Redesigned with a sleek unibody aluminum enclosure and adding improved graphics and an HDMI video output, the Apple Mac Mini fits everything that makes a Mac a Mac inside an elegant 1.4-inch-tall, 7.7-inch square--just add your own keyboard, mouse, and display. It's packed with a faster Intel Core 2 Duo processor and next-generation NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics as well as 2 GB of RAM (expandable to 8 GB) and 320 GB of hard drive storage.
Officially, the Mac mini is a desktop computer. But because it can go places no other desktop can go, it's been used everywhere from boats to server rooms, as the heart of an entertainment center--and even to power robots. Small, elegant, and unassuming, the redesigned Mac mini features an all-new, 1.4-inch-thin unibody enclosure that's carved from a single, solid block of aluminum. And the Mac mini is a greener machine, as it consumes less than 10 watts--a 25 percent reduction from the previous generation.
It comes pre-loaded with Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system--custom-designed for the advanced technology inside--and it also comes with the iLife '09 suite of applications, including iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband, and iTunes.
FEATURES:
Officially, the Mac mini is a desktop computer. But because it can go places no other desktop can go, it's been used everywhere from boats to server rooms, as the heart of an entertainment center--and even to power robots. Small, elegant, and unassuming, the redesigned Mac mini features an all-new, 1.4-inch-thin unibody enclosure that's carved from a single, solid block of aluminum. And the Mac mini is a greener machine, as it consumes less than 10 watts--a 25 percent reduction from the previous generation.
It comes pre-loaded with Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system--custom-designed for the advanced technology inside--and it also comes with the iLife '09 suite of applications, including iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband, and iTunes.
FEATURES:
- Ready for the Big Screen - It's easy to connect Mac mini to the biggest screen in the house--your HDTV--courtesy of a built-in HDMI port. Plug in one HDMI cable and start enjoying content on your Mac mini in brilliant HD, like movies and TV shows from iTunes, the Internet, and your photo library. There's also a handy control that lets you easily adjust the output on Mac mini to fill even the biggest HDTV screen.
- High Performance Graphics - With the new fast and energy efficient NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor--the fastest integrated graphics processor on the market today--the Mac mini delivers up to twice the performance of the previous
Redesigned with a sleek unibody aluminum enclosure and adding improved graphics and an HDMI video output, the Apple Mac mini fits everything that makes a Mac a Mac inside an elegant 1.4-inch-tall, 7.7-inch square--just add your own keyboard, mouse, and display. It's packed with a faster Intel Core 2 Duo processor and next-generation NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics as well as 2 GB of RAM (expandable to 8 GB) and 320 GB of hard drive storage.
Officially, the Mac mini is a desktop computer. But because it can go places no other desktop can go, it's been used everywhere from boats to server rooms, as the heart of an entertainment center--and even to power robots. Small, elegant, and unassuming, the redesigned Mac mini features an all-new, 1.4-inch-thin unibody enclosure that's carved from a single, solid block of aluminum. And the Mac mini is a greener machine, as it consumes less than 10 watts--a 25 percent reduction from the previous generation.
The Apple Mac mini is open to possibilities around every corner--just add your own mouse, keyboard and display.
(Pictured peripherals not included).
It comes pre-loaded with Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system--custom-designed for the advanced technology inside--and it also comes with the iLife '09 suite of applications, including iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband, and iTunes.
Key Specifications
- Fast 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor helps you breeze through everyday tasks such as emailing, web browsing, and working with documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in iWork or Microsoft Office for Mac (both sold separately).
- NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor (with 256 MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory) for an outstanding everyday graphics experience. (Learn more)
- 320 GB hard drive (5400 RPM)
- 2 GB installed RAM (1066 MHz DDR3; supports up to 8 GB)
- 8x slot-loading SuperDrive with double-layer DVD support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
- Wi-Fi wireless networking (based on 802.11n specification; 802.11a/b/g compatible)
- Gigabit Ethernet wired networking (10/100/1000BASE-T)
- Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) for connecting with peripherals such as keyboards, mice and cell phones.
- Four USB 2.0 ports
- One FireWire 800 port
- HDMI audio/video output with support for up to 1920-by-1200 resolution and multichannel audio output (included adapter for DVI output).
- Mini DisplayPort video output with support for up to 2560-by-1600 resolution (optional adapter for VGA output).
