“A new Wintel prototype that openly apes Apple Computer’s popular Mac mini is due out this week, sources told Wired News, giving Intel a showcase to prove its chips are a match for anyone when it comes to tiny PC designs,” Simon Burns reports for Wired News. “Working prototypes of the Mac mini look-alike running Microsoft Windows and based on Intel’s Pentium M CPU have already been built by Taiwan-based PC maker AOpen, according to two sources in Taiwan’s PC manufacturing industry who have seen them. These sources added that the prototype was built at Intel’s request, and will be unveiled here at the Computex trade show, which runs May 31 through June 4.”
Burns reports, “Apple has been using the Mac mini to encourage users of Intel-based PCs running Windows to ‘switch,’ a campaign Intel hopes to blunt. But analysts said they don’t see big consumer demand for a clone of the stylish and popular box, or much of a threat to Apple. ‘I don’t think the two — Mac mini and whatever Intel puts out — are really in the same market; that is, of course, unless Apple starts running OS X on x86 hardware,’ said IDC analyst Roger Kay.”
Full article here.
A image of the AOpen XC Cube Mini is here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple leads, Wintel follows, as usual.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Intel shows off ‘Apple Mac mini-like’ concept PC design – March 02, 2005
Where Apple leads, Wintel follows years later – January 31, 2005
FrankenMac mini, it’s alive! Man rips apart Mac mini, turns it into PC – January 31, 2005
Apple leads; Wintel follows as usual – November 11, 2002
Gee! Nice try, Intel!
It looks like it’s only twice as high as a Mini. Or it’s a front/back view that shows us they forgot the connectors.
Edit:
Where is says “Mini” read “mini”.
What makes the MacMini interesting is not that it is small, and compresses a great deal of technology into a small case, it’s that it’s small, compresses a great deal of technology into a small case, and it runs OS X.
MacDailyNews is becoming an ad riven mess.
Yo, Henry. You be banging on my last never shorty.
Angle Iron and bakerlite. What an interesting combination.
wired quote: “While the Mac mini attracts adjectives like “sleek,” “cool” and “sexy,” its current lineup of Windows-based competitors could most politely be described as “compact.””
I love it!
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What’s bakerlite? Is that perhaps an early form of plastic called bakelite.
Where did they get the 40,000 per month figure. Even the link they provide states numbers higher than that.
My first year design students that failed the course have produced better looking boxes while attempting to design a better mouse trap – in a word :sad
They seem to have the wrong photo attached to that article. That thing is huge.
They do have links to some other more interesting small PCs, but they don’t appear to be as elegant, as small or as powerful as a Mac mini.
A ‘cappuccino’ with bluetooth and 802.11b (that’s b, not g), 512MB, an 80gig 4200rpm drive, no firewire, USB 1.1, but with PS/2, serial and parallel ports, and with XP Pro, and NO optical drive comes in at $1042. Oh, and it has a 533MHz cyrix chip too. And integrated graphics.
A Mac mini with twice the processor speed, the USB 2.0, Firewire, no PS/2/serial/parallel, dedicated graphics, combo drive 512MB, bluetooth, 802.11g (that g, not b), OS-X plus all the trimmings comes in at $698.
The reason I looked at that one is that it’s the one that looks nicest.
Of course just as it is stupid to comapare iPods and Powermacs, this is not really a fair comparison either. I don’t imagine this thing is meant to compete with a Mac mini. If it does, then it’s game over.
M. T. MacPhee, that’s the intel concept from 3 months ago, still it’s ugly. I like the look on the Intel CEO’s face. It’s like he’s clueless that a Mac Mini exists in much smaller and beautiful form.
I can’t wait to see a picture of the A-Open, so we can make fun of it.
I don’t know where designers get there ideas, so many things are ugly.
Maybe Ducati should design a case.
The LittlePC comes in at around $1460, but is missing the wi-fi and bluetooth, so compare that to $599 for the Mac mini.
It does have the advantage of 3.5″ hard drives, but also has integrated graphics and is virtually software free (I added XP Pro only).
It’s also a bit ugly. It’s not been designed to look nice, so that’s more of an observation rather than a direct criticism. I’m sure it’s the right machien for some. It’s probably more rugged than a mini. But it’s also quite a bit bigger.
Basically there’s nothing to touch the mini at the moment. Not that it’s not possible. It’s just a squished up laptop, after all, so there’s no technical reason why you can’t do that with a Wintel. I’m sure Sony could make a Vaio mini if they wanted to. But really, they’re kidding themselves if they think they’ve done it already.
I swear, I try to be open-minded about these competitors, at least as far as their appearance goes, but that thing is UGLY! When they called it a “Mac mini lookalike” I figured it would, you know, look like the Mac mini. Other than being small and rectangular, I don’t see the resemblance.
In the photo, is that supposed to be the “PC mini” stacked with some sort of external accessory or something? Because if the whole thing is the computer, that makes it roughly twice the size of the Mac mini.
Was that two of the knock offs set on top of each other? Or the whole thing? Hehehe, even if it was two stacked up, EACH of them was still way bigger than the mini and “compact” is about the best adjective you could use for the design. At least this one actually had guts in it. I remember right after the mini came out, intel showed off a “concept” PC that was just an empy box mock up.
Man! I am glad to be using the real thing, OS-wise and otherwise. These cheap knock offs are pathetic.
The MDN take should be more like: “Apple leads, Wintel ATTEMPTS to follow, and as always gets it mostly wrong but just enough right to sucker in the Lemmings.”
looks nothing close to the Mini … looks larger than the shuttle computers
Why don’t these pc manufacturers actually hire real designers? As is it must be one of the easiest jobs on earth. Just draw a big box and colour it in beige, hand it in and take the rest of the week off.
Man, that thing is FUGLY!
OMG, WTF?! That is worse than FUGLY!!! Yuck! Don’t compare that thing to the Mac mini…
Not to be rude guys, but take a better look at the article. The picture in the article is not the A-open Mac mini “look alike”.
Well I guess you can’t look anymore MDN just took the photo off. (It was an Intel design from 3 months ago). Yes it was ugly.
We’ll have to wait a couple of days to comment on how ugly the A-open design is.
MDN, you should take away the line that says.
Full article, with image, here…
underneath the snip at the top of this page.
Or… show us the AOpen photo.
They really don’t get it.
The mini isn’t being marketed (or the reason it’s selling) to potential “switchers” as a replacement for a typical PC. It’s so potential “switchers” can have a PC and and Mac on their desks and compare them.
What’s to compare between a PC and a . . . PC?
the link is to a Wired.com article. so, I take it Wired pulled the photo.
“MacDailyNews Take: Apple leads, Wintel follows, as usual.”
As usual? LOL quite funny since its actually the reverse, Apple has always been playing catchup to the PC world. Apple really should abandon the computer hardware business and concentrate on operating systems.