“Since its unveiling in January 2005, the Mac Mini has been the cheapest Mac that Apple sells, making it the least expensive way to get hardware that natively runs OS X. In the past, this usually meant settling for older components — especially compared to the pricier iMac and MacBook Pro lines,” Michael deAgonia reports for Computerworld. “Although Apple has updated the Mini’s look several times since its debut — most recently in 2010 — the internal hardware often received only minor improvements.”
“That changed in July, when the newest Mini received significant upgrades — including some serious speed enhancements — as well as an interesting subtraction or two, one of which might be a deal-breaker for some potential buyers,” deAgonia reports. “The loss of the optical drive means you’ll be more dependent on the Mac App Store for software… Or you can buy an external SuperDrive for $79. It plugs right in to one of the USB ports.”
deAgonia reports, “For those interested in purchasing a Mac, this Mini is the least expensive option. It makes a great living room machine for anyone looking for a full Mac OS X experience on their TV, and it fits in just fine in the office if you’re looking for an inexpensive Mac. Recommended.”
Read more in the full article here.
Yes, the death of an optical drive could be seen as a deal breaker.
Once you live without one you soon forget the need for one. This is all cohesive to Apples’ direction to iCloud and who has been buying MacMinis. May not seem the right move now but it is.
Yeah, the optical drive on my Macbook stopped working and my other Mac is an MBA so I haven’t had one for a couple years, and I have never missed it.
Unless of course you still buy physical music media and like to rip it into iTunes at a higher bit-rate than that available from online stores. I’ve just bought a Mac Mini to replace my G3 PowerBook, but I bought a previous model that was being sold cheap to clear. I had the optical drive taken out, bought a cheap caddy from eBay, and had a 750Gb HDD put in the space, along with another 2Gb of RAM I was given free. Mine now has 1.1Tb of storage, with a cheap external optical added on. With the trackpad and BT keyboard it’s a truly wonderful machine connected to my 40″ Sony Bravia and my Yamaha A/V amp.
Being more dependent on the Mac App Store has the disadvantages of an easier purchasing, easier installation, a better way of keeping software up to date, a more generous license, lower prices, better security, and a way to reinstall software, all from one place. Wait. What? This is a drawback?
If you reinstall from a CD, it throws you back to the original version of the software. If you reinstall from the Mac App Store, you’re up to date. So the optical disk is better? How?
I for one use a Mac mini as my home theater PC. I use it to encode my movies and my music. Not having an optical drive is a deal braker for me.
The mini is a power horse though. I always have it crunching on something.
An external optical drive will set you back $89. Given that Apple dropped the price of the mini by $100, you’re still ahead. More than ahead if you buy two minis as the optical drive can be unplugged and reused.
Only two weeks ago I retired the PMG4 Quicksilver (upgraded 1.7GHz DP) which has done stirling service over many years. At some point I’ll upgrade the PM’s graphics as far as it can go with a modded card and set up the machine to boot off SATA RAID array. Anyway, the old girl was replaced with a Mac mini server + USB Superdrive.
If you think you can get away with using optical drive sharing, think again! It’s far less reliable than it should be. An external optical drive is the only option if you need to access physical media at all.
It’s a shame there is only Intel graphics but at some point in the future (hopefully) Thunderbolt graphics cards will be an option should I need to beef up the video capabilities.
Overall the Mac mini is a great machine and Lion is a worthy OS update (but the new iCal is terrible).
I don’t really mind the new iCal. I haven’t had a problem with it…
The problem I have with the new iCal is I need the calendar list to always be viewable, so I’ll probably switch to Outlook 2011 for my calendar needs, in which case I may as well switch my email and address book to Outlook too. Unless of course I can simply copy the old iCal 4.0.4 to Lion and use that. Although I do like having my calendar, email and address book all in one application instead of a proliferation of windows to switch back and forth between.
Little off subject, the App Store application is not on my iMac, running 10.6
I’ve gone to apple site, but can’t find a DL, any suggestions?
I have purchased several tomes, can’t figure what happened
You need to download and install the 10.6.8 Combo Updater. Should appear in your Software updater.