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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."
Silent PC Review has a couple photos.
499 too much for you? You shouldn't be spending your money on a computer...
What improved features? Take one for a spin, they're pretty complete...
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
"What improved features? Take one for a spin, they're pretty complete..."
As was noted in Anandtech's review of the Mac Mini, they're seriously underpowered for any sort of PVR work, and the software DVD decoder sucks. For a computer that seems to be designed to fit near your TV, that's a serious issue. They also have bad onboard video, and are totally non-upgradable (except for RAM, I suppose).
Maybe none of that matters to you - fair enough. But they're enough to make me totally drop the notion of buying a Mac Mini instead of a mini-ITX box.
In summary, they're feature complete for you, but not for everyone.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Well, if you had read the article you would have seen prices will probably start at around $600 and a system comparable to a mac mini would be more like $900, so I don't think there will be a huge pressure on Apple to lower their prices. Why the high price "The Pentium M and Windows XP are pretty expensive components..."
I would buy a Mini in a heartbeat if the onboard video was better.
The processor is plenty good enough, the 512MB RAM upgrade seems to have gotten even cheaper.
It's just the damn video card. If they threw a 128MB Radeon 9600 (the regular card with a different HSF design, or a mobility version) it would actually make a good game box.
Yeah yeah, I know, laugh. I think it would be cool to have a cheap, very tiny LAN box to play Quake 3 engine based games (since most of them have Mac ports) or Blizzard titles.
The speed boost it would give to the desktop wouldn't hurt either.
The thing is; loads of people harp on about the mini being "seriously underpowered for any sort of PVR work", "For a computer that seems to be designed to fit near your TV".
The thing is; look at the rear of a mac mini; no digital audio out, no TV-friendly output.
Why do people not take the hint? The mini is NOT designed to work with a TV, it is lacking ALL of the elements you would want. That doesn't make it designed for the TV, but lacking: it make it what it is; a cheap, no integrated display, desktop computer that runs OS X. Nothing more.
And for that job, its pretty good; it seriously dropped the minimum price of entry for OS X. Job done, design complete.
A computer is an appliance!
I hope you die you bastard.
They didn't even take advantage of the Mac Mini's one missing feature - S-Video out.
Mac mini: $500 (give or take)
DVI to SVIDEO adapter for Mac mini: $19
Posting this for the 30000th time: Priceless
...and that's all there is to it.
the mini also has no audio input.
what's top stop them from using integrated nvidia? that's light years faster than the POS ati 9600 in the mini.
and i _have_ a mini. this thing is _not_ fast.
why does it have to be $249 out the door? the mini's lowest end is $499.
they could easily do a $499 x86 mini pc with all the trimmings _and_ a copy of windows xp. hell you can get a full desktop pc with lcd monitor, keyboard, mouse, dual layer dvd burner, 80gb hd, 512mb ram, 2.66ghz p4, speakers and windows xp for $529.
it's not much of a stretch to say a wintel pc could easily be competetive on every hardware point.
As was noted in Anandtech's review of the Mac Mini, they're seriously underpowered for any sort of PVR work, and the software DVD decoder sucks.
As somebody who is using his Mac mini as a high def PVR and media center on a 199" screen, I can say without hesitation that Anandtech's review is full of shit.
Using the El Gato EyeTV, it works like a champ for both recording and playback of either 720p or 1080i signals.
Also, the DVD player in 10.3 works very well, and the new DVD player for Tiger is even better.
The only complaint I have (and it's a nitpick) is that the deinterlace software is not that great, which is a problem when watching cheaply-made interlaced DVD's (such as some anime TV show disks.) That's easy enough to get around, thanks to VLC.
(The new Tiger DVD Player does have some deinterlace control, but so far nothing that works nearly as well as the better filter options on VLC.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
apple didn't innovate with the mac mini. they just copied what pc vendors have been doing for years with x86 PCs. (cappucino pc for example). there are even more powerful x86 PCs that are even smaller than the mini.
so its not intel that's playing knock-off -- it's apple.
I own both of them. And the Asus Pundit makes a heck of lot more noise, and more in the irritating spectrum (probably in human speech range).
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.
Great, now tell us what percentage of the desktop PC market does just that? Did you say 90-95%? Hmmkay. I hope you can see it now.
Btw, the way to add storage is by means of a Firewire connected harddisk enclosure. And about the HD playback, it seems to do 720i/p just fine. Higher resolution is a problem. But then only higher end current PCs can play back 1080i/p HD streams in a reasonable fashion, depending on the codec you will need an even faster PC.
32mb vram pretty much rules it out for most games.
Yes, because 32mb of dedicated video memory is so much worse than the shared system memory that integrated video uses. If you hadn't noticed, you have to spend a significant amount of money on a new PC to get away from onboard video.
90% of the additional software that comes with osx (ilife, bleah) is forgettable junk. there are free (or dead cheap) equivalents on linux and win32 for most of that stuff.
True. However, most people won't try Linux because they have preconcieved notions that it's hard. So Grandma doesn't care if there's a Linux equivalent. And sure, there are Windows equivalents, but they cost more. Windows is alone among operating systems in that once you get the operating system, it's still amazingly useless because nothing is bundled.
for roughly the same amount of money you can get a much faster and all round more powerful pc _with keyboard and LCD monitor_.
Then you'll be pirating Windows, I take it. Let's take a look at where you are putting your money, shall we?
Keyboard: $5
Mouse: $5
LCD Monitor: $175
Case with low-quality PSU: $30
256mb PC2700 RAM: $20
Random Motherboard: $45
Athlon XP 3000+: $115
40gb HDD: $30
DVD-ROM/CD-RW: $30
Hmm, I guess we are only up to $455. Then again, it's a pretty useless computer. I mean, it has a nice processor, but Windows will use well over half of that RAM at idle. Then, since we are running off of onboard video, we won't be able to play games, especially with that tiny bit of system memory. Well, let's do some upgrading.
512mb PC3200 RAM: $45
Radeon 9800: $115
Whoopsie! We just hit $595! Yeah, it's not a bad computer at all. Then again, we still don't have any software at all. Just for fun, let's toss on XP Pro and MS Office, since that's what the salesman is going to convince Grandma to buy.
Microsoft XP Pro: $150
Microsoft Office: $130
And here we are, at $875. It's not a great deal at all, is it? Now, to be fair, I talked about Grandma in there, and she won't need some of the things like that nifty video card. She'll probably buy that computer from a major retailer and pay about the same, though. And since you mentioned Linux equivalents, you'll probably be able to stop at our $595.
But did I make my point? The Mac Mini is really pretty nice performance for its price, and is far more attractive than our $595 behemoth. Also, when Grandma buys a Mac Mini, she can just plug it in and go. No extra installations and no worries about viruses and spyware. Did you notice that I didn't even put antivirus software on the Windows computer? That'd push the price even higher. Remember, when you compare things to the Mac Mini, you ought to take into account the software that you'll need to add to the other computer, that's either packaged or unneccessary on OS X.
Computers need to explode more often.
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.
Now that the Mini Mac is actually cheaper (unless you pirate Windows) than a baseline PC
You can get complete PC's for less than $500. Complete means it has a monitor (a LCD is not out of the question), a keyboard, and a mouse. Maybe even a printer too. A Mac Mini may have several advantages over a low end PC, but cost is not one of them.