What do you expect from the next Mac Mini?

[Bobajobbob]

Originally Posted by Bobajobbob
I'd like to see Wifi that actually works

i beg your pardon, but, what does that actually have to do with the mac mini??

I'm refering to the sad little box sitting under my television which is unable to connect to my wifi node not 3 metres away. I am currently waiting for a replacement which I hope will work. 2 weeks wait for the first one and now another 2 weeks wait for the replacement due to my memory and hard drive upgrade.

While I can accept that occasionally a hardware fault will occur I cannot accept graciously is the amount of time I had to spend on the phone convincing Apple that there is a problem with my unit when it is obviously a know issue.

So what I woudl like from next mini is one with working wi fi.

 

[Josias]

So you're saying Apple won't update the mini until January '07?

Yeah, they usually have a year between each rev. (more or less). At least they had with the PPC's. Also, if they upgrade too frequent, people are gonna feel sad, that they just bough a $1000 MacMini, but next week a better asnd cheaper one comes out...

 

[dr_lha]

sorry to just consentrate on this bit but the mac mini is a low mid range machine, its priced as a mid range machine, it has no screen, keyboard or mouse ether so if you add that its $650 but even if you dont its still mid range price and apart form the GPU it has lower midrange to midrange specs like the processor that is more expencive than most pentium's and even more expencive than lower end Pentium D's and has equal preformance to about a 2.8 GHz pentium 4, or the duo is about the same as a Pentium D 2.8. Low end would be celeron D and at least $200 less expencive, if you think about it minis the core solo on the low end replaceing it with a celeron M apple could make a $300 cheeper model going by (http://www.pluscorp.com.au/ContentMaster.asp?CategoryID=53) core duos are very expencive apple could have lowerd the price by $300 on the core duo model by using a celron M that would be a low end mac. Also note that core duos are far more expencive than pentium 4's because they are moble chips, Conroes will be more inline with pentium 4's.

Err... OK. When I said the mini was a low end machine, I mean't its the lowest end Mac you can buy (hell, I went even with the Core Solo). Sure it could get a lot worse/cheaper, but luckily Apple decided not to go the $200 computer route and produce a useless piece of junk.

If your point is the 1.5Ghz Core Solo kicks arse compared to many chips, I'll agree: My Mac Mini kicks arse compared to any other Mac I've ever owned, and compares very favorably to my work G5.

EDIT: BTW when you say $300 cheaper, are you talking in Australian dollars? Its just that website you linked to is Australian.

 

[gekko513]

Oh, and it's Merom, not Memron.

 

[Cabbit]

Err... OK. When I said the mini was a low end machine, I mean't its the lowest end Mac you can buy (hell, I went even with the Core Solo). Sure it could get a lot worse/cheaper, but luckily Apple decided not to go the $200 computer route and produce a useless piece of junk.

If your point is the 1.5Ghz Core Solo kicks arse compared to many chips, I'll agree: My Mac Mini kicks arse compared to any other Mac I've ever owned, and compares very favorably to my work G5.

EDIT: BTW when you say $300 cheaper, are you talking in Australian dollars? Its just that website you linked to is Australian.

i realise its australian, but i couldnt find any american or better sites with core duo's there few and far between but the price comparison is just the same, if CPU a costs $100 and CPU b costs $500 in one contury then they cost a simaler price in all other conturys, theres no ware you would be offerd a celeron at a higher cost than a pentium unless its really doggie, and i achually think the Celeron M would fit a budjet Mac mini just fine its achually quite high preforming its inline with pentium m/core solo just lower clock and less cache, also lacks sse3 witch is proberly why it isnt in the mini because rosseta wont work without sse3 unless you emulate sse3. And conroe is not going to be a 100w chip in the low and mid range parts anyway, there target is 65w for the E6000's and 40w for the E4000's so these would fit in the mac mini just as well as a G4 or a core duo. only the higher end E6000's are ment to top of at 95w and more for the XE. This is pritty inline with Athlon 64's witch 3000+ come in at about 65w and there are some semprons at 35w and these are desktop parts, they will be fine for the mac mini and a deffinit for the iMac unless jobs wants to shoot himself in the foot and continue to use core duos in the iMac, there is not logic to a core duo over a core E6XXX in a iMac.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Being as the graphics are "integrated" it would a bit difficult to make the graphics card a BTO option. You'd have to completely redesign the mini motherboard to take a graphics chip/card.

