The
Mac mini has long been the oddball child of the Mac family: it's the only consumer-level machine from Apple that isn't a fully-integrated experience, and it's the only Mac to have had a sub-$1,000 sticker price in some time. But people love this little weirdo, and they love to do weirdly awesome things with it -- we've seen Mac minis stuffed into everything from old
G4 Cube shells to
volleyball-playing robots to
pianos to...
DeLoreans. Yes, DeLoreans. And, of course, people have longed been connecting Mac minis to HDTVs and using 'em as a media players -- it's small, quiet, relatively powerful, and it's a real computer, so it can play virtually any video file you throw at it. And now it's gotten even more attractive as a home theater PC, since Apple's given the
newest Mac mini a striking unibody makeover, NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics, and -- a first for any Mac -- an HDMI port, making it a dead-simple addition to your HDTV. On the flip side, the base price of the only stock consumer configuration has gone up to $699, and to be blunt, much cheaper PCs have had HDMI ports forever. So is the mini worth the premium? Is it the ultimate small PC for the living room -- and beyond? Read on to find out.
Hardware
The new mini represents the first major redesign in the product's history since it was first introduced in 2005. That's partially a testament to the minimalist good looks of the previous design, of course -- it's managed to blend in with every Apple design trend of the past five years. By the same token, the new design promises to have equal staying power: it's at once both simpler and more deeply considered. Obviously the major portion of the case is the aluminum unibody, which is thinner than the previous-gen at an inch and a quarter, but slightly bigger around at seven by seven inches square. Apple tells us the new and old minis are essentially the same size by volume; you might think of the new mini as being a flattened-out version of the old. In fact, the new mini looks like nothing so much as the Apple TV -- but we'll get to the heart of that comparison later.
The new mini doesn't actually sit flat on a surface -- it actually rises up off the ground by a few millimeters on a circular pedestal. This is for two reasons: the front lip houses an air intake, which is vented out the back, and it also creatively conceals a WiFi antenna, which would otherwise be stifled by that all-aluminum enclosure. Bluetooth and a second matching WiFi antenna are also located on the plastic back panel for 360-degree coverage. We tried the mini all over the house on our 5GHz WiFi network and suffered zero problems, so it seems like this little trick was effective for us -- we'll see how others with larger or more complex WiFi setups fare.
About that pedestal: as you might have noticed from our
hands-on photos, flipping the mini over reveals a circular access door, which you can twist off to get at the RAM. It's hard not to marvel at the sheer Apple-ness of the panel the first time you interact with it -- other companies simply don't make computers like this. Unfortunately, you can't get at anything other than the RAM once the panel is off, as the hard drive isn't user replaceable. That's pretty silly, in our opinion: hard drives have a nasty habit of failing, especially when you run 'em non-stop in servers and video playback machines, and we'd much rather have a hard time upgrading the RAM once at the outset than feel helpless about replacing a glitchy hard drive.
Round back there's a pretty standard array of ports: four USB, FireWire 800, gigabit Ethernet, an SDXC card slot, mini DisplayPort, HDMI, mic in, and audio out, which supports optical out as well. Apple says the idea is for the mini to be able to plug into most everything out of the box, so there's an HDMI-to-DVI adapter packed in the box, and you can obviously score a VGA mini DisplayPort adapter as well. The HDMI port itself is said to be "HDMI 1.3-compliant," and it'll carry up to eight channels of audio and run displays up to 1920 x 1200, although it doesn't support the little-used Deep Color. As with the previous mini, you can use both display outputs simultaneously; the mini DisplayPort supports a max res of 2560 x 1600. Oh, and this is the first time Apple's done an SDXC slot, so that's nice -- expect to see that on other SD-equipped Macs as time goes on.
