The Apple Mac mini (Ray) ($ 799 list) is the latest compact desktop PC from Apple. While iPads and iPhones have a lot of attention these days, the Mac is still an important part of Apple's business. You will use the tablets and mobile phones as they are, and the Mac when you want to do serious work like writing for long periods of time or watch a movie on the big screen with family. The new Mac mini with an upgraded version of the port beam, the second generation of Intel Core i5 and new discrete graphics from AMD, but it is also notable for something that probably will not have to use: Remove the chassis of the optical drive. Oh, and is as powerful as a PC tower. Users used to regard the Mac mini as an extra PC second or third time at home, rather than a host PC. The new iteration is now powerful enough to take over the main home PC. Plus it is still ideal base station for your iPod, iPhone and iPad.
For all these reasons, earning Apple Mac mini (Thunderbolt) Editors Choice for compact desktops.
For all these reasons, earning Apple Mac mini (Thunderbolt) Editors Choice for compact desktops.
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| Apple Mac Mini (Thunderbolt) |
Design and features
The new version of the Mac mini is similar to the previous iteration, Apple Mac Mini (HDMI) ($ 699 list, 4.5 stars). It has the same unibody aluminum chassis with an obvious difference. It is no longer an optical drive slot-loading, a feature that played an important role in the line of Mac mini since its inception in 2005. Basically, it's as if Apple says "we gave you the iTunes Store, Safari and Mac App Store online, why would you need an optical drive?" As the original iMac drive became so prominent disk of its desktops, Mac mini (Thunderbolt) is a stake into the ground and declare that you do not need an optical drive more. Of course, there were no nettops miniature optical discs for a while Now, as Giada MiniPC A50 ($ 449 street, 3.5 stars). But the Mac mini is a compact desktop without some premium optical drive.
The fact is that optical drives are very useful to install the programs and the rebuilding of the operating system. Apple's App Store, Mac and download online treatment programs, and Mac OS X Lion is designed to be installed from the recovery partition, Internet, or from a USB stick. Sure, you can install Windows 7 on a USB stick as well, but first you must find a way to create one yourself: All new Mac mini will be able to install the Lion of the recovery partition or on the Internet after you type a combination key at startup. Apple to sell the finished product Leone USB key in the near future. If you absolutely need to read an optical disc, you can split a perspective of any Mac or PC, you install the client program on your PC or LAN MAC. You can also use the same optional external Apple SuperDrive ($ 79), which was published on the MacBook Air. If you have previous versions of the software that you can still install DVD, you can think of a gathering.
The internal layout of the Mac mini is the same as last time: memory slots opening in the bottom panel shows (filled) with 4 GB of memory, not much. You can see 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi antenna, but to go further, you need Torx screwdrivers and patience. Mac mini is not designed to be repaired by users (apart from memory), so unless you have a load of stamina, you will not replace the internal 500 GB hard drive soon. The office comes with a 500 GB 5400 rpm drive, which deals with its compact size for a small performance. You can set the mini when you order from the Apple online store at 7200 rpm 750 GB hard drive ($ 150), a 256 GB SSD ($ 600) or both ($ 750).
In the back, a lot will sound familiar: power button, power port for AC power cable, Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 800, Ray HDMI port (functionally the incorporation of the previous mini-DisplayPort), four USB 2.0 ports, DVD SDXC card, and a pair of digital audio ports audio capabilities. The power port is remarkable because the office has an integrated power supply instead of the brick power available in many small computers. It is both more convenient and more beautiful than the power supply. Lightning port interface uses the new Intel (think of it as an external PCIe), so in theory you can connect multiple monitors, hard drives, and even other interfaces such as USB 3.0 or eSATA. In practice, only devices that Ray may order the promise of a RAID array R6 Pegasus and the next block the beam of the screen (27 inches). Hopefully we will see ray devices before the end of the year.
The office comes with a couple of extra hard drive, including the iLife suite (iPhoto, iMovie, etc.) in addition to the new Mac OS OS X Lion. Lion is optimized for Magic Magic Mouse and Apple trackpad with new features such as Launchpad, and mission control is working hard on these devices scoring touch. However, using an old mouse to be a bit confusing. Scroll wheel works opposite of what you expect (turning the scroll wheel to push you to the page, and vice versa) and you obviously can not activate the reader with a multi-touch mouse third party. Parameters of the mouse and touchpad control panels can change the behavior of scrolling back to what you're used to. Mac mini (Thunderbolt) comes with an HDMI to DVI adapter so you can use the system with a monitor, keyboard and old mice. But to take full advantage of the new features of the Lion, you had better budgeting $ 69 for the Magic Trackpad.
