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Updated Mac Mini Aims For the Living Room
WrongSizeGlass noted that besides the pre-order of the new iPhone appearing on the Apple store today, Apple has revved the Mac Mini and started selling those too. "PC World is reporting on the latest version of Apple's Mac Mini. At only 1.4-inches tall the unibody aluminium enclosure includes an HDMI port, an SD card reader, and more graphics and processing power. Even the power supply is inside now. The base model comes with 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard disk — for $699. Graphics power comes from an NVIDIA GeForce 320M GPU (as found in lower-end MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops). Apple appears to be aiming for living rooms by including the HDMI port and eliminating the external power brick."
Buy it with a screen and a keyboard ant it will cost you more that a 27" iMac with a quad Core i7.
Looks like what they should have done years ago instead of that stupid Apple TV.
... and in the DRM, bind them.
Thanks Apple. I really needed yet another device to want to buy, especially given that I've just bought myself an iPad and my girlfriend an iPod Touch. This really seems like an Apple TV-on-steroids that I'd love to have. Thanks.
My bank account thanks you too.
Signed, an unabashed Apple Fanboi.
For all its sexiness (and $699, apparently) it comes with no screen, keyboard or mouse. Granted, people will probably use this with their TV, but having no bundled keyboard/mouse is a real shame. And to think that the Mini was supposed to be an entry point (price-wise) in the Apple Mac world.
Also, no Blue-Ray option?
I have a mini. Bought it two years ago. The idea was to get my feet wet in the wide world of mac. A big deciding factor was that the mini was so much cheaper than the imac, the next lowest model. And my TV had a VGA in port so I figured it was necessary to finally get the living room computer.
So with the current mini you're looking at doubling the ram like you always have to for a stock machine and it's a proprietary case not meant for user fiddling so you have to pay the mac store to install the ram, then you have to get the mouse and keyboard which will be wireless and thus more expensive, plus any other accessories you might pick up. Over $1000 easy. Oh, and let's no forget the mandatory service plan since Apple gives you a flat one month warranty, that's it. My mini's hard drive took a shit at one year plus two months. They told me I was SOL.
I like OSX but Apple hardware is nowhere near the high-end, premium, top of the line reliable they keep trying to claim it is. It's the same shit that goes into all the other consumer computers and breaks about as frequently. Ok, let me take that back. HP laptops break even more frequently than that.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
So no real external storage with eSATA and will the thing cope with over heating better or worse than the current line?
A home theater system with no Blu-Ray. Might as well buy a PS3.
Looks good, but sacrificing a frontal USB port just for aesthetics? .... meh.
I don't quite see it fitting into the living room. For that price I would expect a mac mini which works as a media box and has a natal/kninect interface. THAT would be killer! IMHO.
I disagree with the notion that the new Mini is aimed at the living room, because this $699 box is $300-$400 more than the Boxee Box, Popcorn Hour and other less-expensive media players. It's more likely that the Mini's primary market is education and home users who want a desktop Mac for under $1K.
Unless I'm missing something, this seems like a really stupid mistake that would be a deal breaker for any use in the living room.
"and if you have a separate sound system, you can use the audio out 3.5mm jack (no real surround sound here, unfortunately) for your home cinema."
load "linux",8,1
why was this modded troll? I think its way overpriced. Or put another way, you pay for the small design and not for the specs. Which is IMHO a valid point the parent poster made.
There are still people in this world that think specs > outer design. sigh.
I liked more the external power brick, because it's a component that generates lots of heat and it was passively cooled. If you put it inside the Mac Mini it will inevitably cause more fan noise than a similar solution with external power supply.
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
Buy it with a screen and a keyboard ant it will cost you more that a 27" iMac with a quad Core i7.
But what if I already have a screen and don't want to buy a screen with my Mac?
Or use it as a media PC where the screen is my TV...
You can just as easily say the screen is bundled at a discount with the iMac.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't know about you, but the internal power supply would make me really concerned that this thing would run hot.
Also, I had some high hopes when I read they were revving the mini - I was hoping it would have an i5 (and maybe even an i7 option).
Basically, I want an iMac, but I've got my own screens - just never gonna convince me to buy an all-in-one like that, but the Pros are overkill.
Better graphics: yay
Unibody (unopenable) case: BOO
Still Core2 instead of i5/i7: BOO
HDMI: MEH
I guess my MacBookPro will have to be an only Mac for a while longer.
The Digital Sorceress
I'm glad I waited; I was going to buy the previous version in the server configuration. Say what you will about HDMI ports, no blu-ray, etc., but the mini makes for a great server. I run Jira, Subversion, Postgres, and Tomcat for a dev team on one mini and it hasn't given me a minute of problems. If anything, I forget where it lives because it's so small. That said, I'd like to replace our existing one with a new one for the increased disk space (currently the db is on an external disk) and to possibly use the built-in Jabber server than the one we've got now.
At first, the mini was the entry-level Mac, but now it's just a rather expensive media center. 2GB RAM? 320GB hard disk? For $699? Goddamnit, Apple! As much as I like OSX, these specs are a joke!