Inside, the mini is very similar to the $999 MacBook: our tester was the lone standard configuration, with a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, an NVIDIA GeForce 320M GPU, 2GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive. It's not a ton of computer for $699 -- you can get any number of Core i5 PC towers with similar GPUs for the same money -- but as usual, that's not really what Apple's going for, and what you lose in raw computing power you gain in saved
power power, as the mini draws less than 10 watts of power at idle, lower than almost every other competitive machine. What's more, the new 85-watt power supply is now built right in, so there's no power brick, which is quite nice, especially for home theater and other nonstandard installations. (In fact, the power plug is the same as the Apple TV, so you can swap in the mini right in place.)
The mini is also exceptionally quiet: we never heard the fan kick in, even while we played games or watched videos. That's not to say the fan wasn't going, but just that we never heard it. Given our recent experiences with incredibly obnoxious MacBook Pro fans, we're marking that in the plus column. The mini was also laudably cool -- we never felt it get even slightly warm after a full day of testing.
Of course, there's one very notable hardware omission here: a Blu-ray drive. It's sort of amazing that Apple will happily sell you a $700 computer with an HDMI port that doesn't support the best, easiest and highest-quality consumer HD playback format available, but for whatever reason the company just doesn't offer any machines that do Blu-ray, even though it's a member of the Blu-ray Disc Association. When we pressed them about it, Apple told us they just don't see customer demand for BD drives because the format has yet to take off. We obviously disagree, but that's the final answer -- maybe the mini's newfound affinity for HDTVs will finally push Apple to offer Blu-ray in the future.
Performance
At this point the performance characteristics of a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo Mac with a 1066MHz bus are pretty familiar territory; Apple's had similar basic hardware in its lineup
since 2008. The new mini adds the NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor to the mix, which is a more potent successor to the familiar 9400m from the previous model -- it's still integrated graphics, but it's reasonably fast integrated graphics.
Needless to say, the new Mac mini was more than capable of basic tasks like browsing, word processing, and running iTunes. And unlike the Atom- or Ion-based nettops you might consider putting under your TV, the mini is also more than capable of running HD Flash video without any hesitation -- and it'll be even better when
Flash 10.1 "Gala" ships with hardware video acceleration for Mac OS X. The mini can also play virtually every other video file you might throw at it using either QuickTime with the open-source Perian component or other popular video apps like VLC or Movist, which is our new favorite. We didn't have any issues playing 1080p files from a variety of sources, and we wouldn't have any hesitation doing a little light iMovie work on the side. On the straight benchmark front, the mini put up a Geekbench score of 3385, which is right in line with what we'd expect.
Where the mini does struggle is gaming performance. Although the GeForce 320M can handle less taxing games and lower resolutions just fine, it can't hang once you crank things up -- we averaged between 17-20fps running Portal at 1920 x 1200 with the default settings, and about the same when we ran it at 1080p connected to our TV. If you're willing to step it down, though, you should be fine -- we got 30fps running Half-Life 2 Episode 2 at 1280 x 800. Passable, but if you're a hardcore gamer you're probably not looking at Macs anyway.
In the living room
So this is where it gets interesting -- people have been using the Mac mini as a basic HTPC for years now, and the new model's HDMI port certainly makes it seem like Apple's given the little guy its blessing to invade the living room. It's not quite that simple, though -- and if you were hoping to just drop in the new mini in place of an aging Apple TV, well, you've got some surprises coming. First, you should note that all the HDMI port really gets you is a simpler interconnect story; otherwise you're still dealing with a full-on computer, not an integrated media device. Second, the fact that you're using a real computer means that you need some sort of keyboard and mouse to do anything of value -- sure, you can click through Front Row using an Apple Remote, but that's a pretty limited experience compared to even the Apple TV, and you didn't just pay $700 for a limited experience. Apple was pretty upfront about this: they told us that the mini's HDMI port is about offering flexibility, not making a play in the living room, and that mini customers who wanted to hook it up to a TV were probably savvy enough to find their own software and input methods. In fact, the only HDTV-specific piece of software on the mini is a new underscan slider in the Displays preference pane, which lets you dial in the size of the image on your TV. Apart from that, you're on your own here, Chico.
