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christophermdia

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 28, 2008
831
235
so, if your macmini was 2" bigger would it be a big deal? why use 2.5" hard drives when 3.5" can reach 2tb? i think a thicker 4TB mac mini server would be the end all's of be all's.......thoughts?
 
I wouldn't mind it being a bit bigger to accommodate 3.5" drives and/or a quad core processor, but I'm not Apple.
 
...

3.5 Hdd would generate a lot more heat than 2.5 and also would be louder with more vibrations.That's like putting 3.5 drive in a laptop
 
soooooo 2000-late.

i'd rather see Macbook Air style flash HD and stick a 1TB Thunderbolt drive behind my monitor. I'm contemplating putting in a small SSD in my mini for OS and Apps, and putting my 500gb scorpio black drive in a firewire case for the rest of my stuff.
 
Unfortunatly, Apple is the only one that cares about keeping it small, and thats enough for them to continue doing so.:(
 
Consumers seem to disagree, as Apple's "smaller, thinner, faster" designs have yet to lose favor with those who buy their products.

I have three mini's, and I believe most people buy them because they dont want an "all-in-one", but dont have 2 grand for a macpro. I believe size has very little to do with popularity for this product.
 
I have three mini's, and I believe most people buy them because they dont want an "all-in-one", but dont have 2 grand for a macpro. I believe size has very little to do with popularity for this product.

The Mac Mini's market niche has been the "entry level" desktop, a position that's unlikely to change given the consumer's current preference for much more capable laptops and the convenience of wireless handhelds. Size design had everything to do with the appeal of the Mini, when one considers the "Apple Tax" premium that customers paid for a somewhat limited desktop computer.
 
In october 2009 when the mini refresh came out it was a c2d 2.66 as an option and you got 4g ram stock that was a decent machine at a 949 price. it is now 18 or 19 months later and a 2010 with a 2.66ghz c2d and 4gb is still special order at a price of 949..
 
i was always in favor of a "bigger" mini something thats in between the mini and the MacPro and i would order it straight away if it would exist , but my guess is that that will never happen as a bigger Mac mini with the i processors that can take more then 1 HDD with otional SSD and PCIe slots would kill some sales of the iMac , something apple wants to avoid

so my guess is more in the other direction, i bet apple already is planning to get the mini to the size of the apple TV2 as you have to admit the mini is at the moment really huge compared to the apple tv2 and the A line of processors are getting faster ,so there is potential to make the mini really tiny soon as more and more iOS parts getting into OSX it all seems to point that way, maybe not already with LION but with the next version of iOSX we might spot a Mac mini nano ,
the only thing then is you need to be careful in the future when having pets , your hamster might soon be able to swallow the next generation of Mac mini's:D

or maybe the mini will disappear complete and be replaced by a 13/15/17 inch iPad that can be used as full functional desktop a iMac mini if you wish
 
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MMMM a mac mini with the size if an Apple t.v ?

How will you put a superdrive and a HDD in that ? Even without the superdrive I can barely imagen how they keep that thing cool.

+ Is an even smaller mini not disastrous for the heat processing of faster processors ? (quadcore in 2012) (I'm not a p.c expert so correct me if I'm wrong)
 
MMMM a mac mini with the size if an Apple t.v ?

How will you put a superdrive and a HDD in that ? Even without the superdrive I can barely imagen how they keep that thing cool.

+ Is an even smaller mini not disastrous for the heat processing of faster processors ? (quadcore in 2012) (I'm not a p.c expert so correct me if I'm wrong)

forget about that the mini will get the internals of a iMac , its meant as very basic entry model ,so i expect it to get the same internals as the MacBook air , so keeping that cool works , so why not a Mac Mini the size of a apple tv2 , and it would perfectly fit in apples range of smaller thinner lighter , and there are already many who replace the optical drives with SSD's , so there is i guess from apple point of view no need any more to include one

sure i would still prefer a mini of about that size
[image cut out again as it was depressing someone ]

with room for PCIe cards and 2x HDD's 3.5" and easy to upgrade like the old cube

instead of this concept here
macmini.jpg

ok looks not bad , but i guess it will be even less user upgradeable then any mini before, more like a iPad without display
 
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The Mac TV size Mac Mini what do you think, will it be that small in the upcoming upgrade or do we really need to wait till 2012 ?

(because it seems you are pretty sure it can be slimmed down that much)
 
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maybe you even have to wait for 2013 as the dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore CPU and a dual-core PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU are not really what you want in a mini if you expect a bit more than iPad performance , but the internals of the MacBook air would fit too inside and would offer a bit more performance , and the powerconsumption will be much lower then of the todays mini and that is for most more important then raw performance ;)
, that iPad without screen mini concept could with those internals go in production tomorrow and it would perfectly fit into the " i " world , after all there would be 65,000 iPad specific apps on the App Store ready for that mini concept , and the iPad is the best selling product apple has ever made , they cant produce as many as they can sell , so millions of people just need something for very basic computing , for the rest there will be the iMac
 
The Mac TV size Mac Mini what do you think, will it be that small in the upcoming upgrade or do we really need to wait till 2012 ?

(because it seems you are pretty sure it can be slimmed down that much)

There will definitely not be an appleTV sized mini anytime soon
 
There will definitely not be an appleTV sized mini anytime soon

Devil's advocate here:

The ATV2 is basically an 8GB iPad1 without battery and touchscreen.

So why not have that be the return of a < $200 iOS based computer system for "the masses"?

($99 for the ATV and add a KB/Magic Trackpad for input. BYO HDMI display or HDTV.)

Unfortunately I don't think this will happen.

B
 
I have three mini's, and I believe most people buy them because they dont want an "all-in-one", but dont have 2 grand for a macpro. I believe size has very little to do with popularity for this product.

Thie size/design of the Mini is the EXACT reason I bought it because it sits right next to my HDTV in the living room and most people don't pay any attention to it. The Mini is also the reason I am a PC --> Mac convert.
 
I wouldn't mind a bigger mini at all. But in a larger video card with cooling and it doesn't even need to be a full 2" taller. Maybe 1". A Radeon 6970m in a slightly taller mini makes me all kinds of giddy.
 
I doubt Apple will do anything like that. They'll just keep it the way it is, throw in the leftover pieces of the new Macbooks coming out later on, and call it a day.
 
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