Image via WikipediaApple Mac Mini PC 2010 - Reviews, Specs, Ratings, Details
Source: www.desktoppcs.org.uk
For a long time now, the Mac Mini has been Apple's odd child, as it has been the only consumer level desktop machine from the brand that does not have a fully integrated experience.
Now, it seems to have become much more attractive as a home theater computer as Apple has given it a complete makeover.
It has its price up by a considerable amount too, so, let us find out if the Mini is worth the premium and if it is the ultimate small PC for the living room.
This is caused by two reasons, one being the fact that the lip on the fascia sports an intake, which is vented out the rear and the second reason being its creative concealing of the WiFi antenna, which would otherwise be stifled by that all aluminium enclosure.
With the same idea too, there is even an HDMI to DVI adapter included in the box, and you can obviously score a VGA mini DisplayPort adapter too.
The HDMI port has been mentioned to be "HDMI 1.3-compliant," and the port will be able to carry up to eight channels of audio and run displays with resolutions of up to 1920 x 1200 pixels, even if it does not support the hardly used Deep Color.
We feel this is very silly as most hard drives have the bad character of failing specially when they are run on non stop servers and video playback devices.
The one omission that can be felt is a Blu-ray drive.
While consumers have been using the Mini as the basic Home Theater PC for a number of years now, the HDMI port in the new model has made it seem as if Apple has given this little machine its blessing to conquer the living room.
Its relatively slow, 5400rpm hard drive can mean disk intensive applications and games load rather slowly, but the mini will turn its hand to almost any task.
The new Mini just has the addition of the NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor to the mix.
You need to be just aware that getting the best experience out of the Mini is not necessarily just plug and play, unless you are willing to spend some time playing around with the semi obscure utilities such as Audio MIDI Setup, and having a Mini under your telly might cause more issues than it might actually solve.
As a first for any mac, its HDMI port addition has made it dead simple to be added to your HDTV set.
However, on the other side, the base price of the only stock consumer has gone up by a considerable level, and to be straightforward, some of the much cheaper PCs have had a HDMI port forever.
Once you factor a monitor and peripherals into the equation, Apple's entry-level MacBook offers similar specs and better value.
The entry level consumer model, reviewed here, will set you back £650.
The mini with Snow Leopard Server is available for a starting price of £930, and trades its optical drive for twin hard disks.
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Concepts:
mini, Apple, port, graphics, consumer, mini display, Mac Mini, HDMI, hard drives, video, WiFi, living room, home theater, games, Blu-ray.
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