It should come as no surprise that
the first thing Apple announced at today's event was a revamped Mac mini. And while the updated diminutive computer may
not be the Mac media center many had hoped for, it does have Apple's Front Row media management software, and comes in
both Core Solo and Core Duo versions, which Apple says makes the machine anywhere from 2.5 to 5.5 times faster than the
G4 version. Although the machine has the familiar mini form factor, new additions include an IR port for the Apple
Remote, two more USB 2.0 ports (for a total of four), SPDIF, Gigabit Ethernet, standard Bluetooth and WiFi. The new
mini also comes with an updated version of Front Row with Apple's Bonjour networking technology, which allows sharing
and streaming of media, including audio, video and photos, among all Macs on a local network. The Core Solo version, at
1.5GHz, and including a CD burner, 512MB RAM and a 60GB drive, is $599; the Core Duo at 1.67GHz includes an 80GB drive
and a dual-layer DVD burner, and sells for $799. Both models are available immediately.
posted February 28th 2006 1:12PM
#35 - As far as I have seen and asked about at retailers in my area (Circuit City, Best Buy & CompUSA) They have 360's in stock
So this whole "if you can find Xbox 360's" line of doubting availability is kind of weak...
as for the Minis, well - Kind of underwhelming in my mind.
Do any of you guys whining about the integrated graphics card have *any* idea what you are talking about? What is it that you had planned on doing with the Mac Mini that you can't do now? The mini is a teeny little computer with a very powerful (now) processor in it.
Were you really hoping to play Doom 3 with it?
Added:
-Faster Processor
-More USB ports
-Optical audio out
-Up to 2 GB RAM
-Faster Hard Drives
-Gigabeat ethernet
-Dual layer Superdrive
-Front Row with Bonjour
-IR receiver and remote
-100 bucks in cost
Lost:
-dedicated graphics card with a whopping 32 MB RAM
Stop and think a minute before you post. And let's see the mini Windows PCs you are comparing it to that have better specs at the same price...then we can have a reasonable discussion.
The 360s would be a competitor of the mini if they:
1) Had DVI
2) Upconverted video to near HD resolutions.
3) Could rip DVDs
And why is embedded video such a disappointment? If its enough for HD files is good enough for me.
Cheers.
Will it have EFI or still the "old open firmware"
I started having the slightest glimmer of doubt about my 20" Core Duo iMac today...."mmm, maybe I could have built myself a nicer system with a larger monitor running off the mac mini"...ok so I succumbed to evil temptation and went and spec'd it at the apple store. for about $600 less than the similarly loaded iMac, it still has 120gb less storage and intel on-board graphics. Not enough to get a really top class 20" monitor from a first-tier mfg. So what's the conclusion, kids?
...I stand by my original decision.
I started having the slightest glimmer of doubt about my 20" Core Duo iMac today...."mmm, maybe I could have built myself a nicer system with a larger monitor running off the mac mini"...ok so I succumbed to evil temptation and went and spec'd it at the apple store. for about $600 less than the similarly loaded iMac, it still has 120gb less storage and intel on-board graphics. Not enough to get a really top class 20" monitor from a first-tier mfg. So what's the conclusion, kids?
...I stand by my original decision.
I want a Mac Mini to sit on my desk in a KVM switch setup. I was just about to place an order until I decided to look at the specs for the graphics card. Integrated graphics. Yuck. I guess I'll be waiting for the next rev to see if they correct this oversight.
I bought the original Mini last Feb. I had always wanted a mac (being a longtime computer lover). It is a great little computer (I run it as a development machine mostly to SSH into etc.) Occaisionally I will do some graphics work on it (kinda slow w/ Photoshop & Indesign). I am in the market for a media PC for my living room and I was hoping today's announcement would be a new mini. Unfortunately I am not going to put a lot of money on a machine that uses shared memory as VRAM. I priced out a really nice HTPC with a Semprom processor for about the same money they want for a new mini. I think I'll go with AMD.