I don't think it would be as difficult as you think...many mobos with intel chipsets have built-in integrated graphics plus an AGP/PCIe slot. It wouldn't be terribly difficult to design a board that could have either a "real" GPU or an integrated unit.

I agree that the integrated graphics are over-emphasized negatively by some, but it is still something they should change in the next revision IMHO.

 

[macpastor]

On the Rev B I expect the prices to stay the same, and add a couple more features. I think it is hopeless to wish for it, but I want a DVR. Why won't they listen to those of us who want that. Do that, and I am first in line with the credit card in hand.

 

[dr_lha]

I don't think it would be as difficult as you think...many mobos with intel chipsets have built-in integrated graphics plus an AGP/PCIe slot. It wouldn't be terribly difficult to design a board that could have either a "real" GPU or an integrated unit.

I agree that the integrated graphics are over-emphasized negtively by some, but it is still something they should change in the next revision IMHO.

This is a fair point, although its hard to imagine where there's room in a Mac Mini to fit an extra graphics card.

 

[dr_lha]

i realise its australian, but i couldnt find any american or better sites with core duo's there few and far between but the price comparison is just the same, if CPU a costs $100 and CPU b costs $500 in one contury then they cost a simaler price in all other conturys.

Yes, but 1 US dollar is not the same as 1 Australian dollar. So the AU$300 difference in price you quote is actually about US$200.

Not to mention that site has no price for a 1.5Ghz Core Solo chips, and the fact that those prices probably bare little relation to what Apple actually pays for its chips.

 

[Cabbit]

Yes, but 1 US dollar is not the same as 1 Australian dollar. So the AU$300 difference in price you quote is actually about US$200.

Not to mention that site has no price for a 1.5Ghz Core Solo chips, and the fact that those prices probably bare little relation to what Apple actually pays for its chips.

intel dont sell core solo's yet, its a apple only deal. a $200 cheeper mac mini is still a $200 cheeper mini nock of airport, bluetooth theres another $70. You would be left with a still fast mac mini that would be very cheep proberly below the $400 mark that would be very atractive. Most people that are buying a new mac dont know what bluetooth is, nor airport and most dont care they want on the internet and a celeron m would fill that need just fine. A lot of people report great preformance of the celeorn m in dogged installs of os x 10.4.4/5, even able to run apps like iLife and iWorks comfertable. Core solo is over kill for a entry level they only reason it is a absolute is for rosseta emulation mac os runs just fine with sse 2 but it needs sse 3 emulated.

I think when the new celeron is out you will proberly see that in the mini if conroe is to much, core solo and core duo are to expencive. your arguement about apple not paying retail is pointless if they get a discount on core chips they get a discount on everything else.

here is a sample base line spec to lure switchers.

$349
1.5 GHz Intel Celeron M (upgraded to a celeron (conroe?))
512MB L2 Cache
400MHz Frontside Bus
GMA 950
512MB DDR 400
40GB Serial ATA hard drive
Combo Drive
(optional) AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0
Apple Remote + FrontRow
OS X 10.4.5

and my updated rev b mini

$499
Intel Core E4200: 1.60 GHz
2MB L2 Cache
800MHz Frontside Bus
ATi 1400 16MB turbo cache embeded (these are going to be part of some intel mobos)
512MB DDR2 667
80GB Serial ATA hard drive
Combo Drive
(optional) AirPort Extreme X2 and Bluetooth 2.0
Apple Remote + FrontRow enhanced(2)
OS X 10.5

$599
Intel Core E4200: 1.60 GHz
2MB L2 Cache
800MHz Frontside Bus
ATi 1400 16MB turbo cache embeded (these are going to be part of some intel mobos)
1GB DDR2 667
100GB Serial ATA hard drive
Superdrive HD
AirPort Extreme X2 and Bluetooth 2.0
Apple Remote + FrontRow enhanced(2)
OS X 10.5

$799
Intel Core E6300: 1.86 GHz
2MB L2 Cache
1066MHz Frontside Bus
ATi 1600 128MB dedecated
1GB DDR2 667
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
Superdrive HD
AirPort Extreme X2 and Bluetooth 2.0
Apple Remote + FrontRow enhanced(2)
OS X 10.5

with destop chips costing a lot less than laptop chips apple makes a lot more money or features like the hd superdrive can be included.