Performance
Mac mini (Thunderbolt) has an Intel Core i5-2520m processor and AMD Radeon HD 6630M discrete graphics, there are certainly strong enough to run our benchmark tests well, including 3D games. We tested the system on Mac OS X Leo, and Windows 7 Enterprise (64 bit) using Boot Camp. Mac mini (Thunderbolt) finished our video Handbrake in a quick 1 minute 42 seconds in Windows and 2:23 in the Mac OS. The system also finished with Photoshop CS5 test 3:47 ET 5:10 Windows in Mac OS. This is significantly faster than Core 2 Duo Mac mini to equip ped from last year, which took about 3:32 to complete the handbrake and 7:14 to complete CS5.
Similarly, the Mac mini (Ray) improve 3D graphics capabilities as follows: At the time, the Mac Mini (HDMI) was the top performer in the class of compact 3D PC, scoring 21 frames per second (fps) Crysis in medium quality. The Mac mini (Ray) completed the test itself in a much more playable 48 fps. Not exactly the ultra-smooth 60 fps + again, but you should be able to play Crysis frame rates in the Mac mini with some adjustments in the configuration. This is important because the only competitor we have recently seen in this price range is the Asus Essentio CM6850-07 (list $ 829.99, 3.5 stars). The Asus CM6850-07 is a tower with a high-class card Thurs discrete graphics. Even then, the Asus had a score only slightly better with Crysis 50fps. The Asus does not get a better score on Lost Planet 2 for average quality (26 fps Asus, Apple 19 fps), but scores are also not playable.
Asus CM6850-07 was faster than the Mac mini (Thunderbolt) on the benchmark tests as Handbrake, CS5, and PCMark Vantage, can be attributed to Asus CM6850-07 is faster 7200 rpm hard drive (the Mac mini has a 5400 rpm). Mac mini (Thunderbolt) bluffed compact PC vendors' Choice Dell Inspiron Zino HD (Inspiron 410) ($ 849.99 direct, 4 stars) on the same samples. All this means that the Mac mini shows that you do not need to sacrifice performance, if you want a compact desktop.
The compact form factor is usually about compromise. You can either go really compact, low power, but that Giada PC and Eee Box from Asus, or go a little bigger and really cheap as the HP Pavilion Slimline S5-1020 ($ 429.99 list, 3.5 stars ). In the high-end systems such as HD Zino Dell and Apple Mac mini. These systems use high-end multi-core processors like Intel Core i5 and AMD Phenom X4 with a discrete graphics card to provide you with the Tower-PC performance in a compact. Like the iPhone and iPad, the Mac mini is now a true extension of the Apple ecosystem, where you can connect to the Internet to buy media, entertainment and online software and Apple stores. It is likely that you will not miss the optical media now, so you certainly will not miss the future. It's not like Blu-ray has never been a concern for Mac users in the past: if you own, you have something else that can play them.
Dell Zino HD, which is more expensive than the Mac mini is still available on the Dell website, but it is basically the same model with an equivalent AMD quad-core processor and ATI Radeon HD graphics like the previous iteration Dell Zino we examined. Blu-ray side, new Mac mini is much stronger and more capable in general. So Apple Mac mini (Thunderbolt) is the choice of new editor for PC compact.
However, the 800-pound gorilla of all Mac programs, Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 is available for download online.
The new version of the Mac mini is similar to the previous iteration, Apple Mac Mini (HDMI) ($ 699 list, 4.5 stars). It has the same unibody aluminum chassis with an obvious difference. It is no longer an optical drive slot-loading, a feature that played an important role in the line of Mac mini since its inception in 2005. Basically, it's as if Apple says "we gave you the iTunes Store, Safari and Mac App Store online, why would you need an optical drive?" As the original iMac drive became so prominent disk of its desktops, Mac mini (Thunderbolt) is a stake into the ground and declare that you do not need an optical drive more. Of course, there were no nettops miniature optical discs for a while Now, as Giada MiniPC A50 ($ 449 street, 3.5 stars). But the Mac mini is a compact desktop without some premium optical drive.
 |
| Apple Mac Mini (Thunderbolt) |
The fact is that optical drives are very useful to install the programs and the rebuilding of the operating system. Apple's App Store, Mac and download online treatment programs, and Mac OS X Lion is designed to be installed from the recovery partition, Internet, or from a USB stick. Sure, you can install Windows 7 on a USB stick as well, but first you must find a way to create one yourself: All new Mac mini will be able to install the Lion of the recovery partition or on the Internet after you type a combination key at startup. Apple to sell the finished product Leone USB key in the near future. If you absolutely need to read an optical disc, you can split a perspective of any Mac or PC, you install the client program on your PC or LAN MAC. You can also use the same optional external Apple SuperDrive ($ 79), which was published on the MacBook Air. If you have previous versions of the software that you can still install DVD, you can think of a gathering.
 |
| Apple Mac Mini (Thunderbolt) |
In the back, a lot will sound familiar: power button, power port for AC power cable, Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 800, Ray HDMI port (functionally the incorporation of the previous mini-DisplayPort), four USB 2.0 ports, DVD SDXC card, and a pair of digital audio ports audio capabilities. The power port is remarkable because the office has an integrated power supply instead of the brick power available in many small computers. It is both more convenient and more beautiful than the power supply. Lightning port interface uses the new Intel (think of it as an external PCIe), so in theory you can connect multiple monitors, hard drives, and even other interfaces such as USB 3.0 or eSATA. In practice, only devices that Ray may order the promise of a RAID array R6 Pegasus and the next block the beam of the screen (27 inches). Hopefully we will see ray devices before the end of the year.
