“The mini’s visual redesign takes its cues from two other Apple products. The new enclosure is made of a single piece of aluminum, a la Apple’s unibody laptops—gone is the plastic top of previous models, making the new mini feel rock-solid. But the shape is closer to that of the Apple TV—thinner and wider than the previous Mac mini models,” Frakes reports. “In fact, the new mini is almost exactly the same size as an Apple TV, just with rounder corners.”
Frakes reports, “The new mini drops the previous model’s mini-DVI port in favor of an HDMI output—a nod to the fact that many Mac mini owners use the computer in home-theater systems and for other AV uses. In fact, Apple has even updated the Displays pane of System Preferences for the new mini to let you tweak video underscan—useful when connecting the mini to a TV.”
Read more in the full article, with plenty of photos, here.
It might have dropped the mini-DVI but it sports a mini-DisplayPort instead.
=:~)
Why did Apple even bother? Everyone knows the Mac is dead…I read it in Newsweek, for Jobs’ sake!
/snark
wish they would sell this at QVC or HSN
Thought the Mac mini was “end of life”d last year… Or was it two years ago?
Read this SCOTT DONKEY MORITZ ( the street) and grow wings.
I ordered a 2.66 with 500gb HD, and 4gb ram for $ 1031 with tax included. Canceled the order and ordered myself the server from mac connection for $ 959 flat. Got a new SuperDrive on eBay for $69.
I’m actually saving $3 and I’m getting a much better system with dual 500gb 7200 rpm drives, 4gb ram, and the 2.66ghz for $1028 which included the née SuperDrive from eBay.
I have an Appletv, not a mini, but since the mini is a full computer with an HDMI connection, is it possible to connect the mini to a AV receiver and use it for the Internet on a large sceen TV, or has this always been an option?
Ten bucks says a new Apple TV, Airport Extreme, and Time Capsule are around the corner with the new enclosure… It would be too easy
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
Nice upgrade except for the crappy integrated graphics card! It needs a fast (7200 rpm) hard drive, too.
a couple of people already have their hands on one and they are not in vietnam
Seriously the Mini is over priced.
I have lots of Macs and don’t mind paying extra for the quality and OS but this thing should be around $499.99
@Steve516
The Mac Mini Server comes with 7200RPM Drives
after watching youtube vids, i can’t believe mini is made out of one piece of Al-you-meen-yum. they must must slide all the guts in one piece via the backside
Jeff:
You probably also feel entitled to a blow job with that baseless $499 price don’t you?
@ jaundiced.
Always worked
@ Jeff
The same price as an iPad?
I wish I could justify getting one of these, would love to have the HDMI instead of VGA connection to my tv, but my current mini does the job just fine. But if I didn’t already have one I would be all over this.
@NCIceman
sells yours now on ebay and put money toward new one
@ Jim
Thats what I’m doing.
I’m selling an Apple TV which I hardly used Right Now and Soon an old 1.25Ghz G4 Mac Mini with 80GB HD, SuperDrive, 1GB Ram, 10.4 Tiger which is what I’m using now until My new Mini Comes in as I gave my parents my 17″ 2Ghz C2D iMac.
I should get about $350 combined.
They kept FireWire 800!
Still, too bad there is only one port.
@Breeze no but if you take an iMac and remove what you don’t get Apple should actualy pay us to take them. Not that I think they should be free but, no key board, no mouse, squat for RAM & HD.
Once you start adding the things you need to make it usefull you are fast aproching the price of an iMac and you still don’t have a monitor add the 24″ off of Apple store and you could have 27″ core i5 and some money left over.
So strictly speeking on valuse Apples to Apples Mac Mini seem way over priced.
I love my 2 iMac, MacBook Pro 15″, iPhone, iPods, iPod Touch, 64GB WiFi + 3G iPad ect but even though I woul like one can’t bring myself to over pay for the Mini.
So right now I’ve been converting all my DVDs to store on a 2TB drive that has a lot of high speed connections, including FireWire 800, but is currently in my home theater system hooked up to my Airport Extreme via USB.
I’ve been able to stream them to my iPad and to my XBox, but both require my MacBook Pro to be up and running, plus I’m sure the USB kind of limits the quality, right?
So if I got a Mac Mini I could just hook that drive up to it through Firewire 800, and be able to watch everything directly on my TV via HDMI with Front Row, or stream it to my iPad through Airvideo.
I used to hook my MacBook Pro into my home theater system this way via dvi to HDMI, but I take it to work every day so just never bother with that. Would this set up, HDMI directly, be any better than dvi to HDMI?
I’m still using a 5+ year old pre-Intel mini to serve my site and it still works fine, but this is attempting upgrade. I think the Server version might be in my future. My iMac is in the shop for repairs (new video board) and I’m hobbling by on the old Mini for now. Not bad, but being stuck on Leopard and unable to run VMWare is a bummer.
We’ve got a Mac mini server in work. It runs so smoothly, I forgot we even had one.
Eric,
If you take DVI, rearrange the pins and then add audio conductors/pins, you get HDMI.
Jeff:
Yeah right Apple should pay you….you not only need a brain too but also someone to teach you to think