Unibody Mac mini meets iFixit, gets a delicate teardown exposé
By Richard Lai 
posted June 16th 2010 8:13PM
posted June 16th 2010 8:13PM
- Departing from previous generations, the Mini's unibody top enclosure is machined from a single block of aluminum.
- With a simple counter-clockwise twist, we were able to gain access into the Mini's internals. Gone are the days of the putty knife. You will be missed, old friend!
- Removing the RAM is very simple this time around, requiring only the simple prying of two clips.
- The fan doesn't have too much work to do, since the new Mac Mini is the most energy-efficient desktop, running on less than 10 watts at idle!
- There are two blind holes in the case of the Mini that are meant for the ends of Apple's custom U-shaped logic board removal tool. We just used two Torx screwdrivers. We call them the "Mac Mini logic board removal tool."
- In keeping with its space saving design, the fins directing air toward the vent hole are slanted to allow for better fan placement.
- The new Mini's power supply churns out a minuscule 7 Amps at 12V. Compare that to the 25.8 Amps at 12V cranked out by the iMac Intel 27", and you can understand how they fit the power supply inside the Mini.
- The Mini's 3/8" woofer dome won't be popping ear drums anytime soon.
- Apple had to get creative with the antenna placement because they switched to unibody construction for this Mac Mini.
pure porn
@rakeshin Really Impressed, but with iPhone 4 and new Xbox 360, I am already broke.... but this is definitely on the wishlist right by kinect...
@rakeshin Dim the lights. Bring out the candles. Lock the doors.
FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
@coolpal the REAL stimulus plan involves all of us buying a mac mini, new xbox, kinect and iphone all before the year is out, how's that for consumer confidence
@rakeshin Its basically inexpensive laptop components on a proprietary pico board inside a snug piece of aluminum.
Beyond price, one concern would be how slow that 5400rpm drive is (I'd put in a SSD), and whether or not the small fan has to turn at high RPM to cool those components properly considering the lack of airflow.
@Ducman69 yeah and that would jack the price up another $1000 Anything that has apple on it goes up 75%. When Steve Jobs takes a dump he charges the water company.
@rakeshin
I hate Apple, they should be sued for stealing money from consumers by making attractive and sexy products.
@Toshiba
When Steve Jobs takes a dump he charges the water company.
:D
@rakeshin total porn. These dissection make me want the gadgets even more for some reason :)
@Ducman69 Did you even read ifixit's report? They said, "The extremely high blade density of the blower pushes a good amount of air while keeping noise at a minimum." Why don't you actually READ THE WHOLE DAMN ARTICLE. Thank you very much.
@PanchoVanilla I think they are quite ugly and plain looking personally. They have no personality and lack features to back up the price. It's a minimalist product for the MAXIMUM amount of money. Their macbooks look like a cheap plastic toy. And their Macbook pro likes like some one slipped a board into a piece of metal. I want to see buttons that have buttons and features and no empty spots. Then, I can justify Apples over priced UGLY, MINIMALIST garbage.
@Teslanaut Just build a Hackintosh. More options, More power, More room. Better product. For just a little more money. Without the Steve Jobs Control.
@Toshiba
When Steve Jobs takes a dump he sues the water company for stealing his intellectual property.
@Ducman69
LOL... Inexpensive laptop parts and proprietary pico board in one sentence :-S. Laptop parts aren't inexpensive, they're expensive. Designing a proprietaty pico-itx board: even more so. The unibody enclosure and the cooling system didn't design themselves either. And what on earth did you expect that they put in there, some kind of alien technology unknown to mankind? I think you should just get over the fact that you don't like their price point or business strategy, and don't make nonsensical comments like this. If someone had put the exact same hardware in one of these netbooks you appear to love so much, you'd be drooling all over it. Except if it was Apple who did it, of course...
@Toshiba You, my friend, ARE AN EPIC FUCKED UP FAIL.
@rakeshin
The thing that's ironci about this is the cost of it to save electricity. Not only does it's cost outweigh it's already outdated technology lifecycle worth of power savings, but any moon with enough money to buy this probably doesn't care about saving $2 a month in electricity.
Especially since apple is bending you over with a core 2 and a weak graphics card.
@drange
I think what's more important is why he doesn't like their price point as opposed to whether or not he likes their price point.
For this price, you can get a core i7 14" laptop pc that performs all the dames functions, but faster, and you have the option to disconnect it from the monitor and, uh oh, take it with you.
@Failbait
How does Apple make you bend over because there's a C2D and a notebook-grade GPU in there? I agree that they are asking just a wee bit too much money for this thing, but specs-wise there is nothing wrong with it. You don't buy a Mac Mini for gaming, and there is no room to put a full-size video card in it anyway, which is why they put the same GPU in it that you'll find in many notebooks. As for the CPU: just because you now have i3, i5 and i7 doesn't mean a C2D is a slow CPU or 'yesterdays tech', in fact it's still a great CPU that will easily handle everything this machine was intended for, for the coming 3 to 5 years. An i3 is not much faster, and an i5 or i7 would probably have major cooling issues in a case like this.
The typical usage pattern for a small form factor PC like this is for typical home or office desktop use, or as an HTPC. For that, the specs are a good compromise that allows to get all this in such a small case in the first place. If you want to discount this Mac Mini on anything, it should be the price point, not the specifications.
@drange
You think that explains the price? I'm not so sure why people care about the size of a desktop.
Lookin good!
Marvellous engineering.
It doesn't even look like all those components would even fit in that box from the photo.
@(Unverified) Plastic may not have looked as fancy, but it would have helped with the noise dampening and wireless signal.
Most metals greatly reduce WiFi signal strength.
@Ducman69
Im pretty sure they put the wireless radio in/under the plastic apple logo, hence the "getting creative antenna placement".