Circumcision is child abuse.
The 3.5mm audiojack has mini-Toslink built in.
Price to high on board video and 2gb ram + core 2 at that price??
Yeah. I mean, 75% of why I'd want a computer hooked up to the TV is so I could play video games on the TV. Why cripple it with a crappy video chipset?
Or maybe more to the point, why the hell doesn't Apple sell a mid-range desktop? Something that is (1) not all-in-one (so not the iMac), (2) has decent specs (so not the Mini), and yet (3) is affordable (so not the Mac Pro)?
I'm not saying I'd necessarily get one (I'd have to actually see the offering before deciding), but if they don't sell them I'm definitely not going to.
This thing would make a pretty nice little HTPC, for approximately 4x the price you could build an equivalent with Newegg parts.
My other sig is clever.
No kidding.
The new Mac Mini is about the same size as Apple's Time Machine which also has an internal power supply and a well-earned reputation for suffering heat-induced death after an average of about 18 months http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/nov/04/apple-time-capsule-failures-early
I already have a Linux powered ARM system that pretty much serves the same purpose (small form factor, low power, HDMI output) -- admittedly less processing power, but frankly, for rendering video and serving as a cheap home entertainment computer, it is fine.
Palm trees and 8
There are any number of small PCs to choose from if you don't care about "fancy video cards" or "gaming".
Infact, by discounting both of those use cases you've opened the field to competitors that I am sure you will try to claim are inferior (and do massive backpedalling in the process).
The real question is suitability for a particular set of requirements. With more diverse choices in non-Apple gear, you're much more likely to find something that is cheaper while still being perfectly suitable for the purpose. Playing games with tech specs ultimately doesn't matter.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
So with the current mini you're looking at doubling the ram like you always have to for a stock machine and it's a proprietary case not meant for user fiddling so you have to pay the mac store to install the ram, then you have to get the mouse and keyboard which will be wireless and thus more expensive
If you were going to use it as a main computer, I could see the need to add more RAM - but 2GB is plenty for a media system. You can pay only $100 more for 4GB if it freaks you out to use a putty knife to open the case, but honestly it's not that big a deal.
As for the wireless mouse/keyboard - you don't have to have wireless, since they are tucked out of the way most of the time. If you have an iPad or iPhone already you can use that to control the mini. And honestly, what other media PC's ship with wireless mice and keyboards?
I like OSX but Apple hardware is nowhere near the high-end, premium, top of the line reliable they keep trying to claim it is. It's the same shit that goes into all the other consumer computers and breaks about as frequently.
Beyond hard drives dying (which happens to everything) I have found macs to be more reliable. I have a laptop I've been using daily over seven years. I have a mac mini I've been using as a media PC since the first Intel Mac minis came out, using that almost daily and it's never had an issue. And the thing is, even if the hardware is not really that much different than what you could buy elsewhere, the software reliability and resilience against viruses is still higher. It's still a more stable configuration overall, and for anyone that buys any media with iTunes it's far, far better to run iTunes on a Mac than a Windows box.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This isn't really targeted specifically for the living room. The article bases its assertion about the living room on the fact that this model includes an HDMI connection (which people have been requesting for years). That does make it a little more convenient for the living room, but it hardly makes it the target application. Note that it still doesn't ship with the remote as a standard option, or with a keyboard or mouse (wireless or otherwise). Also, the default hard drive is still pretty small for a living room media center.
The Apple TV is still the device that's aimed at the living room (and therefore competing with Google TV, and rumors have it that there are big changes in the works to make it more of a mainstream product.
I think $1000 for the server configuration with two 500GB drives that you can RAID is pretty darned compelling. They claim it draws 10W at idle, which makes the operating cost almost negligble. And it comes with the server OS, which is normally $500 alone.
No issues with my late 09 overheating. 4 gb of ram user installed, works fine.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Cue the Mac Tax complaints in 3...2...1...
That's £100 more than the Dell Zino HD which comes with 6GB of RAM, 1TB hard drive, 512mb graphics card and a blu-ray drive.
it is taller, though, and lacks the all-important Apple logo.
At only 1.4-inches tall the unibody aluminium enclosure includes an HDMI port, an SD card reader, and more graphics and processing power.
The new Mac Mini doesn't pack more processing power, it's actually slower than one of the previous models. The old line up included two models, one with an Intel Core 2 Duo at 2.26 GHz and one at 2.53 GHz, both with the option to upgrade to 2.66 GHz. Now the new line up includes only one model, clocked at 2.4 GHz, also with the option to upgrade to 2.66 GHz.
So all in all, the new model is faster than the entry model of the previous version, but the old line up also included a model faster than what's available now.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Apple has got to start making some decently priced computers for those that don't want to shell out for a desktop (2500$ +) and don't need the integrated monitor.
I've seen a lot of photography hobyist jump to PCs and I expect that trend to continue.
I built a hackintosh, but thats clearly not for everybody.
What am I lacking? ***The INTERNET!!!***
I could get an iPad, but what if I want to search real estate listings or sort through my iPhoto library with my wife between innings and both see well? I could bring in my laptop, but where do I put it when I'm not using it? I'm tired of the stuff I do (internet and computer) being the visitor in the living room. This could solve that.