- Combined optical digital output/headphone output (also includes line-in/microphone jack)
- Secure Digital (SD) memory card slot
- Dimensions: 7.7 x 7.7 x 1.4 inches (WxDxH)
- Weight: 3.0 pounds
What's in the Box
Mac mini; power cord; HDMI to DVI Adapter; install/restore DVDs; printed and electronic documentation
Limited Warranty And Service
The Mac mini comes with 90 days of free telephone support and a one-year limited warranty. Purchase the AppleCare Protection Plan to extend your service and support to three years from your computer's purchase date. Only the AppleCare Protection Plan provides you with direct telephone support from Apple technical experts and the assurance that repairs will be handled by Apple-authorized technicians using genuine Apple parts.
Key Features
With plenty of ports to connect the peripherals you already have--including your HDTV--the Mac mini is ready to work with what you already have. Just plug in your own display, keyboard, and mouse, then turn it on.
Ready for the Big Screen
It's easy to connect Mac mini to the biggest screen in the house--your HDTV--courtesy of a built-in HDMI port. Plug in one HDMI cable and start enjoying content on your Mac mini in brilliant HD, like movies and TV shows from iTunes, the Internet, and your photo library. There's also a handy control that lets you easily adjust the output on Mac mini to fill even the biggest HDTV screen.
High Performance Graphics
With the new fast and energy efficient NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor--the fastest integrated graphics processor on the market today--the Mac mini delivers up to twice the performance of the previous generation thanks to its 48 processing cores and 256 MB of shared video memory. It brings more pixel-pushing power to the latest 3D games and graphics-intensive applications. And you'll notice a big difference when you work with high-resolution photos and high-definition video.
Slimmed Down Design, But Still Full of Ports
With the redesigned Mac mini's built-in power supply, there's no bulky brick and fewer cables to connect--which means Mac mini takes up even less space than before. In addition to adding the HDMI port to complement the DisplayPort for video output, the Mac mini also brings a built-in SD card slot so you can grab photos and videos from your digital still or video camera.
Room to Grow
A removable panel on the bottom of Mac mini makes upgrading the memory virtually painless. And once you're inside, you'll see how clean and organized Mac mini is (see a larger image of the Mac mini's removable bottom).
Pre-Loaded with Mac OS X Snow Leopard and iLife '09
Every Mac comes with Mac OS X Snow Leopard, the world's most advanced operating system, and iLife, Apple's innovative suite of applications for managing photos, making movies and creating and learning to play music. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange. iLife features iPhoto, to easily organize and manage photos; iMovie with powerful easy-to-use new features such as Precision Editor, video stabilization and advanced drag and drop; and GarageBand which introduces a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar.
Installed software
- Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard (includes Time Machine, Quick Look, Spaces, Spotlight, Dashboard, Mail, iChat, Safari, Address Book, QuickTime, iCal, DVD Player, Photo Booth, Front Row, Xcode Developer Tools)
- iLife '09 (includes iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, iDVD)
Environmentally Friendly Design
One of the world's most energy-efficient desktop computer, the Mac mini is also highly recyclable and requires even less packaging than before.
The power supply for the Mac mini has been reduced from 110W to 85W and is now up to 90 percent efficient. Lower power consumption reduces energy bills and lessens the environmental impact of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. A built-in power supply means no plastic housing, less weight, and less cable clutter. It also allows Mac mini to take up 20 percent less space and fit into smaller packaging.
The Mac mini is also a great example of Apple's energy-efficient design philosophy. It uses less than 10 watts of power when idle — a 25 percent reduction from the previous generation. That's something no other desktop computer can do.
And the new Mac mini retail packaging is 35 percent smaller than the previous version. In addition, the mass of the shipping box has decreased by 15 percent. Which is better for the planet and means a smaller carbon footprint. It's one seemingly minor change. But it has a major positive impact on our environment.
ENERGY STAR Qualification
The Mac mini meets the stringent low power requirements set by the EPA, giving it ENERGY STAR qualification. ENERGY STAR 5.0 sets significantly higher efficiency limits for power supplies and aggressive limits for the computer's typical annual power consumption. Mac mini doesn't just meet the ENERGY STAR requirements, it meets them with an 80 percent margin.
EPEAT Gold Rating
Through its innovative and environmentally friendly design, Mac mini has earned the highest rating of EPEAT Gold. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, or EPEAT, evaluates the environmental impact of a product based on how recyclable it is, how much energy it uses, and how it's designed and manufactured.
Technical Details
- 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
- 2 GB of Memory
- NVIDIA GeForce 320M Graphics
- 320 GB Serial ATA Hard Drive
- 8x-Speed SuperDrive
See more technical details
2010-08-23By Ron Cox (Brookfield, WI USA)
This is a great little machine. Excellent first Mac, media center, or "additional" Mac. Perfect for the average user.
