The mac mini, in my mind, has always been the centerpiece of the Apple products. It is sleek; you can hide it if you want to since it’s so small; and no other desktop comes close to its tiny size. The only non-Apple trait of the mac mini’s have been the price tag – this product is actually cheap versus the $2,000 minimum you’ll drop for other Macs.
The mac mini has been out for some time now. So, what’s the new mac mini have that’s so special?
- More speed! – it comes with 2GB RAM and upgradeable to 8GB RAM
- More power! – you can buy the 2.4GHZ or 2.66GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo processor.
- Video is better. It comes with a 256GB video chip, 2560 x 1600 Display Port, and 1920 x 1200 HDMI Port.
- More ports. This has 4 USB ports, 1 firewire ports, ethernet port, SD card slot, audio in/out
- No more big power supply. The old mac mini had a bulky power supply. This one is built in so you just have a regular power cord to connect it to an outlet.
The hard drive size is offered at 320GB or 500GB which is not bad. But, it’s a bit of a bummer that you can’t upgrade to 1TB or 2TB since those hard drives are available in the tech support market. If you have tons of music and pics, you can hook up an external hard drive for extra storage. Or you can seek out a local NYC computer repair shop to upgrade your internal hard drive for you.
The rest of the specs are similar to other macs – you can get the Magic Mouse, keyboard, and AppleCare tech support plan. Starting at $699, this mac mini is a bit more expensive than previous models, but deservingly so due to its increased speed and power. All in all, you’ll be paying about $1,300 less for this model. Remember that you will need to still buy a monitor (the Apple Cinema Display 24″ is $899), but you can save big dollars by purchasing an HP, Dell, or other non-Apple monitor.