Unless Apple tries to put HDTV/DVR into a tiny box, the Blu-Ray is redundant. Rather than have a dongle to get my TV into a computer, let's do it the other way around. The Mac Mini is the Internet Dongle.
Who here has a monster TV and doesn't have the Blu-Ray already? Hands... Anyone?
I've been a long time plex user on my laptop connected via DVI/optical audio out to my home stereo. I figured the next mini would be the right time to offload all my movies/videos/music from the laptop to a permanently attached mac. The big disappointment to me is the lack of a bluray player and that the SD slot is on the back. They should have put on the front a SD slot and a USB port. I realize putting all the ports on the back makes the front cleaner, but having the two most commonly used connectors for copying files from your camera would have been great.
Anybody know why apple is so against having bluray players in their systems? Somehow I doubt that an iTunes downloaded movie has the same quality as that of a native bluray disk. I guess this is just the next step in the "heavily sampled mp3s are just as good as CDs" downspiral of quality.
I would like to protest, in the strongest possible terms, the appearance of several non-Apple-related stories on the Slashdot front page. In reviewing, I can currently see 5 stories that don't mention Apple Computer company, Steve Jobs, the iPad, or the iphone in any way whatsoever . Please correct forthwitih.
p.s. I am not a nut.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
at least it wasn't another article about the fucking iPad again, and how it's now being used as the main tool in cleaning up the BP oil spill, or curing children with cancer through a complex series of screen twists
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Core 2 Duo is not a waste on OS X. When flash fights for a core and you have a list of other apps open you dream of 4 cores++ :)
Blue ray would add DRM limits and bloat.
A mini-atx case and pop in x00-1000$ worth of parts would give you a neat imac mini with a real bootcamp ready gpu.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
2GB fine for living room computer not at price it's at now for $700 4gb and 7200 hdd.
You don't even need $400-500 worth of parts to do an HTPC if you're willing to have a micro-ATX system rather than a mini-ITX type of system. Just about any old desktop made in the past half-dozen years or so will be plenty powerful enough, and you can often get them for free or close to it. Put in a 1-1.5 TB HDD for about a hundred bucks, an ATSC tuner card for about $50, slap MythTV on it, and there you go.
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
>> So no real external storage with eSATA
>
> FW800 is more than enough to handle 1080p video.
This isn't just about streaming movies into Quicktime.
Sometimes, you want to move lots of stuff around. Slow devices make that more painful than it needs to be.
The main problem with Firewire is it was never quite as successful as Apple wanted
it to be and now is a legacy standard that is quickly fading away. Even Apple has
started phasing it out.
If a $200 PC has eSATA then so should a $700 Mac.
This is like the HDMI nonsense (that they finally fixed).
The hardware that Apple is using probably already supports it. They just didn't bother to use it.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"A desktop OS will, and never will, be suited for anything other than a Desktop... it will never work on the Living Room."
Based upon what? Right now I run a Windows 7 system via my 50" Samsung in my living room. I use two bluetooth mice and keyboard. The keyboard is rarely used. My system works perfectly.
To get to a movie or TV show you double click My Computer and double click the mapped drives to the movies or shows. Using the scroll wheel you whip through hundreds of movies or subfolders with the shows. You want to instantly get to the end of the list, use the scroll bar. Double click on the one you want.
Media Player Classic opens and you can use the mouse to instantly zip through the movie or show via the seek bar without using the slow "fast" forward or rewind buttons you get with a remote. You don't realize how much fast forward and rewind buttons suck until you start using a mouse to traverse through videos. You want to go half way into the movie, one click and you're half way into the movie. Want to skip to the end, one click and you're at the end. Instantly.
You want to turn up the volume? Scroll up on the mouse. You want to turn it down? Scroll down. You want to pause, click the mouse. Want to unpause, click again.
Tired of watching TV shows or movies on your TV? Double click a short cut to your "rock" play-list on your desktop and the music instantly starts. Want to find a specific song. Double click on the Winamp library, get the song you want, and listen to it.
I have friends who use their PS3s and 360s to access content. That works. You can even buy remotes for them. But I can get to my content much quicker and with more ease than they ever could.
And one more thing, I don't have to wait for some manufacturer to play catch-up. If some new video codec or wrapper is released, I can instantly watch it in my living room. I don't have to wait a few months in hopes that Sony or someone else will play catch-up and include support for it.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
bit of a niche market there I'd have thought
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
With everything packed in it now, will these mac mini's die from heat death in 18 months just like the Time Capsule?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
This is aimed at guys like me I think. I gave up on the idea of having one computer device in my home or on my person years ago. I build my own desktops but have a smart phone and a netbook. And I would love to have a great device to leave at my television. I'm all about digital content and couldn't care less about new dvd formats for movies. With the digital out now I am taking a second look at the mini. I also love something that gets more than one use. I can also take something like the mini with me to work and connect it to a monitor and keyboard/mouse already in the studio.
