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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.
...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!
Silent PC Review has a couple photos.
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.
'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.
Very lovely. It makes me wonder why Apple didn't think of slapping a big beige power button in the middle of the 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
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.
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