That said, the mini is a capable little HTPC once you get it set up and going with the software of your choice: we obviously tried out Front Row and Boxee, which both worked flawlessly, and we had no problem playing back a 1080p MKV over HDMI once we installed Perian. Since the mini can output up to eight audio channels over HDMI, it's technically possible to run a full 7.1 surround system from it, but getting
DTS audio output in OS X from anything other than a DVD is seemingly impossible, so if you're a stickler you should be transcoding to AC-3 surround and sending that to your receiver. Like we said, you can't just hook this up to a TV and go -- you've got to baby it a little if you want the best experience. Of course, all this would be a lot easier if Apple would just offer a Blu-ray drive, but we digress.
Update: Turns out VLC will send encoded DTS output over HDMI, but you have to specifically tell it to do so under the audio menu. Huzzah!
That's really the only hardcore home theater testing we did -- other, simpler things like playing back Netflix and Hulu obviously work just as well as they do on any other Mac, and you won't run into any problems. Of course, you can also purchase or rent movies and TV shows from the iTunes Store; we didn't run into any problems doing that, obviously.
And that's really it -- the Mac mini is just a Mac, albeit one that's really easy to hook up to your TV. If you want to take the leap into having a full-on computer in your living room, it's a fine way to start, since it's small, quiet, cool, and fast. Just know that getting the best experience isn't necessarily plug and play -- unless you're willing to spend some time monkeying around with semi-obscure utilities like Audio MIDI Setup, putting a mini under your TV might cause more problems than it solves.
Wrap-up
Apple tells us its goal with the Mac mini was to make a small, flexible computer that would fit into whatever environment people wanted it to go -- the company seems quite chuffed with the number of people who put minis into cars, for example. By that measure, the new Mac mini is a raging success -- it's one of the most perfectly-executed small PCs we've ever encountered, and it can indeed hook up to almost anything and accomplish nearly any task. If you've got $700 and you need a small Mac, you're going to be pretty happy with a Mac mini.
On the other hand, $700 ain't cheap. You'll almost certainly get more bang for those bucks in the PC world, although you'll sacrifice some fit and finish. It's also fairly easy to find a $700 HDMI-equipped PC with a Blu-ray drive, which is a striking omission from the mini -- especially since it seems so perfectly suited to the living room. No, the mini isn't the perfect HTPC, although it's close. But if you can live without Blu-ray and you can afford the price tag, the mini promises to be just as lovable an oddball as its predecessor.
posted June 18th 2010 8:00PM
This is cool and all with the size factor and portability but still not worth the price. Very disappointing marketing value.
@ComeShot
It's probably the prettiest in this small HTPC-minded computers, but that price tag is terrible. Put out something for $500 with similar specs on it, or keep the price and du the blu.
I'm no mac fan, but for this could be a much more attractive machine with a few tweaks.
@ComeShot
Here comes everyone that will tell you it's so pricey because of it's custom PCB layout.
I hope people realize putting a curve in a board is not a technological feat. In fact, every laptop mobo is a one off- only for $200 more, you can get an i7, 4gb mem, and an LCD.
Oh well.
@ComeShot I can't help but agree. It's a nice form factor with nice features such as the HDMI w/ audio, that clearly targets the HTPC folks. I've always wanted one of these but could never get around the price. The fact that Apple doesn't even include a keyboard (really how much does that BT keyboard cost them, $10 maybe?) just comes off feeling like a giant F-U.
As an Apple Hater I admit to being fond of this device. I guess Apple has to keep prices high in order to maintain a premium value over competitors. But this does look cool. A bit expensive but cool nonetheless. I would even buy one and I AM THE BIGGEST APPLE HATER EVER! But I am open to trying it.