Atom's integrated graphic chipset doesn't "pull" 1080p.
but the big box stores and consumer hardware creators seem to not notice. Outside of Apple and Netflix I know of very little in this direct delivery market other than what the consumer is exposed too, namely cable. Yet for all the years of Cable and Satellite a good amount of DVD sales occur because many still want something the can put their hands on.
The problem I see the new mini having other than lack of blu-ray is the fact it cost even more overseas, the prices are scary high for what you get.
No blu-ray means its just a toy to me, something that does not replace another device but instead requires to find accommodation for it.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I wonder if Apple are becoming complacent, or are focusing far too much on their mobile products. Their current product line is an illogical, uncompetitive mess (moreso than usual).
Apart from the usual "Mac Tax, no mid-level desktop blah blah blah" argument, the current product line is decidedly unappealing to a veteran mac user. I have a 2005-era Mac Mini (Core Duo 1.6GHz), and a 12" PowerBook (1.5GHz G4). If it weren't already obvious to you, I'd like to replace both, but don't have gobs of cash to do it, and would also like to get a tangible improvement for my money, and 5 years of "evolution."
We're used to paying 20% more for several intangibles (build quality, form factor, aesthetics) as well as several "tangibles" (OSX, generally top-of-the-line hardware). Right now, many macs cost double what their PC counterparts do, and although Dell and HP haven't quite gotten the memo about build quality and form factor, they're closing the gap, and Windows 7 is actually not bad at all.
Up until today, the Mac Mini hadn't seen a major redesign since the addition of a few extra USB ports around 2007. In 2010, I can pay more than my 1.6GHz machine cost in 2006 for a computer with a slightly better processor (about 2x as fast from what Passmark say), and the same (inadequate) amount of RAM. I installed a 7200RPM hard drive last year (for all of $80), which actually makes the new Mini worse in that regard. 802.11n, and the form factor improvements are nice, but the package just isn't compelling.
The 13" MacBook pro is also a baffling oddity. It's a great machine at a decent price point, and really has no peers in the PC world. However, like the Mac Mini, a C2D is inexcusable on a new machine in 2010. There's not even an expensive option for something faster or with more RAM. The 15" and 17" models are better, though, like many others, I cherish portability more than I do screen size. I'd love for Apple to bring back a 12" model, or simply sacrifice the optical drive for a bigger processor.
The iMac's got better entry level specs and pricing (which have inexplicably not trickled down to the Mini). The top-end model also has an i5, which is nice too, also considering that i7 chips too expensive to be economical for most home users. However, there's no way to get an i5 without a behemoth (but gorgeous) 27" display.
Apple's top-of-the-line workstations used to be defensible, considering that Xeon chips are seriously %*$&ing expensive, and the machines were generally rock-solid and lasted forever. Dell and HP's equivalents weren't much cheaper. However, things have changed, and the Mac Pro hasn't gotten any cheaper. Even a small bump down would be appreciated.
The RAM issue is a bit tricky too. Apple upcharges an extortionate amount on RAM upgrades, and has rather low maximums on most of its machines. Laptops are sadly rarely upgradable very far beyond the stock amount, and even the Minis and iMacs have incredibly low maximums. My G4 from 1999 has the same RAM capacity as my Mini from 2006. That's pathetic.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
People like owning discs and there are reasons to want to. Currently Blu-ray beats any streaming service hands down. Not surprising, as a Blu-ray is often 25mbps or more for the main movie. Nothing streams at that rate yet. Also none of the streaming services I've seen include extras, which people do like. Finally there's just the concept of owning a disc, owning a movie. People want to be able to rewatch as often as they like and not be charged. May seem silly but it is the case. Also there's just simple impulse buying. People go to the store, browse the movies, see one and say "Want." They aren't specifically out to get a movie, they are just seeing what there is and decide to grab one.
Then of course there's the net issue. While we geek types tend to have connections sufficient for easy HD streaming, many people do not. If you want to stream video well you tend to need a connection at least twice as fast as the rate you wish to stream at, to deal with dropouts and so on without an excessive buffer, and you need it to be pretty stable. Many people still have low end Internet, even if it is broadband. Here cheap cable modem service starts at 3mbps. Now it's only like $10/month more to go up to 12mbps, however people still go for the cheap shit. They say "It's all I need."
Of course then you get to the problems with the streaming services themselves. Netflix is great, pay one price and watch whatever you like, whenever you like. However the selection sucks. There are only a few things you can get watch now. I can watch X-Files but not Robot Chicken, I can watch SVU but not normal Law and Order, and movie selection is the worst of all. Vudu and Cinemanow have a much better selection, you can usually find the latest titles. However that is pay per view. $4 to watch a movie from Vudu. Not hugely expensive, but not cheap either.
Finally there's the simple issue that a Blu-ray player does all this. My $150 LG player plays Blu-rays and DVDs, of course, but also streams Netflix, Cinemanow, Vudu, Pandora, MLB.tv, and Youtube. It apparently can be upgraded too since it didn't come with MLB, that appeared after the last update. So a cheap consumer device, that has an excellent interface for TV use and works with a normal remote, streams movies off the net with ease.
