• Apple Mac Mini 2.53GHz [Review]

    Apple Mac Mini 2.53GHz [Review]

    Prasad Naik, Jan 05, 2010 1738 hrs IST

    Full-fledged computer in a tiny form factor

    Aesthetically appealing, space saving design, sufficiently powerful hardware for general home and multimedia usage, cool and quiet operation, low power consumption, EPEAT Gold rated, Mac OS X Snow Leopard with iLife '09

    No front USB ports, no media card reader, unsuitable for gaming

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Design & Construction

The Mac Mini design has largely been unchanged since its debut in 2005. It still remains one of the best-looking compact computers that you can find anywhere. The steel grey sides with milky white top and the large Apple logo look simple and elegant. It is difficult to believe that this is actually a full-fledged computer encased within something that looks like a fancy tiffin box. 




The front side has the slot loading SuperDrive. As is usual for desktop Macs there is no physical eject button, which is in sync with Apple's philosophy of having the minimum number of buttons possible, and the only way to eject the disc is through the OS. On the right edge of the slot is a receiver for the wireless remote. Below that is a tiny white LED light that indicates the status of the Mini.



Now let us move to the rear side, as the sides are completely deprived of anything. The rear side has a plethora of ports, which includes 5 USB 2.0 ports, Firewire 800 port, mini-DVI port, Mini DisplayPort audio In/Out and power port. The 5 USB ports might sound exciting but it is important to remember that of these, two will be reserved for the keyboard and mouse. This means you'll be left with only three (unless you use a wireless combo that will have a single Bluetooth dongle, in which case you'll end up with four ports). 

The rear location of USB ports is inconvenient, especially if you plug in or remove portable drives often. I assume Apple refrained from placing the ports at the front or the sides to have a clean and uncluttered design, a decision, which from the point of view of aesthetics, makes perfect sense but doesn't when you think of ergonomics.

The ventilation on the Mac Mini is placed at the back and at the bottom around the edges. The Mini runs surprisingly cool with the top and the sides always being lukewarm at the most, even during the most processor intensive activities. And then there is the time-honored Mac ability of running quiet as a whisper. The only sound it ever makes is of the drives kicking in softly when you turn it on or it comes out of Sleep mode. 


Hardware & Software

The new Mac Mini comes in two variants. The lower model has a 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor whereas the higher end model has 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo. This is a major step up from the previous generations 2.0 GHz processor, on both the models. The older model had 1 GB and 2 GB DDR3 RAM respectively, but the newer version has 2 GB for the base model and 4 GB for the higher end model. Hard drive capacities have gone up from 120 GB to 160 GB on the base model and the higher end model retains the 320 GB hard drive of the previous higher end model.

The rest of the hardware remains the same with a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM (shared with main memory), 8x slot loading SUperDrive, Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR, built-in Gigabit LAN and a built-in mono speaker.

The new Mac Mini now comes with Mac OS X Snow Leopard, which includes iTunes, Time Machine, Quick Look, Spaces, Spotlight, Dashboard, Mail, iChat, Safari, Address Book, QuickTime, iCal, DVD Player, Front Row, Xcode Developer Tools, along with iLife '09, which includes iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, GarageBand.

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Discussion Board
(13) Comments
terry morgan
,detroit, on Jun 27, 2010 08:00 PM
I recently upgraded my mac mini (2009). I went from the standard 320 -5400rpm to a 500 hd- 7200 rpm and from 4 g- ram to 6 g of ram. My mac mini is primarily used in my recording studio . My DAW's are protools 8 / and logic pro . I have seen improvement. I,m able to use more plugins , vst's More tracks. No glitches or sudden drop outs so far. although I wish my processor was bigger. At the time of purchase I only had money for the mac mini $799. standard version.. over all still better than pc.
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anonymous
,delhi, on May 23, 2010 10:47 PM
the best compact computer ever! no one should dare to speak bad of it
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Gary J
,Lynchburg, VA, on Jan 06, 2010 12:11 AM
Apple must put in an HDMI output to get me to buy one (for my home theater.)
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Nico Rosberg
,MumBHAI, on Jan 06, 2010 05:29 AM
This has a miniDisplay port connector. That's supposed to be better...but yeah no HDMI sucks. They should've gotten rid off DVI...don't need it. It's old & gone. HDMI & Display port are the way off the future.
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joe conery
,Newton, on Jan 08, 2010 08:02 PM
just get a DVI/HDMI cable adapter for $25
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Kalpesh
,Mumbai, on Jan 06, 2010 03:36 PM
Why so late review? Mac Mini's available from so long time..
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Nishant
,Hyderabad, on Jan 06, 2010 11:25 AM
"but it surely can do anything else just as well (and some even better)" Really? What exactly ? The Mac mini seems to be just a toy and a glorified net-top. With Windows 7, there is little reason to buy a Mac just for the OS, and as others have pointed out , you can get much a better PC than the Mac Mini. Sorry Mac Mini, you are not as glamorous as your big brothers, nor as capable as your PC rivals - you lose!
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abhishek
,kolkata, on Jan 05, 2010 09:30 PM
how does this compare to the dell zino HD with front USB ports, card reader, blu ray drive , HDMI connector. windows 7 home premium , eSATA ports, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 all for around 40000 !! ??
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buxx
,delhi, on Jan 06, 2010 11:00 AM
40k? more like, 30k!
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buxx
,delhi, on Jan 06, 2010 11:04 AM
not to mention that the zinoHD cost include a 18.9" monitor; while mac mini has none!!
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SRK
,Mumbai, on Jan 06, 2010 01:41 AM
GUYS CHANGE OPINION POLL ON HOMEPAGE. YOU HAVE SAME POLL RUNNING FOR AGES. N THIS NEW DESIGN ALSO SUCKS VERY AMATEURISH. EXPECT MUCH BETTER WORK FROM UTV.
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Siva
,Mumbai, on Jan 05, 2010 06:22 PM
ha ha ha ha....."New Old Mac Mini".....you guys make me laugh.......ho ho ho ho hee hee hee.
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Prasad Naik
,Mumbai, on Jan 05, 2010 07:17 PM
Oops! My Bad. The error has now been corrected. :)
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