@Mike Vick
right there with ya. I am against most anything that is proprietary (so everything apple makes). itunes seems to blow chunks anytime I have had the unfortunate opportunity to use it. Love that they went HDMI on this guy, but where is my BluRay option. Fine, make it a $200 upgrade or some other crazy "apple" price, but make it an option. This can not truly be an HTPC unless you can put a blu-ray drive in it.
@ComeShot
In other words, it is an Apple computer. Great fit and finish, horrible pricing.
@jfine While I agree that the new Mac Mini is overpriced, I do like that the Mac Mini does not include a keyboard. I already have plenty of keyboards, and I hate it when computer manufacturers *force* you to buy a keyboard and mouse. That seems like a bigger F-U to me.
@ComeShot I don't believe it is bad marketing at all. Apple is a company who caters to the crowd that takes pride in a quality product, and by making a computer comparable with the everyday PC it will loose its target audience. Mac owners take pride in the craftsmanship and precision put into every Mac, they like to show it off (like showing off a car for example) and if everyone in the market could afford an Apple computer they would loose value and it's distinguished name as a manufacturer.
@ComeShot
Agreed. If it was $500, I'd buy one, even if that meant they had to drop the specs. A 2.0GHz with the old 9400M graphics would be fine. Asking $700 for a mini PC is a pretty bad deal.
@ComeShot
I completely agree. I don't consider myself a fanboy but I suspect many would (first gen iPhone user who's willing to go to the 4th gen white even though it'd be my 7th iPhone in 3yrs 3- 2G and 3- 3GS), love OS X and use a Mac Pro as a HTPC, I can't see the justification of a $100 price jump. Although the HDMI addition and smaller form factor add to it's awesomeness, the extra $100 is a bit steep. $700 for a C2D with OS X? No, that's insane. People will lust over it and Apple will keep building them because of this, but as an HTPC, I don't see it unless you've got money to burn.
But honestly, I am at the point that enough is enough. Win 7 is good. I like OS X but I no longer can justify the high priced hardware to keep buying Apple. Their build quality may be higher cause they use aluminum instead of plastic and IPS screens over TFT, but this doesn't justify they price increase in this economy.
@ComeShot
I agree. It's not bad, in terms of hardware and design. But the price is just awful. If it was under $500, I'd consider buying one. Then install Windows 7 on it. Windows Media Center is pretty good and it's very remote control friendly.
@meyou 100% in agreement. You may get away without blueray on laptops but like a LOT of folks who DO like this product as a HTPC. We want to be able to play bluerays on our big flatscreen TVs. Spend some time making a really nice inteface to play movies and you got a HTPC I would not mind paying an apple price tag. Till then, no sale.
@dez In fact it's the only current HTPC form factor I'd put near my TV. My current HTPC is a Sony Vaio TP running Windows Vista. It cost me $1,900!
I did give the Dell Studio hybrid a shot - horrible performance and tried using a notebook as an HTPC. The inconvenience of having to open the lid to turn it on was too much for me.
@Juaquin if you look around on refurbs or microcenter they have the 9400m 2.2 core for 499
@ComeShot
OMG, has anyone even noticed this guys user name..
think about it "comeshot"
@VAreAct
That is absolutely absurd. Their hardware is not crafted any better than plenty of PC companies out there. Even if you are foolish enough to fall for that, it's still not worth the premium they charge. $700 for a machine simply because it's small is stupid. You can easily build a mini-itx PC for cheaper or buy the Zotac Next-Gen ION system for $350 with everything needed to run as a PC and it looks just as nice.
@dez
500 would be impossible. It just wouldn't be profitable, there's a lot of power in that little box. You guys are just being cheap.. sorry. If Apple wants to do the best computers they can't be losing money on hardware.
@stickboy
I'd rather have one extra keyboard then be minus one keyboard.
@ACE88
Huh? Surely that old nugget has had it's day. It's right up there with the good ol' Apple is proprietry and closed fairy tale.