I hate apple, but thats one hot piece of hardware
@Ducman69
With as much aluminium as Apple uses, I'm sure they've become fairly good at placing antennas in functional places.
MacBook, iPad, first gen iPhone, the iPod Touches--few if any of them have notably bad wireless signal reception. WOW I lost three feet worth of reception. As long as they product is solid feeling, durable, and secksy, I'll make the trade-off.
@Ducman69 That's why Apple put the WiFi adapter on the bottome of the unit, you know, the plastic/rubbery part on the bottom, DUH! And, it's funny how you comment on it's "noise," having never used one. Do you have the ability to think before you speak.
@BigJayDogg3 You shouldn't mention the Ipad and wireless together. Apples fix for the poor wireless on the IPAD was to get closer to the wireless router. Wireless and Ipad is like BP and Water.....Ummmm...yeah I think that will fly.
@Toshiba
If the problem was as big as commenters are making it out to be, do you really think over a million units would have moved?
Looks like the HD is one of the last steps. Seems upgrading that would be fairly difficult.
@rhollister
If you have to dismantle your entire machine and remove the motherboard to replace your hard drive, you blew it.
Really? I have never even gotten a flinch from any tear down.
I always prefer the whole package as one... Much sexier.
@Dan A
Good point! I've thought a women was hot and then dissected her so see just how sexy she really is.
...though I do like to revisit the bodies from time to time. :\
If it were $500 it would be an instant hit.
@The Shadow
and it would be called revo, have plastic casing, lower memory, none of this attention grabbing asthetics and engineering, low space etc etc
@rakeshin
Face it dude, apple has premium pricing.
@The Shadow
Yup, I would get two of them without even thinking about it at that price. Even 599 woudl be a hit
@rakeshin its so cheap to manufacture if you look at the parts they use,all laptop components.
@Paul Elmy I wouldn't call it premium pricing considering the quality of build that Apple puts into ALL of it's PCs. They are ALL beautiful internally & externally. MANY companies try but fail to emulate the beauty of Apple products. Apple literally sets trends with their design choices. I think paying for quality build is worth however much more Apple's base models compare to other companies similar products. As well as the ability to run two great OS' via bootcamp right out of the box (OSX & Windows 7). I don't see it as a premium I see it as just part of the cost of getting one of the most beautifully built, inside & out, PC's on the market with great OS flexibility.
@Tuan X That sounded fanboyish but I just appreciate the time & effort Apple puts into design compared to other PC makers. Even those PC makers who have recently spent more time in the design fields end up CLEARLY designing Apple inspired products with that particular companies added flair. And they've ended up being FAR MORE expensive & less powerful than many of Apple's products (i.e. Dell Adomo).
@The Shadow I don't know if this is right, but I thought laptop parts cost more to manufacture.
@mcbeaven Usually laptop processors are simply smaller and weaker, with less cores and cache. This in particular is also older left over Intel stock, which should have been sold to Apple at great discount since most manufacturers have switched to the new i-series.
@The Shadow you do know that laptop stuff costs more because it has to be miniaturized e.g. 2.5" HDDs vs 3.5"s.
@Ducman69 Laptop components simply cost more. You can't ignore that. It doesn't matter that they are weaker, the point is that it's more expensive. And don't assume shit, you think Intel says, "Hmmm, well, you know what Apple, we don't really see many companies using our mobile Core 2 Duo (P8600) line much.........so, guess what? We'll give you a special deal." Hell, no! Those mobile processors cost $209. That's 30% of the price, already! Add laptop memory, 320GB drive, super drive, wifi and materials and $700 is pretty much justified. Personally, I'd rather get a MacBook, but this is a reasonable price for the type of computer that it is.
@Tuan X Again.. Same components Same manufacturers. Just different colors and cheap plastic. Asus, Gigabyte and Foxconn. Here, there is a bridge in S.F. that Apple built just for apple Fans. It's built much better then other bridges. Its a golden color.oooohhhhhh awwwwww. Pretty.
@Cold Dead Fingers Once you've got the 2.6 processor and 4GB of RAM, it's £100 cheaper than an iMac, which is faster, and has a lovely screen. No matter how you try to spin it, it's not great value. If they had kept the old prices then it would certainly be more tempting.
@The Shadow
Remember Foxconn employees have to be paid a decent wage or else.
@Cold Dead Fingers
Well there isn't actually much of anything special with it. I will give it to them that it is pretty competitive pricing when you compare it to something similar, like the ASUS eeeBox. If they were to put the same hardware in they'd be around the $600-$650 mark. But they of course had to make their own PCB, put a cooling system in place (I wouldn't go so far as to say either Apple or ASUS "engineered" a cooling system) and cram it all into something that is a tad bit smaller than the MacMini. Both systems are pretty impressive but Apple is able to put the better parts in because their customer base will actually spend $700 on something so small. ASUS is selling to a completely different market thus the lower performance parts and of course the much cheaper price. I also think that statement about being the most energy effecient desktop isn't considering the eeeBox. I believe the eeeBox doesn't idle quite as low, but it's load is 19W which is pretty impressive. Though the eeeBox is a bit more noisey as well so lots of pro's and con's to both.
Though I daresay that Apple build quality is actually middle at best. They get away with "quality" because they use the aluminum, not because there is any actual quality designing put in. And their parts fail (especially the screens for some reason...) just like other companies.
But in all, it is definitely priced right for what it has in it, though I wouldn't say it's priced quite right for the application/use.
@Paul Elmy Premium pricing? Yes. So do Mercedes, BMWs and Audis. I mean in base configurations they cost more than fully equipped KIAs, but at the end of the day, do you want to drive a KIA?
Fantastic.
Another alien tech autopsy.
Omg hotness. I love Mac unibody designs