2010-08-18By EskimoDude
I researched the heck out of the mac mini. Once everything looked good I gave it the go. I have worked on macs at school, then worked solely on pc's at home. So I was finally able to buy one for school/freelancing (graphic/web design student).
(disclaimer here for pc user skeptics: Even though I think highly of mac's and their os interfaces, I am no mac but slave. This is so you can know that this review is coming from someone who has had experience in knowing the truth about macs and pc's. That they serve different purposes. Pc's are for server/standardized setups/do it yourself junkies (which I am :D), and macs are made to be real work horses for graphic/multimedia work. Everything about the os is made for a high productivity rate.)
Appearance: Just opening my amazon box to getting it all set up (which only took about 5 minutes) is just amazing even in it's presentation. Apple packages the product very nicely. The product is more beautiful than I had thought it was even from pictures all over the internet. It's so very small, and beautiful. I thought the older mac mini's were good looking, but this goes along with the stream lined look of the unibody mac's/macbooks.
Ports/jacks: The back of the machine is gorgeous as well, with the black face. HDMI is pretty cool, I do wish there were more ports on the back, but then again I don't mind at the same time because I got a D-link 4port powered usb hub where I plug most things in. I would actually suggest this to anyone as it not only saves the life of the mini's internal power supply, but also saves wear and tear of the usb ports on the back of the unit. Slot drive is awesome as well, no clunky tray slamming out like on my old 05 pc.
Setup: This mac is perfect for anyone who already has a keyboard/mouse/monitor. I would even recommend this to ANYONE not doing professional video editing for a living. This mac is plenty powerful for anyone's needs, and it is a SIGNIFICANT amount cheaper than any of the other macs, excluding macbooks ect. because if you need mobility, then you need mobility.
Performance: So far I have been nothing but impressed with this machine. My stats are the 2.4ghz processor with 2gb or ram. I have been able to run indesign, photoshop, flash music player, flash video, all in different spaces at the same time. And with all that it hasn't been laggy. Boots up in maybe 20-30 seconds, shuts down and goes to sleep almost instantly. For someone who only uses internet, word processors, photo, home video editing; I would say 2gb is fine. But if you are like me and use a lot of graphic intensive programs like me. You would want to slap in 4 or even 8gb of ram. I plan to put in 8 as I have a hobby of working with AfterEffects, and Premiere.
If anyone is curious, I have Adobe Master Collection installed on my mac mini, Have not noticed one bit of slow down with all those behemoth programs on the system. Also, if anyone is curious, I have not played around with premiere really yet on it, and have only spent about 10 minutes with after effects. To test it out, I opened a large complicated after effects file, and it did pretty well. I would seriously suggest though to anyone wanting to do heavy video editing that you install 8gb of ram. I would even say that you could use this machine as video student, if you have some patience. Think about it, people who were doing video editing professionally maybe 5 years ago were working on portable macbook systems that were not far off from the mac mini. If you really need a speedy machine on a budget, along with upgrading the ram, you could replace the internal 5400rpm drive with a 7200rpm or even solid state drive. Another option is to get an external firewire 7200rpm or solidstate drive for file working/scratch disk drive. Even with all that it would still be cheaper than other macs.
Other thoughts: I also have a pc, and now the mac mini. The mini is so small that I just put it on top of my desk right beside my monitor. Then I bought a trendnet kvm switch (base model). So now I can use one keyboard/mouse/monitor, and push one button to switch. Although ever since I got my mac, I have only used my pc for word, a couple games, not very often.
OSX: Love the user interface, the entire reason I bought a mac. Spaces, expose, and everything else makes osx highly productive. Took me awhile to learn how to install programs on a mac because it was so plain simple. Instead of going through tons of setup windows, you just drag the program icon into the applications folder and it's done. One step. The mini comes with iLife, which I have absolutely no need for. It gives you some basic programs to work with making a web site, photos, video, mail, garage band, calendar, ect. I Just don't use them because I am going into the field of graphic/web/multimedia, so I just use my kick-A Adobe master collection, lol. For anyone who is just a general user in these areas, they actually are pretty good, especially imovie which is so easy to use.
Conclusion:I have been so happy with my purchase. And if you're going to buy the base 2.4ghz model, you might as well buy it from amazon to save yourself the appletax price as well as regular tax and get free shipping as well! Great Deal. I would recommend this computer to anyone who is willing to try out the mac world, who is a graphic/media student, or to anyone making motion pictures, OBVIOUSLY. Great snappy little machine.
Amazon: as far as amazon on this purchase, Amazon exceeded my expectations by delivery. Arrived two weeks early! How's that for great service.