The office comes with a couple of extra hard drive, including the iLife suite (iPhoto, iMovie, etc.) in addition to the new Mac OS OS X Lion. Lion is optimized for Magic Magic Mouse and Apple trackpad with new features such as Launchpad, and mission control is working hard on these devices scoring touch. However, using an old mouse to be a bit confusing. Scroll wheel works opposite of what you expect (turning the scroll wheel to push you to the page, and vice versa) and you obviously can not activate the reader with a multi-touch mouse third party. Parameters of the mouse and touchpad control panels can change the behavior of scrolling back to what you're used to. Mac mini (Thunderbolt) comes with an HDMI to DVI adapter so you can use the system with a monitor, keyboard and old mice. But to take full advantage of the new features of the Lion, you had better budgeting $ 69 for the Magic Trackpad.
Performance
Mac mini (Thunderbolt) has an Intel Core i5-2520m processor and AMD Radeon HD 6630M discrete graphics, there are certainly strong enough to run our benchmark tests well, including 3D games. We tested the system on Mac OS X Leo, and Windows 7 Enterprise (64 bit) using Boot Camp. Mac mini (Thunderbolt) finished our video Handbrake in a quick 1 minute 42 seconds in Windows and 2:23 in the Mac OS. The system also finished with Photoshop CS5 test 3:47 ET 5:10 Windows in Mac OS. This is significantly faster than Core 2 Duo Mac mini to equip ped from last year, which took about 3:32 to complete the handbrake and 7:14 to complete CS5.
Similarly, the Mac mini (Ray) improve 3D graphics capabilities as follows: At the time, the Mac Mini (HDMI) was the top performer in the class of compact 3D PC, scoring 21 frames per second (fps) Crysis in medium quality. The Mac mini (Ray) completed the test itself in a much more playable 48 fps. Not exactly the ultra-smooth 60 fps + again, but you should be able to play Crysis frame rates in the Mac mini with some adjustments in the configuration. This is important because the only competitor we have recently seen in this price range is the Asus Essentio CM6850-07 (list $ 829.99, 3.5 stars). The Asus CM6850-07 is a tower with a high-class card Thurs discrete graphics. Even then, the Asus had a score only slightly better with Crysis 50fps. The Asus does not get a better score on Lost Planet 2 for average quality (26 fps Asus, Apple 19 fps), but scores are also not playable.
Asus CM6850-07 was faster than the Mac mini (Thunderbolt) on the benchmark tests as Handbrake, CS5, and PCMark Vantage, can be attributed to Asus CM6850-07 is faster 7200 rpm hard drive (the Mac mini has a 5400 rpm). Mac mini (Thunderbolt) bluffed compact PC vendors' Choice Dell Inspiron Zino HD (Inspiron 410) ($ 849.99 direct, 4 stars) on the same samples. All this means that the Mac mini shows that you do not need to sacrifice performance, if you want a compact desktop.
The compact form factor is usually about compromise. You can either go really compact, low power, but that Giada PC and Eee Box from Asus, or go a little bigger and really cheap as the HP Pavilion Slimline S5-1020 ($ 429.99 list, 3.5 stars ). In the high-end systems such as HD Zino Dell and Apple Mac mini. These systems use high-end multi-core processors like Intel Core i5 and AMD Phenom X4 with a discrete graphics card to provide you with the Tower-PC performance in a compact. Like the iPhone and iPad, the Mac mini is now a true extension of the Apple ecosystem, where you can connect to the Internet to buy media, entertainment and online software and Apple stores. It is likely that you will not miss the optical media now, so you certainly will not miss the future. It's not like Blu-ray has never been a concern for Mac users in the past: if you own, you have something else that can play them.
Dell Zino HD, which is more expensive than the Mac mini is still available on the Dell website, but it is basically the same model with an equivalent AMD quad-core processor and ATI Radeon HD graphics like the previous iteration Dell Zino we examined. Blu-ray side, new Mac mini is much stronger and more capable in general. So Apple Mac mini (Thunderbolt) is the choice of new editor for PC compact.
However, the 800-pound gorilla of all Mac programs, Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 is available for download online.
Rating: 5
Reviewer: HotblogReview
ItemReviewed: Apple Mac Mini (Thunderbolt)
