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Apple Announces Wonderful Toys
XMilkProject writes "Apple just released 5 new products, all of which should show up on the Apple Store within minutes. You can already see the most interesting new product, the iPod Hi-Fi, a supposed high fidelity boombox for your iPod. Other new products are an iPod Leather Case and three new media-center-style Intel Mac minis which will hit the Apple Store within the hour."
How about the new Mac mini, which has a 1.5GHz Intel Core Solo or 1.66GHz Core Duo, 512MB RAM (expandable to 2GB), a combo drive or DVD±R/RW SuperDrive, up to 120 GB drive, DVI/VGA/composite/S-Video out on Intel GMA950 graphics (up to 1920x1200), 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, gigabit ethernet (!), four USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400 (Yes, FireWire is here to stay, folks), analog and digital (S/PDIF) in/out, and an IR remote with Front Row media center software that supports sharing music, photos, and videos between libraries on any other machine on the local network, starting at $599 ($579 govt/education), all in the same tiny form factor as the old Mac mini (6.5"x6.5"x2")?
;-)
;-)
And a freaking set of speakers and a $99 leather case for the iPod are the "most interesting"?
I love how the submission is like "IPOD SPEAKERS", "LEATHER IPOD CASE", and then at the end, "oh yeah, and media center Intel-based Mac minis, too".
What I want to know is what Apple's going to do with its new 107,000 square foot Tier IV data center... iTunes Movie/Media Store, anyone?
In case anybody cares...the video chipset on this thing was MADE for home theater! It has hardware motion compensation, MPEG-2 hardware decoding, support for native HDTV resolutions and 16x9 aspect displays..among other nice stuff. It's NOT a big 3d gaming platform but definitely has the stuff for decoding video.
http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma950/
Not three.
Standard features: Tiger + iLife '06, Apple Remote + Front Row, Airport Extreme + Bluetooth, DVI Video Out, USB, FireWire, Gigabit Ethernet. This is nice because you don't have to get an upgrade to get Airport Extreme and bluetooth.
"All Mac mini models also include an integrated Intel GMA950 graphics processor with 64MB of shared DDR2 SDRAM(1), 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet, four external USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400 port, optical digital and analog audio in/out, and built-in mono speaker."
Optical out is a nice thing to have standard now, although I'm not sure about the video processor. The GMA950 is not capable of running games (see this Extremetech review). It uses a minimum of 80mb of the memory in the Mac Mini, further reducing what you can use for applications. In short, it's a major step down from the old Mac Minis, and not useful for those who liked running WoW on their Minis.
Low-end model: 1.5Ghz Core Solo 667 mhz fsb, 512mb memory, integrated graphics, 60GB drive, combo drive - $599 US, 699$ CDN reg.
High-end model with Core Duo - 1.67Ghz, 80GB drive + SuperDrive 8x (dual-layer capable) - $799 US, 949$ CDN reg.
They've also updated the iTunes and Frontrow capabilities; now you can stream any movies or music from any computer running iTunes, and it interfaces with the Frontrow software that is included (with a nice little remote).
A bettel looking option is the new universal dock + remote (about 100$) that lets you use a video iPod like a little media device attached to speakers or a TV. Very portable!
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You Apple fanboy!
Don't you know you can get a machine from Dell with similar specs for about $100 less! A machine exactly the same in all respects! Well, I guess except a bit bigger. Well, quite a lot bigger actually. And heavier. But otherwise the same! Oh except it will be grey and kind of crappy looking. But the specs will be the same! Oh apart from running Windows XP rather than OSX. And without the iLife software. But otherwise exactly the same. You Apple fanboys are nuts!
An Apple logo, duh.
Laid.