Mac mini Computer Review

Hardware

The back of the Mac mini is shown in Figure 4. It has all the necessary ports and components. From left to right you will see the power button, the power supply, a gigabit Ethernet port, a FireWire 800 port, a full-sized HDMI port, a Thunderbolt port, four USB 2.0 ports, and an SDXC card slot. The audio in and audio out ports are found just below the card slot.

Figure 4: The back of the mini

The HDMI port assures easy connection for using a high-def TV as a display. The Thunderbolt port, Apple’s new high-speed data port, allows for connection to Apple’s new displays. The inclusion of the HDMI to DVI adapter makes the mini easy to hook up to any monitor with a DVI port. This, however, does not cover all monitors. There is no included adapter for using a monitor which only has a VGA port, which includes many of the monitors currently in use.

All of the display ports are extremely useable, though not many people will be using the Thunderbolt port. Although the Thunderbolt port will also accept DisplayPort monitors, there are not many of those available. Theoretically, this port gives you the ability to daisy-chain monitors and peripherals. However, there are currently only a few Thunderbolt devices available and they are very expensive. The Thunderbolt port will handle display resolutions up to 2,560 x 1,600, which is considerably higher than the HDMI port which only goes up to 1,920 x 1,200. Yet, not many monitors take advantage of that resolution. So most mini owners will consider the Thunderbolt port expandability for the future.

The mini also supports multiple monitors.

With the back of the mini holding most of the ports and slots, the rest of the mini is very plain. Both sides are devoid of openings and/or buttons. Only the front, which is shown in Figure 5, shows a break in the continuous aluminum construction. Two holes can be seen on the front. The larger one is the IR receiver; the smaller one is the sleep/wake light.

Figure 5: The front of the mini

The size and shape of the mini is similar to that of prior versions. Anyone who is familiar with previous minis will immediately note that there is no optical drive on the front of the mini. In fact, there is no optical drive at all.

Apple has always been at the forefront of introducing new technologies and eliminating the old, so the removal of the optical drive is not a shock. After all, you can download the operating system and most of the programs that you need directly from the new Apple Mac store. We, however, were disappointed to find the mini without a DVD. If only Apple would have included a Blu-ray drive, the mini would be the perfect addition to a media room.

You could conceivably add an external USB optical drive. Apple has one for USD 80, but that would detract from the simple design and portability of the device. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t have any offerings for a Blu-ray player.

The bottom of the Mac mini has a large round piece of black plastic in the middle, as shown in Figure 6. This circular piece twists off to allow the user access to the memory slots, which can be seen in Figure 7. While the memory is easy to reach, changing the hard drive would be a project that even seasoned users may not want to attempt.

Figure 6: The back of the mini

Figure 7: The interior of the mini

Under the hood, the Mac mini is considerably more powerful than previous versions. Even the least expensive model that we reviewed has a 2.3 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with a 3 MB on-chip shared L3 cache. It comes with 2 GB of 1,333 MHz DDR3 memory. As we have seen, the memory is easily expandable. The unit will handle up to 8 GB. It has a 500 GB 5,400 rpm hard drive and an Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor with 288 MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with the main memory.

We have to chide Apple for not including USB 3.0 ports that we would expect to be included in a new computer of this caliber.