I don't see the Mac mini is Apple planning years ahead (also I can give you plenty examples of Apple failing to plan), it is just a fairly expensive low end computer. Yes you can hook it to your TV, big deal. You can hook any computers with a DVI or HDMI output to your TV and they all have them these days.
Blu-ray is here to stay for some time, like it or no. Streaming is cool but people want to go and buy discs and play them.
I almost had to check the calendar to verify it wasn't April 1st. Oi!
I wonder what their thought pattern was on this move. It's got a fraction of the performance of a PC at the same price point (yeah, because I built one - a year ago - for $100 less than that, with high quality PSU/board/etc. and a Phenom II). Hell, pick up an Acer Aspire Revo similar (practical) performance for $330 - less than half the Apple cost. Granted, the Aspire Revo has a weaker CPU, but in that role (without OS X) you're not going to need a faster CPU.
Maybe they saw the mini was selling too well so they increased the price? Seems like a really silly move, considering it now costs more to get a mini than it does an iMac (after peripherals and monitor), with less performance.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
"Oh please, I've been able to download movie rips from the internet/usenet/whathaveyou since before DVDs EXISTED"
Has your download of Titanic completed yet?
> Atom's integrated graphic chipset doesn't "pull" 1080p.
You mean the nv9400?
It does just fine for 1080p. It will decode Bluray rips like a champ.
Such boxes are basically the last generation of Mac mini with a slower CPU.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Q: If Steve told you to jump off a bridge, would you?
A: Not again.
Joke stolen from the Smothers Brothers substituting "Steve" for "CBS".
has room for your monitor, keyboard, and mouse too.
The new mini has a removable plate on the body that gives you access to memory. I use a wired keyboard and wired mouse. You can use wireless if you want to. The service plan is not mandatory. The retailer played you for a sucker if he told you that and you believed him. "DIY memory. Thanks to a removable bottom panel, now it’s easy to open Mac mini and add memory. Just a slight twist of the panel, and you’re inside Mac mini. Simply pop your memory into the SO-DIMM slot, then twist the panel back on. And you’re done." In fifteen years of Mac ownership I've only had problems with hard drives dying. My wife is still using her ten year old iMac. She only powers down during thunderstorms.
photosMy Photostream
So, my wife's got an original model mac mini with like a 1 GHZ processor that must be approaching 5 years old. She's got a perfectly good large VGA monitor and USB keyboard/mouse etc.
This seems like it would be the perfect forklift upgrade for her. Almost ten times the disk space with the 500 gb model, the CPU is about 6 times faster making DVD movie burning somewhat more bearable, new OSX version. Its about time to upgrade.
Yet the whole slashdot article is about hooking it up to a TV (why? I already have a perfectly operational mythtv system) and complaining about why it can't be bundled with a monitor I don't need, or trying to explain why I should buy a fragile laptop with a microscopic little bitty screen that costs quite a bit more.
Looks like a great desktop to me!!!
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
> Atom's integrated graphic chipset doesn't "pull" 1080p.
You mean the nv9400?
No, the atom has an integrated graphics chipset of its very own. GMA 500....
It does just fine for 1080p. It will decode Bluray rips like a champ.
I've got a nvidia 9400m. It's mated to a C2D. It struggles on 3d games-- and yet the resolution I'm using is less than 1920*1200.
The Mac Mini is popular with car customizers because of the size and the external power supply. It's easy to adapt to a DC-DC regulator so it works off of 12V automobile (or boat) power.
Now they'll have to resort to a inverter.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Sometimes, you want to move lots of stuff around. Slow devices make that more painful than it needs to be.
Which FW800 excels at. It's not THAT much slower than eSata. I have external cases that support both, and I have an eSata card for my laptop - I use the eSata port at home, but when traveling just so I have one less thing to take (and lose) I use the FW800 port, for managing RAW files using Aperture. It's somewhat slower but not that much slower, and far, far faster than USB.
I'm talking moving 10-12 GB around a day.
The main problem with Firewire is it was never quite as successful as Apple wanted
it to be and now is a legacy standard that is quickly fading away.
Not that I've found, Firewire is still well supported by just about any external case maker. I have a lot of external case options, including very handy eSata/FW800 docks.
If a $200 PC has eSATA then so should a $700 Mac.
I agree but I'm saying FW800 works perfectly well, even if it's not optimal.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
OS X works great in the living room, it's Apple's "living room" UI that's a joke.
I agree but I'm saying FW800 works perfectly well, even if it's not optimal.
The real problem with Fw800 is that it comes with a substantial price premium over eSATA. It's an incredibly sweet interface, but that is a flaw. I suspect that most of the crowd buying minis isn't going to use firewire for anything but storage or maybe MiniDV. And the Mac Mini already comes with a built-in price premium. It has too little GPU for serious desktop use and too much GPU to be a server-only system, so who is it for? The average consumer who wants a cheaper mac to hook up to their TV for general computing and basic entertainment.