"How the F--- do you get optical audio out of a headphone jack? "
What exactly is the confusion here? I had a MiniDisc player that I purchased almost 10 years ago now that could do this.
You morons! it's not an optical audio jack... just S/PDIF. Normally, S/PDIF comes from and RCA jack, but it works fine through a headphone jack. It doesn't use the ring, just the tip and sleeve. So just buy a cable at wallyworld to go from headphone to 2 RCA, plug the left rca into reciever, and vola, surround sound from mac. No expensive "optical headphone jack" (by the way, there isn't such a thing that I know of), no proprietary working only with creative speaker crap.
Why all the whining about integrated video? The Core Duo processor's max bandwidth is 5333.33 MB/s. PC5300 (DDR667) dual channel memory has double that bandwidth -- plenty. For watching HD video it's more than enough. Just buy it with 1GB. For games, get an iMac.
#51
How about a shuttle? I am a mac zealot and I'd still prefer a shuttle over this piece of crap. Sure, the form factor is a bit larger, but you actually get a system capable of playing Doom 3. And why the hell shouldn't it be able to? Doom 3 is an old freaking game now.
Oh, and about the combined optical/line in/outs -- It's definitely possible, and has been done for years with minidisc, and the M-Audio Transit, amongst others. The line out is in the circumference of the plug as usual, while the red light blinker for optical is at the end of the plug. You can get an adapter for the miniplug optical to normal TOSLink from Radio Shack.
Quote: "You morons! it's not an optical audio jack..."
Not true, on both counts. RCA jacks have nothing to do with SPDIF - it is the name of a standard, not a connector. Second, the mac now has a combined plug. A regular stereo plug will not reach the optical contact at the far back of the enclosure. A special optical plug (TS Link cable) will.
Yeah so everyone is trashing it for having onboard graphics, and yes it IS slower than the iMac, but it serves a different purpose (and yes I've bought one, upgraded some bits), why I want to try out macs, I've wanted to since I used one at work a few times, but I can't justify buying an iMac, nor will I ever need one, as my normal pc is incredibly powerful, sure at some point if I love my new toy enough I will get a full blown mac, but at this point its a great entry level system, with some cool features.
Yes it is more expensive than an entry pc, but it's a mac, they always have been and always will be, you're not paying for the machine you're paying for the whole thing + a little for being apple. I spent 800 and I may like the mini enough that I wish I had spend a couple of hundred more and got an iMac, I may dislike it, and then the amount isnt so hard to bare. Would I ever buy this as a main system, god no, but anyone who does and expects to play games etc is going to be in for a shock, if you want a mac to sit along side your normal systems it is a great purchase imo.
Ash
Seriously you people not understanding the SPDIF are retarded. The airport express has the same thing.
It's not like Intel's graphics chip is any worse than the Radeon 7000 that was there before. Also, what could you do on a Mac that needs a good graphics card? If you want to do 3D design, buy a G5 or Opteron workstation. If you want to play games, buy a PC or a 360/PS2.
ch424
So, Yeah, Its actually a 1.66 core duo this article has a type O
SPDIF will travel along any good quality coaxial wire no matter what type of connection be it RCA, Mini-jack, or BNC. To hook the new Mac Mini to an external DAC or home theater receiver, just get a Mini-jack to RCA cable. Not sure you can get away with cheapies tho. The cable has to be decent in terms of resistance uniformity since DACs and receivers do not reclock digital information like USB receivers do.
I might get this new Mini Mac. I just bought the G4 Mini Mac last week and returned it yesterday because it doesn't play H.264 reliably. The players I dled are not stable on the Mac. It could be the players', Mplayer and VLC, fault. But, G4 is way too slow to process H.264 efficiently anyways. The video would stutter and drop frames.
I'd be dropping by an Apple store with my portable notebook drive to play a few movies on them. Having a digital output is a great improvement with me being an audiophile... definitely will use it with an external dac.
