Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...
The market for small cases has been around for several years now. Intel are following Apple who are following the small case makers who are following the motherboard manufacturers.
Deleted
Just having the Firewire vaults even the cheeeeepy MiniMac ahead of the Intel box. Combine that with having to deal with the ugliness of MS Windows, and basically, this Intel box is a dud. It will fail.
Next, I want to see a MacMini with a low-end G5 in it...
HW
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/files/images/compute x05/paradox2.jpg
you can see the lack of Firewire.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
it's for the people that want an applience computer.
Plug in work, throw away in a couple of years. Something that does the basics, and is quite.
You do know Intel can cater to the people that like to fittle and upgrade, and those who just want something silent?
Since your poet makes it clear your going to buy products with intel chipsets, you hardle matter now, ddo you?
I assume you do not use AMD since they just copied Intel, cause that would make your post hypocritical.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Unless you somehow have OS X for Intel, there is no comparison to be made.
Sure there is, a hardware comparison.
Look, some of us think that OS X sucks. OS X is the REASON I don't like the current Mac's, and it's the reason (the only one) I won't be getting a Mac Mini. It's cool hardware, but the operating system is a piece of shit, IMO.
Not everybody is an Apple fanboy.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
We could use this with LoCps (Libraries of Congress per second).
Wouldn't that be LoCs/s?
From Wikipedia: Occasionally, this figure has been referred to as a data transfer rate, LoCs/s- Libraries of Congress per Second- and equates to 20 terabytes of data transferred per second.
My Journal.
I might be wrong on this, but I remember hearing that Office for the Mac was the only product other than Windows and Office XP where MS was actually making money. Has anyone else heard that?
--- Don't ever trust a woman until she's dead- B.B. King
does it double as a coffee warmer?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
People buy Mac Mini's because it is the cheapest way to get all the included software, not because it is the same size as a CD-ROM drive. If you're going to offer a system with zero expandability, it had better be able to do everything that people want to do right out of the box.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Seems you learn somethign everyday here...
I was under the assumtion that mac ram was diffrent from standard PC ram, but a quick goolgle search turned up that as long as the ram is a 72 pin simm, it should be ok.
I would assume from this that the HDD is a standard laptop drive as well.
Only issue then is with the video, which is soldered onto the motherboard and that pesky warranty, which is probably null and void should you upgrade it yourself.
For 500 buck though, I think it may be time to pick one up!
Always following, never leading...
...well said. I salute you. If only this enlightenment could spread like a disease, Slashdot and other forums would be much better places.
The Cappuccino listed in your link for $389 is without processor, RAM, and has no drives. In other words, it's a motherboard, case, and power supply ONLY.
When you up the specs to something vaguely like the Mac Mini, it's pushing a thousand bucks, and still depends on integrated Intel graphics.
Butt ugly *and* you can fry an egg on it!
That is all.
When everything can be crammed into the size of a laptop (including a battery) why is it (or has it been) so difficult to make something like a mac mini?
I think no one bothered till the Apple came along, and Wintel went...WAIT a minute...
--
I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.
Apple made the Mac Minis to appeal to the mainstream users who wants to get their feet wet with the new OS X without paying for a full blown Mac.
Intel should have countered this by releasing cheaper high end procs as that would interest maintream users.
Small form factor Wintel mobos are not a new idea. They never became popular because they suck. They're only good for hobbyists who likes to cram mobos for funny projects like a pc crammed into a lunchbox. (toasts anyone?)
"I don't think the two -- Mac mini and whatever Intel puts out -- are really in the same market; that is, of course, unless Apple starts running OS X on x86 hardware," said IDC analyst Roger Kay.
Maybe not OS X, but how about Linux?
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
First we get clones of the original iMac. Now this? Doesn't anyone besdies Apple come out with new concepts anymore?
In order to keep your CPU from becoming a pile of molten silicon, you basically need an air conditioner in there.
This is why Apple didn't fall in with the whole clock speed craze and put out the counterclaim: "It's the architecture, stupid." The PowerPC architecture is LOADS more efficient than the x86, so it doesn't need the higher clock speeds for equivalent performance.
Likewise, the smaller form factor for this new x86 box will still need as much cooling as an x86 laptop, so you will still get the noise and hot air. If you didn't want a hot air machine, you should've bought a Mac.
Ok, so they went ahead and made a nice looking little computer. (Personally, I have a Mac Mini and am quite happy with it in many respects.) But then they had to go ahead and cripple the box by running some version of Microsoft Windows on it. In case you are not familiar with this Microsoft Windows that I am discussing, it is a software package designed to facilitate the unauthorized use of a personal computer while preventing authorized use. Or, at least that's what I gathered based on my experience with this software. Microsoft's purpose may have been quite different, but I don't see how that could be.
I got a MacMini yesterday - while starting up the
machine for the first time - it practically forces you to register with lots of personal details. The only way to skip registration is make sure you aren't connected to the Internet when you start up the machine (I don't know - maybe even then it
stores the details & sends it in later).
Otherwise there is no way to get past the registration screen when you first start up the
machine.
But of course, it's Apple, so it's OK
But of course, this is slashdot, so this post will be modded as a troll.
I did say at the end of my message "That's what Apple did.", so yeah, we can quickly aggree there. You're perfectly illustrating my point, better than I did.
Apple understands its market thoroughly. Linux fans usually don't. Apple tells you what you can do with that computer and how utterly easy and intuitive is. Linux fans tell you how cool Linux itself is, why Microsoft must be stopped (as if Joe Average gave a damn about that), and some assorted _lies_ like that your Windows box crashes every 5 minutes (and Joe isn't that retarded, he knows how often Windows does crash: XP isn't Win 98 any more).
In fact, the usual Linux pitch is how you should be glad to _give_ _up_ some apps, for the privilege of fighting the evil empire. (You don't need Word. No, you really don't want Outlook, and losing the Exchange calendar functionality is no big deal. You're better off without IE, and you should change your bank if it only supports IE.) Often without offering any alternative, such as that if you really want to, you can jolly well run Outlook in Wine.
Or when they do demonstrate some elementary functionality, such as setting up the dial-up connection, they do it with some arcane CLI commands that Joe can't even follow and just scares the shit out of him.
And my message was mostly aimed at Linux advocates, such as the one who basically said "people will love buying this just to try Linux." Or look at the first answer to my message which basically says "yeah, but if using Linux makes you look like a computer expert, people will buy it as a status symbol."
Which is missing the point. They'd do well to take a lesson from Apple there, that's what I'm saying.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
It was sarcasm...
Wow, This Aztec is butt ugly, Love the headline.
Help fight continental drift.