In a surprise move, Apple have announced a refresh of the Mac Mini, repositioning the device as “the most affordable way to enjoy Mac OS® X, iLife® or Mac OS X Snow Leopard® Server”.
The redesigned Mac Mini comes with a quoted “twice the graphics performance” of the previous model, courtesy of an NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor, rear HDMI port, a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 320GB hard disk, SD Card Slot and 2GB of RAM wrapped up in a new aluminium unibody enclosure.
“The sleek, aluminum Mac mini packs great features, versatility and value into an elegant, amazingly compact design,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With twice the graphics performance, HDMI support and industry-leading energy efficiency, customers are going to love the new Mac mini.”
Whilst Apple praise the new Mac Mini’s affordability, that doesn’t mean it’s cheap – the base configuration starts at $699 in the US and an exchange rate-ignoring £649 in the UK. The Snow Leopard Server edition of the Mac Mini swaps the DVD Drive for two 500GB hard drives, and comes in at $999/£949.
Apple claim the refreshed Mac Mini is the “world’s most energy efficient desktop”, with power consumption reduced from the previous model by 25% to less than 10W at idle (11W for the Server edition). The company bundle the Snow Leopard operating system with the base system, plus iLife suite which includes iPhoto, iMovie and Garageband. The server edition, meanwhile, offers a range of features for small businesses including email, calendar and file serving, Time Machine® backup, Wiki Server, Podcast Producer and more.
Full specs as follows:
- 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB of shared L2 cache;
- 2GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable up to 8GB;
- a slot-load 8X SuperDrive® (DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
- 320GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm;
- NVIDIA GeForce 320M integrated graphics;
- AirPort Extreme® 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
- Gigabit Ethernet;
- four USB 2.0 ports;
- SD card slot;
- one FireWire® 800 port;
- one HDMI port and one Mini DisplayPort;
- HDMI to DVI video adapter;
- combined optical digital audio input/audio line in (minijack); and
- combined optical digital audio output/headphone out (minijack).
Mac Mini Server specs:
- 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB of shared L2 cache;
- 4GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable up to 8GB;
- two 500GB Serial ATA hard drives running at 7200 rpm;
- NVIDIA GeForce 320M integrated graphics;
- AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
- Gigabit Ethernet;
- four USB 2.0 ports;
- SD card slot;
- one FireWire 800 port;
- one HDMI port and one Mini DisplayPort;
- HDMI to DVI video adapter;
- combined optical digital audio input/audio line in (minijack); and
- combined optical digital audio output/headphone out (minijack).