2010-08-17By Z. Du (LA, CA USA)
I'm a long time PC user. This Mac mini is my first Mac (I have been using Mac at school for about two years). I decided to purchase a Mac because I found out that Epson printers work MUCH better with Mac. (PC users, if u find hard to get accurate colors from ur Epson printers like 1400, 1900 etc, try them on a mac.) Since I'm gonna use it mainly for printing, and plan to use my existing input and output devices, I think Mac mini would be a good choice.
When I started setting up the system, right-away I ran into a problem: my monitor wouldnt work on the mini. My monitor is a HP w2207h. I connected it to the mini via HDMI. At full resolution (1680x1050), the screen was very very dark, and blinks. Anything on screen was hardly visible. Everything was normal when I used lower resolutions. The monitor works fine with my hp hdx 16 and asus n61vg through both hdmi and vga. I updated the softwares on my mini but still had the problem.
I connected my TV and my GF's Dell 24'' monitor to the mini, and they both work fine.
I took my mini to a local Apple store.
I have to say that apple's customer service is GREAT. the staffs are friendly and helpful. Well, sadly I spent the whole afternoon there but we still couldnt work out the problem. We tried my monitor on a mini they have on display, with identical configures, and the monitor worked perfectly. So they brought out a brand new mini to exchange mine. We tested my monitor on the new mini and still got the exact same problem... WEIRD... We double checked all of our tests and results. the monitor just worked on their demo mini.
I asked them to try the minidisplay-to-vga adapter, and the monitor worked at full resolution no problem.
I went home with the problem unsolved. a couple days later the apple store people sent me an email with two scripts attached. I was told to run both of the scripts with my monitor plugged in and send them the results, so their engineers can work on the problem. I did that and now Im waiting for their answers...
I bought a minidisplay-to-hdmi adapter and tested this set up, still have the exact same problem.
Well, that problem aside, I am very impressed by the power of this little machine. It runs everything smoothly, even PS and Ai. It only slows down when I run a parallel Win 7. I'm an illustration major, and this mini handles most of my 2D tasks just fine. I believe as long as I dont work with like 500 layers this little machine would do.
It does gets a little warm. but thats as far as it goes. It wont get hot as long as the room temperature feels cool.
An usb hub would be a nice addition, since all 4 usb prots are on the back and it gets a bit inconvenient sometimes.
all and all an amazing little machine. I give it a 5 star even i still have the monitor problem, because, to be fair, it works with all the other screens i tested perfectly.
2010-08-16By amx512 (Chicago, IL United States)
I really struggled with paying $640 for a computer, being a disposable PC guy all my life. I love this thing. It might be one of the best things I've purchased in my life. It has made computers fun again. (And I have a CS degree and work in the field). Its really the simple annoyances you have just gotten use to with PCs, that you now notice when you have a MAC are gone. It works right, the first time. I just sold my PC desktop online.
I did upgrade to 8GB RAM the minute I got it. This thing is lightening fast regardless of what your doing.
I love it. I'll never go back.
2010-08-14By TheraP (Midwest)
Just set up (what a breeze!) my new Mac Mini with this monitor, ViewSonics VX2250WM-LED 22-Inch (21.5-Inch Vis) Widescreen Full HD 1080p LED Monitor with Integrated Stereo Speakers attached to this amazing monitor arm, 3M(TM) Easy Adjust Monitor Arm - Desk Mount.
For me the Mac Mini is perfect. It's small, it's beautiful, and really pulls in a great wireless signal (much better than my 4 year old Mac laptop ever did!) I haven't seen a need to upgrade the RAM but I know that's an easy thing to do if I ever need it. I downloaded Open Office to save on having to pay for a windows or apple version of an office suite.
Honestly, I have had no problems with this, whether in setting it up or using it. Others are far more able than I am to tell you all the technical reasons why this is a good purchase. I'm just here to add my name to the chorus of pleased purchasers! As well as to tell you how pleased I am with the two things I paired it with. I was a bit nervous about how the Mac Mini would pair with a new monitor, but it worked like a charm! (Adapter that comes with the Mac Mini pairs perfectly with the HDMI cord that came with my monitor.) I just followed the onscreen directions when turning on the Mac Mini and the monitor. Within half an hour I was up and running - maybe even less than that!
If you're a crazed PC owner, as I once was, do not hesitate to make the switch! (And if you want a cheap monitor that works easily with the Mini, you can't go wrong with the one I chose. Both came out around the same time and pair well together. Check out the monitor arm too; if you like flexibility, you cannot go wrong.)
Good luck with your decision-making in any case.
