When I reviewed the Mid-2010 Mac mini, I called it Apple’s most versatile computer for those who didn’t need workstation-level performance. Without an optical drive, the 2011 mini may not be quite as versatile, but Core i5 processors mean that, for the first time, the mini is a serious performer—nearly twice as fast as its predecessor and comparable to some of Apple’s latest MacBook Pro models. And with FireWire 800, Thunderbolt, and a reasonably accessible hard drive, even good storage performance is an option. Of course, it’s also great to see Apple bring the price back down to $599 ... Read more
Still, we’re big fans of the Mac mini in its current form. Yes, the price has seen a roughly $100 boost over the last-gen model, but if you consider a Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter is currently around $35, plus the CPU and GPU boost, and throw in the SDXC card reader too, that doesn’t sound like too bad a deal to us. At $699 we’d certainly pick it over the white entry-level MacBook for home use, and it would make for an ideal family PC in the living room: showing multimedia content one minute, browsing the internet the next. If you’ve already amassed a huge Blu-ray collection – rather than, say, HD-quality digital content – then the absence of a suitable optical drive may be a deal breaker, but the majority of people will find a whole lot of their boxes ticked by, ironically, a very small Apple box ... Read more
Where the latest models differ from their predecessors are in processor speed, memory, and hard-drive capacity. The $599 model now ships with a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of 1066MHz DDR SDRAM, and a 160GB SATA hard drive (up from 2.0GHz, 1GB, and 120GB, respectively). The $799 model now sports a 2.53GHz processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive (improved from 2.0GHz and 2GB; the previous $799 model had the same hard-drive capacity) ... Read more at Macworld
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