"How the F--- do you get optical audio out of a headphone jack?"
Belkin PureAV Digital Optical Audio Cable with Mini-Toslink Adapter inter alia
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?productLearnMore=TA968LL/A
All I can say is that it took Apple WAY too long to bring this to market. Front row should have been put on the Mac Mini FIRST, but unfortounately for all of us the iMac is like Steve Jobs' baby and so it gets all the special treatment first. Also, no tv tuner and it's more expensive? As cool as this is, it should have been $499.
Also, does anyone have a clue if the new mini can hook in to component HDTV? I'm hoping it can, but Apple's site only shows support for HDMI/DVI or compositie/svideo(yuck). For those of us without a HDMI/DVI connector, how do we get 1080i in component video with the mini? If this little mini can't pull that off then it's definately not the home theater pc that I've been looking for ::sigh::
"34. For my TV I need HDMI input. Is there such a thing as a DVI-HDMI cable with SPIF input?"
Do you use your TV for your sound or do you have a receiver/stereo? If the latter, you just need a DVI to HDMI cable. HDMI = DVI + audio. It's the same signal and everything, just integrated into one connector. Now if you use your TV for audio (eww), then there might be a cable out there that takes DVI + optical into an HDMI connector, but I'm not aware of it. http://www.monoprice.com is the place to get cables by the way, uber cheap and awesome quality.
"I can't help but laugh every time Apple announces a new Intel Mac that is now 2/3/4 times faster than it's old PowerPC counterpart."
It's not Intel vs. PowerPC. It's a dual processor, introduced several months later than the old one... of course it's going to be *up to* 3x faster.
Ahh, yes, the "integrated video, arg!" and the "shared memory, arg!" bitching has already begun.
Folks: the integrated video is better than the decrepit Radeon used in the G4 Mini. Two reasons why: first, it has double the onboard memory, despite being shared memory (and the RAM has been bumped to 512MB standard, so there's still more available RAM in the new Mini than the old.) Second, the Intel video chipset is actually capable of handling the demands that will be made of it: Quartz Extreme, Core Image, and video playback. That's it. You don't need an X1600 to handle those three tasks.
Integrated chipsets are starting to not suck, people. No, you can't upgrade them, but so what? It's a Mac Mini, not a Shuttle XPC.
From Apple's original Mac mini specs pages:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050305044151/www.apple.com/macmini/graphics.html
"Go ahead, just try to play Halo on a budget PC. Most say they're good for 2D games only. That's because an "integrated Intel graphics" chip steals power from the CPU and siphons off memory from system-level RAM. You'd have to buy an extra card to get the graphics performance of Mac mini, and some cheaper PCs don't even have an open slot to let you add one."
"How about a shuttle? I am a mac zealot and I'd still prefer a shuttle over this piece of crap. Sure, the form factor is a bit larger, but you actually get a system capable of playing Doom 3. And why the hell shouldn't it be able to? Doom 3 is an old freaking game now."
Like I said before: name the model, the price, and show similar or better specs for the same size and price. That's all.
Its reasonable to slam the mini if it compares unfavorably to a *real* product. Its not fair to compare the Mac Mini to some imaginary product that you wish existed.
The *vast* majority of people who buy Mac Minis aren't buying a game machine so the criticism is dubious in the first place.
This is definitely competitive with the price of pre-built Shuttles ( http://sys.us.shuttle.com/BuyList.aspx?id=1000&type=u ), but a TV tuner would have been nice at least as a factory option. It'd be nicer too if the video wasn't just mirrored on the TV, but you could have seperate desktops for you TV and monitor (as on my Shuttle).
I'll go ahead and say it here to buck popular sentiment: the new Mac Mini is a great machine at a great price.
Seriously.
Go ahead and try to spec out a Shuttle PC (or your choice) at a similar price. You can...not...do...it. The best I could do is a entry model Shuttle with a P4 (they don't offer the Core Duo). I ended of at 855 bucks with *no* built in software whatsoever let alone iLife 06 or Front Row.