If it puts out at least 5.1 via HDMI (plus passthrough) then it's an adequate solution. Lacking Blu-Ray is kind of lame, but that would only make it cost more and probably take up more space. The user can theoretically hide the mini and put an external Blu-Ray in its place as a simple kind of solution. So it's fine for this market. But anyone else is just making apologies.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I would seriously consider purchasing one of these as a media server if it had a blu-ray/dvd combo drive. Without blu-ray this device isn't worthy of space on my HT rack.
You guys are comparing apples to condoms, figuratively. Show us that magical unicorn delivered Compaq for $300 that's in a tiny form factor. Small doesn't come cheap.
Who the fsck pays silly money like this for spec featuring ... wait for it ... a 320GB 5400rpm disk?
But does it run Flash?
"But this one goes to 11!"
Depends on how noisy it is. Mac Minis have been quiet in the past, but this one integrates the PSU (which is worth something to me) and is slimmer.
A quiet attractive computer on the desk, with an attractive wireless keyboard and mouse, and a decent monitor, can de-clutter some people's minds and let them get some work done.
For others a pile of computer parts and cables and clutter and mess is their ideal spot. I still don't think they'd complain if there was a Mac Mini in the middle, unless they threw it away with the pizza boxes by accident.
But you've always paid more for miniaturisation of technology. It's just that Apple doesn't like to offer something that's not quite as small.
The real problem with Fw800 is that it comes with a substantial price premium over eSATA. It's an incredibly sweet interface, but that is a flaw.
That is true, FW800 absolutely adds what I consider to be rather a pricey premium over something like a dock that supports eSata and USB only (which I also have one of because it was cheaper). However, for most people the 500GB internal eSata HD would be enough. Serious users will be buying more expensive drives and cases anyway, so I don't see it as that much extra (like $30 more roughly for a good external enclosure).
too much GPU to be a server-only system
Strongly disagree on this. The GPU can be used to accelerate some calculations. The MINI form factor is excellent for server use, it's very low power and you can rack a bunch in the place of even a 1U unit. I have one I use as a dedicated server. And the bundle with Snow Leopard Server is a bargain. I think it's targeted more and home media use, but there's plenty of reason to consider it for a server as-is (even though the HDMI port will very probably go un-used).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you want an HTPC (you know, the original article) then there is no particular benefit to MacOS.
It might actually even be a clear disadvantage.
By the time you're done working around Apple's "walled garden" approach, you might as well be running another OS.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
the only person who's excited to see Team Fortress 2 on a mac mini hooked up to a 50" screen that has all the bells and whistles?
I hate all sigs, even this one.
The Time Capsule in this form factor with its internal power supply was prone to overheating. I dealt with one of those, removed the internal and gave it an external supply.
After looking at it and thinking it through, the internal power supply on the mini does not concern me too much. The Time Capsule has a plastic case and very little in the way of cooling possibilities. By contrast, the new mini has an aluminum enclosure that will dissipate heat much more effectively and looks like it also has a well-designed cooling system. I'd be pretty comfortable getting one of these myself. I hope I'm right.
All very good points and I agree with what you say, except that you can fit a couple of 3.5" disks inside a Mini-ITX case. I've just done so myself to build a NAS that can provide enough storage and still be small, quiet and unobtrusive enough to live in the lounge. The trick is finding a case with the cc and an SFX PSU.
You misread my comment.
I was claiming that your steps 1-5 are more hassle on a computer than they are on a standalone box.
I hardly ever use actual DVDs anymore, for the very reasons that you state.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Wow, that sucks. Hard.
Media center = single remote control. Period. If you need a keyboard, your media center has already failed. There's a reason that WMC exists, and as horrifically unstable as it is if you want to play anything other than WMV, it's a decent enough interface. The gold standard is still TiVo.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I would actually consider buying a Mac for my next computer (sometime in the late 2011 / early 2012 timeframe) if Apple would actually make a decent gaming desktop that isn't over $2000 (the low-end Mac Pro is $2499). My current PC cost me around $900 and I spent another $180 or so more to move from 3GB RAM to 8GB RAM and to move from an nVidia 8600GT to 240GT.
You'd think that now that developers are actually starting to release games on the Mac (like Valve, Firaxis, and TellTale Games) that Apple would actually make a gaming desktop that isn't an integrated unit.
However, since they don't...
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
800 Euros for the entry version, guess this time Apple overdid it, if you check out the Apple forums here, the comment almost is the same. The price hike is not justified the revision three is not that much slower but way cheaper.
At least over here this thing will be lying untouched in the stores.
I am myself in the same camp of not buying it, the revision 4 will be the first mac mini revision I wont upgrade to.
Apple this time overdid it with their price hikes. If the price of the minis do not change I will switch to similar boxes from the Windows/Linux camp once my trusty Mini dies on me (which hopefully wont happen for a long time, those boxes are very solidly built)
There are any number of small PCs to choose from if you don't care about "fancy video cards" or "gaming".
Infact, by discounting both of those use cases you've opened the field to competitors that I am sure you will try to claim are inferior (and do massive backpedalling in the process).
The real question is suitability for a particular set of requirements. With more diverse choices in non-Apple gear, you're much more likely to find something that is cheaper while still being perfectly suitable for the purpose. Playing games with tech specs ultimately doesn't matter.