 

[dr_lha]

Yes, well I'm afraid as usual your prices have no basis in reality.

Apparently the addition of an extra 20Gb on the hard drive, a Superdrive "HD", airport card and bluetooth and extra 512Mb of RAM only adds $100 to te price between the $499 and $599 models?!? The RAM alone costs an extra $75 at today's prices.

You're living in dreamland if you think these price points are realistic.

Regardless, I also think if Apple had released a Mac with a Celeron processor you'd be hearing even louder howls of derision than you do right now about the Integrated Graphics chip.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

here is a sample base line spec to lure switchers.

$349
1.5 GHz Intel Celeron M (upgraded to a celeron (conroe?))
512MB L2 Cache
400MHz Frontside Bus
GMA 950
512MB DDR 400
40GB Serial ATA hard drive
Combo Drive
(optional) AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0
Apple Remote + FrontRow
OS X 10.4.5

I hope Apple never sells a machine with a Celeron in it. Even the latest Celeron Ds are underwhelming unless you overclock the snot out of them - and then they are loud and hot.

The price of the Core CPU will come down in time.

 

[Cabbit]

I hope Apple never sells a machine with a Celeron in it. Even the latest Celeron Ds are underwhelming unless you overclock the snot out of them - and then they are loud and hot.

The price of the Core CPU will come down in time.

Core solo and duo wont come down all that much look at he pentium m, what intel seems to to with the laptop parts instead of lowering the cost the just change or add a new chip the line up without greatly changeing the cost. The celeron D and celeron M and celeron conroe are all compleatly diffrent.

Celeron D is a crippled pentium 4, pentium 4's are allready poor to begin with and the celeron D is just great on my setup with OSX 10.4.5 but i had to overclock it to 3.7GHz to get acceptable useage in emulated apps but as a 2.66 part, os x booted in 16 seconds, safari and ilife 06(payed for im getting there i got bits and bobs just the tower or mini to get the latest mini underwelms)) ran pritty ok and it was able to send emails and stuff.

a Celeron M now thats a compleatly diffrent beast, ive run this in windows and in things like photoshop a 1.5 celeron m smokes a 2.6 Pentium 4 and comes very close to and matching 1.5 Pentium M's in some tasks except were the extra cache of the pentium m kicks in. Pentium M and Core solo arnt all that diffrent clock for clock in preformance so for the price reduction a Celeron M is a good choice for the Mini if it only had SSE3

Then theres Celeron next, Intel Core(?) E2000 or whatever it will be called built on the conroe core, so this will be a conroe with 800 MHz buss and 1Mb cache, it will be a lot faster than a core solo if the Intel Core E6700 benches are anything to go by.

I'll leave out semprons, turions there not in the mac playpen yet.

 

[Cabbit]

lol i just noticed your running a G4 1.42. and you have the cheak to skoff about the celeron when apple are still achually selling G4's that are a lot more underpreforming than a celeron D and not even in the same leage as a Celeron M. Well Semprons still kick there ass, and turions kick celeron m's ass and core solo and pentium m(debatable) but what do you consider a turion a celeron compeater or a pentium m/core solo compeater, it seems to be priced right in the middle of the two lol silly AMD.

 

[chaos86]

I think it should have a 3.5" 250GB 10K rpm hard drive, and up to 4GB of ram with 1GB standard and 4 slots, nvidia quadro graphics, a blueray drive, dual dual core merom chips at 4ghz, water cooling, 16x PCI-express, dual link dvi, the ability to run windows apps natively, and better front row with a TV tuner and dvr functionality with an upgraded remote that has only 2 buttons instead of all those confusing 6 buttons. Oh and it should drop back to $499 and be slightly shorter than before, maybe 1.5 inches. and magsafe.

 

[QCassidy352]

I think it's a bit pessimistic, maybe I just would rather wait for a better MacMini. I hope my prediction could hold, if they waited till spring/ early summer 2007...

If they don't upgrade the mini until spring/summer 2007 we're looking at over a year without an upgrade. So I agree that if they wait that long, maybe your predictions will come true, but apple rarely goes that long without an update, and I think it would be really stupid of them to do so in this case.

