Mac Minis Get Intel Inside

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After the staggering blah of Apple’s first two announcements we were hoping for something of a big finish to liven us up. We didn’t get it.

The biggish news is that this line has also hopped on the Intel bandwagon. The entry level model now has a 1.5GHz Intel Core Solo processor with the higher end version shipping with a 1.66GHz Core Duo CPU. There’s 512MB RAM all round with the cheaper edition (£449) sporting a small 60GB HDD and stingy DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive with the heavier outlay (£599) getting an adequate 80GB hard drive and dual layer DVD writer. As for connectivity, both minis come with four USB2.0 ports, Firewire, Bluetooth, WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet and DVI and SPDIF outputs.

Now I know minis are not the most expensive of machines, but I’m surprised Apple has gone with Intel’s GMA950 integrated graphics. It has just 64MB of shared memory and since the minis are not upgradeable, games are completely ruled out for both machines. Oh well, if they still get you in the mood you can satisfy your lust immediately as they’re both out now.

So, all in all, a rather disappointing day methinks. I thought the semantics of the announcement were a little suspicious. 'Fun New Products’ just isn’t inspirational, it is the choice of word: fun - it’s like ‘nice’ which everybody knows means DULL. If we see any future Apple announcements for ‘Nice New Products’ we’ll just steer well clear…

Link:
Apple UK

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