Sure you can convince the script kiddies but to everyone else you just look clueless.
It's like an opposing fairy tale where Windows is no good for creative work, just dull business stuff like excel and word.
1) Black anodized aluminum finish option.
2) Core i5/i7 upgrade option.
3) Built in Blu-ray drive.
4) Starting at $499.
That would make it the ultimate HTPC. Not that Apple cares about this.
@Wesscoast Sorry. Don't agree. This is of course a cute box, but the design is not more expensive to fabricate relative to what the $500 mini was when first intro'd. Most of the hardware should be cheaper. Every other Mac upgrade has added equally significant improvements for no price increase. I think they've misread the market and the price will drop in a few months.
I hate when people say the Mini can be an HTPC.
"And unlike the Atom- or Ion-based nettops you might consider putting under your TV, the mini is also more than capable of running HD Flash video without any hesitation"
Atom 300 / ION rigs will play HD Flash with no problem using the beta. Also, you can either pick one off the shelf for about half the price and it'll have Windows Media Center. Roll your own, and still for less than the Mini you can get BluRay and something that actually does something an HTPC needs to do... record TV (and in HD at that).
"No, the mini isn't the perfect HTPC, although it's close."
No, it's not. It's the closest anyone who only buys Apple products can get at this point, but saying it's anywhere to 'close' compared to other options is just poor advice.
Signed,
former AppleTV modder who now hearts ION.
@FrancisL4D
"...using the Beta"
But thats the deal. People paying the price for a Mini is paying for the quality software build that works and is vetted for the hardware (read: tested). You're lining a coder's pockets when you buy Apple, which isn't a bad thing (we need to eat too). AppleTV is the closest thing you'll have as a 'beta' product.
True you could spend the time to build your own for cheaper, and perhaps make it nicer looking too! Get out your unibody carving robot you've been hiding under your bed...or buy a little Ion with ChenLee Super DVD decoder delux player (read: beta) plus "Ultra Max Sound Experience Zing driver with built in Nano Extreme Internet Explorer toolbar and tray volume 'augmenter". Also comes with a trial of Quicken, Yahoo Toolbar, Google Toolbar, Bing Experience, FooHuangChoo Media Experience all-around, file-type association replacer, with integrated Microsoft .doc and pdf reader -all configured as your default program for everything. And 8 trial programs of Virus protection and anti-spyware that expired yesterday.
I know, it sounds like your average Toshiba at BestBuy. But seriously, 50% of that Apple premium price is going to you buying consumer tested, *nix/OSX with no adware/trialware.
@tekdemon Sounds like a win to me.
P.S. The Mac Mini has always been drop-dead sexy. I'd almost buy one on looks alone...
@ComeShot
Yeah and like that craptastic iPad this one won't sell either!
@ComeShot
I think they mean four usb ports..
@ACE88 are you suggesting that an ION based system will perform as well as the Mac Mini? Seriously???
@ComeShot
The mini always seems to be last of all the Apple hardware to get real attention. Although the this update is nice I still think deep down Apple would like to kill this machine off as there's not enough money in it for them. I think the price increase sums it up.
How did $700 become 800€ :/ I want this as an htpc but not at this price
@Mike Vick "BIGGEST APPLE HATER EVER" (Engadget jotting it down)--> check!
@ComeShot If there was a Blu-ray drive, maybe, just maybe it could have a competitive price. But seriously Apple, what's your problem with blu-ray? The format hasn't taken off? Have you ever checked out Amazon's movie department? A lot of the best selling movies are on blu-ray, not even dvd anymore.
@VAreAct
To help you in all your future ventures:
loose --> lose
@FrancisL4D What is wrong with using it as a HTPC? I use mine (previous model) to run Plex and don't have any issues with it at all.
Ok, it would be nice if it had HDMI, but the new model resolves that issue.
