Year 2012 Prediction
ARM Cortex A-15 Processor Mac Mini. 2.5 ghz quad. A Dual GPU. 1066 RAM or better
So small it would be as flat as a MacBook Pro or little thicker than iPad with same square proportions of current mac mini.
No superdrive.
More peripherals: USB 3.0 (3 or 4) and 2 Thunderbolt, 1 Firewire
Super low dynamic power consumption.
My gut tells me that Apple is focusing more on the performance of the mini, and moving in the direction of a high performance desktop in a package that can't be beat.. but the price will probably fall in line with a base MBP by the time they have achieved this. Form factor is already there- and if the optical drive is done away with, there will be a lot of room for serious upgrade in the same form factor currently attractive to the market.
I just say this looking at the advertising, more emphasis on what you get than on how affordable it is. There may always be a mini with base specs of a macbook to bring along switchers and students- but I expect that within two years folk's won't be getting an iMac just for the performance boost. They'll be getting a Mac Pro to do that. The mini may fill the gap that many have been clamoring for, a mid priced well spec'd puter smaller than a refrigerator and bigger than an oreo cookie.
...except to make money. The mini is a hot seller, currently second only to the newly refreshed iMac, on Amazon.com. And that's of all desktop computers, not just Macs.
Correct! The GMA950 model was neglected for ages when just about every other desktop PC, bar the cheapest bargain range, had long moved on. Hence my concern re the next Mini update. Such is the nature of Apple's greed, we may well be stuck with C2D until 2012.
That appears to be so, but only because PC companies like HP, Acer, etc. usually have a greater number of models on sale at any one time & they're all regularly replaced by new, updated models within fairly short cycles. That means older PCs usually disappear from the Amazon sellers list fairly soon.
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