While you can play games to find different specs at different cheaper price points, you can also find the equivalent and better specs at cheaper price points.
As long as you don't care about brand name (since you can put any software on any hardware except OSX, which requires a Mac), not Mac Mini is the correct choice.
Yeah, up to ten percent on common computing tasks was one quote from a Linux distribution designed for such things.
Using OpenCL(also designed for such things) the speedup could actually be a few orders of magnitude faster. It just depends on the task. It's not going to help a database, for example - but then a faster CPU doesn't help all that much either.
But even if not being used, it doesn't hurt much and the CPU is decently fast as-is - and since you can fit several minis in a 1U slot it still makes for an reasonable alternative to other servers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So you can do netflix streaming.
Best Slashdot Co
One of the major complaints I have always had about the mini is the hard drive choice; I wish they made the unit just a little bigger in order to get 7200 rpm drives, which would also be cheaper than the mobile hard drives that are in there now.
Interesting that the Server version includes 2 500GB 7200 drives, that almost makes it worthwhile. But I don't really need Server, and would like to save the extra hundred bucks or so that Server adds.
Apple, what about offering the Server hardware with OS X client, as a midpoint between the two choices? Or just the ability to upgrade the hard drive selection?
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$tar -xvf
The interesting thing to me is that the very thing I have trouble with is HDMI on my Mini! I have the current gen Mini and the Apple HDMI Adapter and guess what? Worked once and now "invlid format" on my 1080P TV.I had to go analog and gave up on the TV. I still have my mythbuntu for that anyway and it does a better job imo than boxee on osx evey will. Just my 2c
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
Why is it these articles are always filled with 'you can get the same thing for half the price from XXX' comments that then go on to list all the things that aren't actually the same which end up making the comparison wrong and retarded.
Look, when you start out and say 'but you can get an AMD processor' just fucking stop. Theres a reason intel charges more than AMD and a reason people pay it. Most of my machines are newer, higher clock speed AMD machines. My C2D macbook pretty much eats my Phenom quad core for everything I've thrown at it, including large compiles with enough threads to saturate the CPUs.
Then you start adding form factor, support, and FINALLY get down to the nub of the matter, OSX.
The simply truth is, you really can't get the same thing for a lower price ... or Apple wouldn't be able to sell them. You can pretend you can find the same for cheaper and wax on about it all day long, but it still won't be true.
If you don't want to pay for it or can't afford it, thats fine, say so, but for fucks sake stop making these retarded 'comparisons' where you have to fill it in with a bunch of 'well XXX is a little different, but it doesn't really matter!' If it doesn't matter why are you even pointing it out? Because someone will point out its not the same thing and you're trying to preempt them ... and in doing so, proving their point perfectly.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
As opposed to all the other awesome HTPC software options out there ...
Heres a hint, short of WMCE7 (which isn't exactly the greatest, its the best so far) the rest of the options fucking suck ass.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
"Wow, that sucks. Hard."
I use Media Center to watch TV and recorded TV.
But the truth is that a mouse is quicker and easier to use than a remote. Ask yourself this: If a remote is a better interface than a mouse, why don't you use a remote with your computer?
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I'll be picking one of these up with the staff/faculty discount at the UW bookstore.
Don't need a monitor - can run the HDMI direct into my 37 inch HDTV set and use the wireless keyboard - and hook it up to a $60 wireless N router for my iPad too.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I'm not the person you're replying to, but someone has to say this:
My computer has a remote. I don't use it. Because that's not what my computer is for. My computer & monitor is for me to work on. My TV is for me to watch things on. One I sit up close to, the other farther away.
Not surprisingly, I use a remote control with the one I'm far away from, but not the one I'm close to.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Dude - you aren't the target market.
I have a Mac Mini from 2004. I'm looking at buying this - at the staff/faculty discount at the UW bookstore - and hooking it up to my 1080p LCD HDTV set using the HDMI port.
I can get gently used accessories for about $10 down at UW surplus.
Move on already - we will buy it, cause it does what WE want.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It's a very nice garden...
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
"Not surprisingly, I use a remote control with the one I'm far away from, but not the one I'm close to."
God that's ignorant. What does the distance from the screen have to do with whether or not you use a mouse? My TV is 50". I run it at 1920 x 1080 with a 150% dpi. I can see it perfectly well from across the living room? Please explain why mere distance from the screen makes navigating a computer easier with a remote than a mouse.
With a mouse I can double click my computer, double click the spanned drive, and double click the movie. Bam, it's playing.
As I said, with a mouse I can immediately jump to anywhere in the movie or show. With a remote I have to use fast forward and wait. Like I said, once you use a mouse to navigate video, you realize how awful fast forwarding and rewinding can be. Those made sense with tapes, which had to be fast forwarded and rewound, but they make no sense with digital video.