 

[Cabbit]

If they don't upgrade the mini until spring/summer 2007 we're looking at over a year without an upgrade. So I agree that if they wait that long, maybe your predictions will come true, but apple rarely goes that long without an update, and I think it would be really stupid of them to do so in this case.

but were not talking about a upgrade were talking about rev b, rev b achually has to be diffrent to rev a other than a speed bump. speed bumps can drop into the line unannounced like appled announce they were doing with the mini. its the rev b mini i am predicting in my updated specs and i think im pritty close i would love a tv tunner but after rethinking i dont think its in line with apples plans. LOL when the mini gets a 100 MHz improved core solo/duo it wont be a rev b it will be a speed bump and proberly because the faster chip is easyer to get hold of. the 1.5 core solo isnt even on intels road map its a just for apple chip they were only ment to go as low as 1.6 form what most people can tell so perhaps a speed bumped mini is on the cards in a month or so.

 

[sam10685]

i expect the next mac mini to sport little electrodes that u put on ur brain so that u can think what u want ur computer to do and it'll do it.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

lol i just noticed your running a G4 1.42. and you have the cheak to skoff about the celeron when apple are still achually selling G4's that are a lot more underpreforming than a celeron D and not even in the same leage as a Celeron M. Well Semprons still kick there ass, and turions kick celeron m's ass and core solo and pentium m(debatable) but what do you consider a turion a celeron compeater or a pentium m/core solo compeater, it seems to be priced right in the middle of the two lol silly AMD.

I could be running an Intel 4004 and it wouldn't have any bearing on the Celeron's performance.

The Celeron D has a much higher FSB than a G4 but crap cache memory...The G4 has heavy cache but a crap FSB....I run a 1.4GHz 7455 G4 next to a 2.5GHz Prescott Celeron D and the G4 keeps up just fine, and runs a bit cooler. I don't see any reason not to use the Core Solo/Duo in the Mac Mini. It's cheap enough...no need to go with bargain basement, deliberately hobbled CPUs.

Anyway, the only reason I use a G4 is because I currently can't afford a G5. It's a good performer for what I do.

 

[chaos86]

very off topic, but i couldnt leave this alone

Location: Sod off

i do believe you mean "london, a small on mars outside the capital-- awooble"

 

[livingfortoday]

Question: Have you actually experienced using the Mini with the Intel Graphics chip? I have and I'm very satisfied with the performance. Sure its no games machine, but I've noticed that stuff like Google Earth runs much smoother/faster on my Mini than on my wife's iBook despite her machine having a ATI 9550 and Google Earth running under Rosetta on Mini.

I have to agree with this. I was wary at first, and even considered getting a G4 Mini (the one with 64MB VRAM), but dove in for the Intel one in the end. And dang, this thing has some kick to it, lemme tell ya. I use it for day to day stuff, no heavy gaming or anything, and it's more than adequate for anything I throw at it. Only thing really holding it back is low RAM, and that'll be on the way soon.

For updates, I'd like a faster entry-level option for the Mini, make the dual Core 1.66 the cheap one. I'd also like larger hard drives standard, though they'd probably have to go with 3.5" ones for that. Oh, and more RAM slots. Let us put in 4GB or something. I know it's not meant to be a powerhouse, but since you can upgrade the processor, I plan to keep it for a while. Wouldn't mind future expansion options. I dunno, is a Mini PCI slot out of the question?

 

[Josias]

Just like only powermacs and iMacs had G5, only powermacs and iMacs will have merom (new intel desktop thingy 64-bit), and Mini, MB and MBP will have conroe (new intel laptop thingy, 64-bit). That's what i think. BTW, sorry if i mixed up merom and conroe. hehe

 

[Cabbit]

Just like only powermacs and iMacs had G5, only powermacs and iMacs will have merom (new intel desktop thingy 64-bit), and Mini, MB and MBP will have conroe (new intel laptop thingy, 64-bit). That's what i think. BTW, sorry if i mixed up merom and conroe. hehe

Powermac Woodcrest(xeon based on the conroe core for MP configs)
iMac Conroe(i.e. Intel Core E4000's/E6000's)
Mac mini Conroe(intel Core E4000's only, intel core celerons(laptop chip to expencive))
MacBook Pro Merom Core duo(low power 64 bit laptop chip)
iBook Merom Core solo(low power 64 bit laptop chip)