And, yes, that's with Intel Integrated graphics. Tack on more $ if you want a dedicated card.
And the shuttle is twice the size of the Mac Mini.
As I said earlier in the thread. Calm down and compare the Mini with *real* products, not imaginary ones.
Hey folks, integrated graphics ain't what it used to be...Regarding the integrated Intel GMA950 graphics processor:
From apple's website:
"All Mac mini models also include an integrated Intel GMA950 graphics processor with 64MB of shared DDR2 SDRAM (1)
...
1. Memory available to Mac OS X may vary depending on graphics needs. Minimum graphics memory usage is 80MB, resulting in 432MB of system memory available."
From Intel's website regarding its GMA950 graphics processor:
"[it has] Dynamic Video Memory Technology (DVMT) 3.0 supports up to 224MB of video memory; system memory is allocated where it is needed dynamically."
My point, just get the mini config with at least 1GB ram and you'll be fine"
The whole 360 vs Mac is rediculous. The integration with Vista was a primary concern of the 360. You have to think in Gatese & the fact that the 360 doesn't have DVI is b/c they have stated they will be releasing an HDMI (the better of the connections) in the near future.
So I have a few questions.
1- Is opening the case still a PITA?
2- Do these still use 2.5" HDs?
3- Has the onboard video changed/improved? I'm confused, I thought the earlier mac minis used integrated video?
4- Are there 2 ram slots or just 1?
This looks more attractive but I'm still not 100% sold yet.
#51. Molten Core.
#77. $900 for a Mac mini defeats the purpose. The Core Duo mini with 1GB is $900.
ExtremeTech's review of the GMA950: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1821804,00.asp
"To put it more bluntly, it's a complete and total rout for the GMA950, with the possible exception of the CPU-intensive Flight Simulator 2004. Even then, what you get is playable frame rates, but the GeForce 6200TC still crushes the GMA950."
"47. How the F--- do you get optical audio out of a headphone jack?"
It's Apple. Magic. How else? Magical Trevor is Jobs' lil' brother.
Yes, the mini is ok for being a media center - with a faster hard drive, it'd be great, but adding an external firewire drive, again, defeats the purpose.
But Apple pitched the original mini as being a low-end-gaming-capable computer, capable of playing Halo and WoW and the games from the year or two before it was released. The new mini might handle the same games that the old one did, but you'll need more RAM to get the same performance - not to fuel the graphics unit, but to get the same performance from the RAM. A game on a 512MB old mini got 512MB of RAM to work with. A game on the new mini gets 64-80MB less. That's the difference between, say, World of Warcraft working and it crashing in high-traffic areas, Core Duo and Coreimage and Quartz Extreme be damned.
The video is not an upgrade, even though people that the mini are targetted to who happen to play Halo and WoW will be spending hundreds of dollars thinking that they're buying an upgrade. They'll be able to put it on their TV and stream video and such, but if they can't play the same games with even the same performance as the old mini was capable of, they'll be pissed.
I'd still love to see one in action, if only to confirm my disappointment. But I've got a computer with a GMA950 in it, and it's about par with a low-end GeForce 4 in practice - except that it also leeches system memory. It's not for gaming, unless your gaming is Quake 2.
Note too that my problem isn't with the GPU being crappy - my beef is that it uses system RAM. In a box running Tiger with 512MB of RAM, the last thing you need is 5-15% of that already-limited RAM going to the GPU. The problem isn't in running the game with fantastic detail - nobody expects that in a lowest-end computer. The problem becomes _running the game at all_.
Wow, what a letdown by Apple! And I just made the switch last summer with the 1.42Ghz G4 mini. I think I'll be sticking with my G4 mini for web, email and so on. Then I'll use my homegrown PVR and the Xbox 360. I'll be able to save my money for more important things like beer, pizza, and horny college girls.
On a side note: Can we castrate all those retards out there who hyped up false humors of a new iBook/Macbook, Apple PVR, and some funky new iPod? What a bunch of retards!