Simply put, no matter what you are using to view movies, or shows, or music, on your TV, I can access than them faster and easier with a mouse than you can with a remote.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
if steve jobs gave a shit about the desktop pc market, they'd sell these fuckers for $449. but no, they're a boutique manufacturer with 30% markup, who gives a care about their price-gouging. Leo Laporte calls in the "Macintosh Tax". if they were better priced, i'd put them everywhere (my home, my relatives, my customers). but they won't, so I won't.
i don't want an imac, i need inputs for my wii, PS2, XBox, and whatever else. TVs give you inputs, not imacs.
plus on my mac mini (that i bought this march, yay me) i tested the dr. botts HDMI converter and it SUCKS compared to RGB, quality-wise. the colors break up and everything is pixellated.
i ended up replacing the crappy apple 320gb drive with a 7200rpm 500gb drive (non-apple) and the price shot up another $120. so i'm out a cool grand for the "better" model with STILL not nearly enough space for my protools, cubase, and Logic files. bought a drobo and now i've got a cool 40% free space with redundancy, yay me. the 37" tv i'm using for a screen looks great and altogether around the same price as apple's 27" core i5 imac, so damn it would be nice if apple used a newer/faster cpu on the mini.
still i'm pleased that i don't have to come home to windows 7 authentication errors and blue screens and all the other bullshit that comes from having to support a microsoft desktop os.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
The metaphorical (and literal) lid might have come off the iPhone 4 before it was announced, but Apple managed to keep this one under wraps.
That's pretty much what I did. I already had a Mac Mini hooked up to the TV so I picked up an iPad 3G and so far no regrets. I've not run into anything I can't do yet that I used to with my MacBook Pro.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Im looking for a quadcore (i5) system running MacOSX for a fair price w/o an attached monitor. This doesn't exist.
HDMI is just DVI + sound!
Netflix is silverlight, not flash.
Where's Slashdot with the "like" button that Facebook has? Ok, I kid.... maybe.
I have a similar setup. For the past 2-ish years, I've been using a regular desktop hooked up to my 480p TV (EDTV) with component cables. I currently have 7.1 speakers hooked to the sound card. I use a wireless keyboard/joystick mouse combo (BTC 9019URF3 - discontinued model) that has a handle on each side, with buttons for left, right, middle mouse buttons, and 2 buttons to simulate scrolling with a wheel (up/down). Internet is plugged in via an integrated NIC.
When it comes to entertainment, it's the ultimate freedom setup.
Period.
There's a key for that.
"When it comes to entertainment, it's the ultimate freedom setup."
Yep. I was beginning to think I was the only sane person here. Thanks!
I just wanted to give another example of the ease of this set up. I just checked, I have 718 movies mapped from a spanned drive. I can access those movies with just three double clicks. (I could make short cuts to each "adult movies" "kids movies" "adult TV" and "kids TV" to the desktop. That'd eliminate one double click. But I like to keep the living room desktop clean.)
The PS3's interface is pretty good. But even so I have to click, click, click... about fifteen button clicks. Then I have to scroll. That takes a while because unlike a window in Windows where everything loads instantly, in the PS3 you have to wait for it to catch up. So you scroll down closer to the movie you want, wait, scroll down some more, wait, scroll down some more, wait... and then you finally get to the movie you want.... but guess what, the PS3 doesn't play MKV files. So you can't watch it anyway.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Still ends with cracking open the case, needing to replace (all) user memory.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Actually there is one benefit, it is eye tv, that thing is one of the best DTV solutions in existense, without EyeTV I probably already would be running Linux or Win7 on my mini, but EyeTV os too damned good especially in combination with digital cable or satellite.
There is a world outside of eye tunes even on Apple and that one is better than what Apple tries to sell you.
I never missed eSata here, eSata simply is inferior to firewire, ok good the HDs which have a decent firewire 800 port cost a little bit more but not that much more and you can daisy chain them. With eSata one string and then you cannot connect anything anymore.
My HDs are all firewire 800 for the workhorses and USB for the el cheapo options.
It is not that much more pricewise, and for the benefit of being able to daisy chain it I am willing to shell out a few dollars more, there are enough case options if the vendors try to hike the price for the standard boxed hds...
The author needs to know that his assumption that the mini-jack is purely 2.0 sound is false. Even my old mac mini has a mini-jack and it supplies both digital and analogue sound thru the same jack depending upon the connector used. I have beautiful 5.1 surround and so will those who get this machine. ah I see someone else posted the error... well I'll repost so more will see itl.
You'd be surprised how popular USB to serial converters are.
While I almost agree with your general point, but
What does the distance from the screen have to do with whether or not you use a mouse?
Not directly, but indirectly it has something to do with using mouse/keyboard. Higher distance in this case also comes with higher mobility of the viewer. That is to say, while watching TV, viewer(s) stay(s) in a wider area than when working with a computer. So, the keyboard/mouse would need to be carried around in that wide area.
Now, keyboard and mouse don't lend themselves to carrying around. Keyboard is large. Both need a flat surface to work well - such large that would be difficult to carry around. Not only that, they have wires! Wireless things are lot less convenient than wireless remote controls because of horrible battery life of most wireless keyboards/mouses.
Also, more than one user watch a TV simultaneously, requiring sometimes the controlling device to be passed around. Keyboard and mouse don't lend themselves to passing around easily either - due to similar reasons as above.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.