Mac Mini Goes Intel
The recent announcement of the Intel Mac Mini has met much critisism from the general public. I mean, sure the big downgrade here is the Intel GMA 950 Integrated graphics chip. But look at this machine, the new Mac Mini compared to Dells, or any other entry level PC. It's really not that bad. I feel that Apple probably should have used a Pentium M or a Centrino chip for a few reasons. Firstly, to lower the price. Secondly, because clock speeds are significantly higher (even if performance is the same or even slightly worse). This is because most PC users are looking at Dell desktops offering these 3.4ghz P4s, and looking over at Apple's Mac Mini and seeing 1.6ghz processors...what do you think they will make of these? The average user certainly doesn't look for benchmarks.
Personally, I think that the Mac Mini is sacrificing too much for size. This computer, a computer that is meant for the Home entertainment / Home users / Media Center PC is using notebook hard drives, notebook sized DVD drives, and a Motherboard that is even SMALLER than Laptop motherboards. Now the Mac Mini is great, don't get me wrong. But it should be larger. It should be able to house 3.5" IDE drives (both DVD and Hard Disk). For the same exact price of a 80GB 5400RPM laptop hard drive, you can get a 250GB 3.5 disk that runs at 7200RPM and has 16mb. of Cache!!!!! IT'S A DESKTOP it does not need to be abnormally small. They just need to add a few inches all around, mainly in height. Surprisingly, the graphics processing capabilities of the GMA950 are on par or better in some cases to those of the Radeon 9200 that was previously in the machine.
HiFi Boombox - way overpriced...for a very niche market.
iPod Leather Cases - $100 for any iPod (nano, or video)...should be cheaper if it uses less leather, not to mention its half the cost of the nano....ridiculous. They'll be lucky to sell any at all.
The recent announcement of the Intel Mac Mini has met much critisism from the general public. I mean, sure the big downgrade here is the Intel GMA 950 Integrated graphics chip. But look at this machine, the new Mac Mini compared to Dells, or any other entry level PC. It's really not that bad. I feel that Apple probably should have used a Pentium M or a Centrino chip for a few reasons. Firstly, to lower the price. Secondly, because clock speeds are significantly higher (even if performance is the same or even slightly worse). This is because most PC users are looking at Dell desktops offering these 3.4ghz P4s, and looking over at Apple's Mac Mini and seeing 1.6ghz processors...what do you think they will make of these? The average user certainly doesn't look for benchmarks.
Personally, I think that the Mac Mini is sacrificing too much for size. This computer, a computer that is meant for the Home entertainment / Home users / Media Center PC is using notebook hard drives, notebook sized DVD drives, and a Motherboard that is even SMALLER than Laptop motherboards. Now the Mac Mini is great, don't get me wrong. But it should be larger. It should be able to house 3.5" IDE drives (both DVD and Hard Disk). For the same exact price of a 80GB 5400RPM laptop hard drive, you can get a 250GB 3.5 disk that runs at 7200RPM and has 16mb. of Cache!!!!! IT'S A DESKTOP it does not need to be abnormally small. They just need to add a few inches all around, mainly in height. Surprisingly, the graphics processing capabilities of the GMA950 are on par or better in some cases to those of the Radeon 9200 that was previously in the machine.
HiFi Boombox - way overpriced...for a very niche market.
iPod Leather Cases - $100 for any iPod (nano, or video)...should be cheaper if it uses less leather, not to mention its half the cost of the nano....ridiculous. They'll be lucky to sell any at all.
posted by Joss at 12:21 PM
1 Comments:
Spelling: criticism
You're right about the Mac mini - we need a proper media centre and perhaps a separately spec'd mini for entry-level users.
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