Hey, mac boy scum who think Intel integrated graphics is better than dedicated, go to Tom's Hardware site and look at the benchmarks! Intel integrated comes in at the bottom on just about every benchmark!
All of these opinons and predictions--have any of you actually tried one yet? Sheesh, I'd hope you all would test drive one before buying or not buying. Since when can one look at specs and run benchmarks without the actual machine?
Outside of games, what is the problem with integrated video? For a media center, I think it will work fine.
"go to Tom's Hardware site and look at the benchmarks! Intel integrated comes in at the bottom on just about every benchmark!"
Yes, it comes in last place in a gaming benchmark compared against similarly-new chipsets. What it does not compare is OS X performance against the integrated Radeon 9000 in the G4 Mini.
Integrated video is fine for the purposes of the Mini: OS X desktop acceleration and video playback, especially when you consider the processor upgrade, RAM upgrade (512MB DDR2 standard), and faster hard drive.
Hey guys, remember the iTunes store and the iPod (with video)? Imagine you want to download some Quicktime H.264 Lost or whatever files and watch them on your, oh, let's say your TV. Or play your iTunes whatever files on your stereo system. Let's say you put down $400 for an iPod and $175 on accessories and $40 per month on iTunes stuff that will only work on your iPod or a PC.
If only you could buy a box that docked your iPod to your home theater system using optical and DVI or VGA or S-video or composite video, and came with a functional remote control. Then, you might as well use the TV for a graphic user interface. And maybe you would like to add on memory storage with a USB hard drive, or a wireless keyboard and mouse for improved functionality. And since it's hooked up to the TV, maybe it could play DVDs. And while you're at it, you might as well be able to download more crap from iTunes over your wifi network. Let's call this magical device a "iSuper iDock (TM)".
If a "hi fi" stereo system for your compressed audio files played through your iPod (since it's the only mobile device that will play your iTunes downloads) with this particular type of iPod output port (which has changed two times since the original) is worth $350, I suppose an iSuper iDock (TM) might go for, maybe, $600 or even $800. Then, if it only could let you play Solitaire, Minesweeper, and some rip off of Tetris, it would be perfect.
"I can't help but laugh every time Apple announces a new Intel Mac that is now 2/3/4 times faster than it's old PowerPC counterpart.
And I thought all these years Jobs was telling me how much faster PowerPC chips were..."
The thing that I dont get is that if they are so much faster [Intel] then why is a DUAL CORE only 1.7 times faster than the 1.4 g4 PPC chip (see apples spec sheet for the mini). It should be at least 2.0 times faster if they the intel chip was superior per core, however it is not compared to the single core g4 chip.
Okay, okay, I bought a Mac Mini two weeks ago, and decided to upgrade. We decided to get 1 gb ram, $100 more, but we cancelled it, should we un-cancel it?
"What it does not compare is OS X performance against the integrated Radeon 9000 in the G4 Mini."
The anti-950 chipset people seem to think that the 9000 video card was also once top of the line. (I think its a 9200 not 9000). Even when the 9200 was brand spanking new back in _2004_, it was run of the mill, struggled to put up 30fps with 64/128 meg cards. The mac mini had a 32mb version, so I'd expect it was an even worse performer. While the integrated video is a bit of a let down, it's still a tremendous improvement over the merely adequate video that shipped with the mac mini before.
Well the Graphics is a huge disapointment, but I wont be playing ANY games on this bad boy, I'll just be doing some web codeing, as im coming from a PC to this little mini, it saves alot of power too!
The price is high because apple had to use the Core Duo and Solo chips which are new and thus expensive right now. Apple probably designed OS X for the Core Duo/Solo chips and thus opted for the new chips. That is why the price is 100 dollars higher. And for all you who bash on Apple for their business practices, take a damn Marketing class. Apple brands itself to target a certain market and if that market is not you don't complain about how apple is so wrong.