@ComeShot have you actually seen how much aluminum cased media center PCs cost? The mac mini is actually in the lower price range but unfortunately it is also in the lower spec range. Yes it is powerful enough and you can live with all the sacrifices that they made but that is only if it had a blue-ray drive. Get over yourself Jobs bue-ray IS here to stay and while it might be expensive to pay for licensing you really need to roll with the punches on this one. But to be fair a slim blue-ray drive like the ones that Apple uses would inflate the price by another $100. That would put off quite a few people who buy the mini because it is a cheap mac and actually use it as a computer rather than a media center. Anyway, at the end of the day knowing Apple they wouldn't really be redesigning the thing if it wasn't selling so good luck to all the future owners.
@meyou
HTPC without Bluray is like bread without butter. What were they thinking (with AVGN voice).
@fmc159 Nothing like self-evident to reveal the "typo."
@VAreAct
> Apple is a company who caters to the crowd that takes pride in a
> quality product, and by making a computer comparable with the
> everyday PC
Except it is comparable or inferior to an "everyday PC". That's the whole point. It's pretty and small but that's about it. Now Apple has just increased the pricetag on "pretty".
It is NOT a Porsche.
This is a pretty mundane update with the exception of the pointless design change and the price hike.
@ComeShot
I really think the price jump was to further separate the Apple TV from the Mini. Which is sad. I know Apple still sees the Apple TV as something they're "toying around with." But the Apple TV could be improved. Especially if we didn't have to feed it everything through our iTunes account. Don't get me wrong, I use iTunes. But nobody loads everything through that one program. That would be insane.
@ComeShot Sony did this years ago with the Vaio TP2: http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-mac-desktops/sony-vaio-tp2-359005/review?artc_pg=1
I've got one in my front room & with Win7 with fuckin ace media centre on it, it's still more than capable as an HTPC.
The new Mac Mini _does_ look sexy though. . .
@VAreAct Agreed. Also keep in mind that with Apple, you're not only paying a premium for quality, you're paying a premium for their top to bottom sustainable approach--from manufacturing techniques to recycling. They can't afford to be another bottom-dwelling cheap computer maker. They make environmentally conscious, chemical free (almost), sleekly designed computers that work reliably for years and without hassle.
@FrancisL4D I have to disagree with your outlook, partially anyway. The Ion platform is great, we all know this, but having a faster CPU for things like ShowAnalyzer and the rest is important too. Also I dunno if the Ion was ever good enough for proper de-interlacing, maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.....that's why the better GPU on this Mini is so attractive.
I've posted elsewhere on my disdain for Apple's pricing, and this is another example (its a stretch to even consider it at the asking price, adding a Blu Ray drive for the same cost is a stretch even). Just about everything you want from a great HTPC is there, except the cost. If the cost was $599, this would be a front runner.
But price aside, the hardware provided makes for an excellent HTPC with most every HTPC app there is. The Mac Mini has been a suitable platform _hardware_ wise for a while now, and that's why people say it's a great potential HTPC. And with the addition of an HDMI port, another major hurdle has been jumped.
@ComeShot absolutely agree.... how long will Apple ride consumers' A$$ with the excuse of "our design it's worth the price?" Enough already! To their defense it's the ugly Sh!t that PC world produces that makes them so hi-grade design... more than what they would really deserve to be in reality. All one need is to take a look at the lack of taste or average at best of all PC brands and it becomes evident why apple is still regarded as a brand that comes up with computer that also look nice. Are all those PC brands blind or moronic? Even IKEA could come up with a better looking PC than the average company making PC systems or that of companies producing PC custom designed cases!
