Hands on with Apple’s new unibody Mac mini

“The first thing you’ll notice about the new Mac mini is its box. Or, more specifically, how small that box is—60 percent of the size of the previous container. Open the box, and you’ll immediately see why: the new Mac mini, while wider than the previous model, is only 1.4 inches thick. And something else is missing—the power supply,” Dan Frakes reports for Macworld. “Instead of the heavy, bulky, white power brick that’s shipped with every mini since the line was introduced, the newest mini comes with only a thin power cord and a video adapter. In the process of redesigning the Mac mini’s enclosure, Apple was able to shrink down the power supply and fit it inside the mini itself.”

“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.