Speaking of cheaper alternatives, the Zino HD dual-core HTPC with blu-ray player is on slickdeals right now for $284 shipped:
http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/35950/dell-zino-hd-amd-dual-core-athlon-x2-3250e-3gb-ddr2-250gb-hd-blu-ray-romdvrw-radeon-hd-3200-win-vista-home-basic-64-bit
@huzzlehoff
I disagree and Apple defiantly disagrees with you. The lack of a Bluray player is a bummer but at this point what do you expect? Did you really expect Apple to add a Bluray player on their cheapest system? Number two, Apple clearly is against Bluray. A couple of theories, (1) Apple only puts in perfected features into their products and it's possible Apple doesn't feel confident enough in the Bluray line yet? (2) This is my main bet, Apple is moving to digital media only. Jobs has constantly talked about computing in clouds and he has pumped the iTunes store. (A) You can't stream Bluray yet and (B) The apple store doesn't sell Bluray quality videos yet. Obviously the processor is aimed at people who do basic to intermediate office/media work but the Intel Core 2 Duo is kind of a let down. Give me at least an i3! Overall the system is a nice upgrade wise on most levels. Some will complain about the small hard drives or RAM that costs a ton to upgrade, but remember you can also buy more ram for cheap and upgrade it yourself and the small laptop hard drives allow for low power consumption and for the small form factor. Additionally, someone mentioned a Dell Zino! haha That this is the biggest POS and can't even handle Netflix. At least with the mini you can do basic video editing and even music production
@BryCivicSi
I used to be a Windows supporter until I realized Windows (Even W7) sucks. I used to justify my Windows craze to the fact that PCs offered better hardware for the same price or even lower price compared to a Mac. Now I have come to realize it's not so much the hardware that matters, but the software. OSX is by far the best OS in my opinion. It's fast stable, and has the best UI in the game. Windows Media Center is a joke... Is a price increase needed no, but why don't we yell at Sony for their overpriced computers? If you look at what most people use their computer for you will probably notice that not a lot people truly need a Bluray player, 1TB HD, i3/i5/i7 processor. Is it fair to say $700 can get you all of those with a Windows, Yes, but is there a Windows machine that is this sleek, compact, and user friendly as the Mini, no. In contrast we see the same argument in phones. The Sprint EVO phone has some killer features and is priced similar to the iPhone 4, but many users (not all) would agree that Apple still has implemented many of their features better and has a better UI then Android. Sometimes less is more...
It took long enough.
This is a TRUE htpc.
Wish it was cheaper though....
@SolidSnake
I'm sorry snake, but I don't think you'll be able to fit into this box anytime soon...
@SolidSnake Mac OSX does not have native HTPC functionality built into the operating system, and the free options don't stack up to Windows Media Center, which also has a large market of WMC peripherals designed for the OS, such as the Gyration air-mouse remote control and keyboard I'm typing on right now.
The 5400rpm laptop harddrive is also going to represent a bottleneck, and its capacity is also limited compared to competitors that use desktop harddrives in their micro-PCs (like the Dell Zino) which are faster and come in 2TB capacities which is nice when used as a DVR or to store large movie collections.
"And unlike the Atom- or Ion-based nettops you might consider putting under your TV, the mini is also more than capable of running HD Flash video without any hesitation"
I have a feeling that Nilay does know that this was an issue before 10.1 Flash hardware acceleration on Atom processors, and is thus very misleading. It is only the Mac which doesn't have hardware acceleration, which will place great strain on the CPU.
The CPU in the Mac Mini btw was also released within weeks of the rumored Intel Z530 that might be in the HP Slate device. Although they are both quite old Intel stock, in the HP it was described as "hopelessly out of date"... yet here there is no mention of why Apple didn't use a modern processor, considering the price premium (it is over a thousand dollars after giving it a normal 4GB of memory and a wireless keyboard and mouse).
@Ducman69 Your ass must hurt from talking out of it. But Mac os has had built in htpc functionality since tiger with front row and that comes with every Mac you didn't have to buy a "media center edition" to get that functionality. Also the third party solutions are way better then media center please. Plex, xbmc to name a couple please get your facts straight and stop your nonsense.