When Steve Jobs unveiled the Mac miniskirt at Macworld Expo in January , the reaction was a mixing of astonishment ( how did they get that Mac so modest ? ) and uncertainty ( can a well - made reckoner really come in a bantam packet ? ) . After all , many Mac veterans think they ’d get wind it before — they have n’t forgotten the poorly - fatten out Power Mac G4 Cube , Apple ’s other diminutive Mac .

But Mac lovershaven’tseen this before . The Mac mini is n’t targeted at design professional , it ’s for regular family who require to do canonic labor . And it costs as little as $ 499 . It just may be the perfect upgrade for many Mac users , and Windows - to - Mac switcher .

We ’ve given the Mac miniskirt a thorough expiration - over , even break up it to dig into its inside . We can now report that , although the Mac miniskirt has its flaws — such as its intolerably midget amount of RAM — many people will find it the perfect Mac .

The Setup

The most fun aspect about trying out the Mac mini was determine it up . strike the Mac miniskirt out of its box is a one - handed operation , since the computer only weighs about 3 pounds . In fact , it ’s easy to be convey aback by the Mac miniskirt ’s minuscule size ; next to an aging Power Mac G4 , the mini looks like an outside voiceless movement . And with a footprint of only 6.5 inches square and a height of 2 in , it might even get lose on a desk full of speaker unit , a monitor , a lamp , and papers .

The Mac mini ’s power brick , on the other bridge player , is not mini at all — it ’s rather large — but it can at least obscure out behind a desk . The power source ’s location outside the case is really what have the Mac mini stay so small . In fact , the power brick indicates an overall theme here : you need to have some outside components to really make the most of this simple machine . If you have a few USB devices , you ’ll need a USB hub to plug them in , since the Mac mini only has two USB 2.0 ports . And you ’ll want to get in touch your FireWire machine to each other ( daisy - chaining ) to compensate for the mini ’s only FireWire 400 port .

Connecting a display was quick workplace : if needed , the DVI video outlet can be commute to work with a VGA monitor using the let in adapter , and you could also watch out slideshows and movie on a TV using the $ 19 DVI to Video Adapter .

Also on the back of the mini is a row of air blowhole , the Power button ( which is a little hard to find without turn the computer around to see it ) , a earphone / audio - out port , Ethernet jackstones , modem jack , the power adapter slot ( which could be befuddle with a USB or FireWire port ) and a security measure slot . The only port some people will lack is an sound - in .

The brushed aluminium box with the curved corners looks ridiculously small next to a monitor lizard . We also used the Mac mini while it was standing on its side , which works well , provided it has passable blank for external respiration . In fact , for multitude with little children , it may be idealistic to order the Mac miniskirt high-pitched on a shelf to keep it away from peculiar deal . Apple repeatedly warns in its manual not to set anything on top of the Mac mini , as it might interpose with your wireless Internet or Bluetooth connection , should you elect those choice . And like Apple ’s musical hit , the iPod , the Lucite white top of the Mac miniskirt is easily scratched — a fact we found out the hard room . The rubberized bottom guards against slipping and fire the Mac mini up off a desk to keep air proceed out of the social unit .

Your Mini Choices

The Mac mini comes in two configurations : the $ 499 model , with a 1.25GHz G4 C.P.U. , 256 M of RAM , a 40 GB hard drive , and a Combo ( CD - RW / DVD - ROM ) drive ; and a $ 599 model that bring the processor to 1.42GHz processor and the hard drive to 80 Great Britain . Consider our strong recommendation to get extra RAM at $ 75 for 512 MB , and that you may prefer for the extras — an 4x SuperDrive is $ 100 , Bluetooth is $ 50 and an AirPort Extreme card is $ 79 ( or $ 99 for both receiving set options)—and you ’re looking at a Mary Leontyne Price tag well over $ 499 , but still about $ 200 less than the next - least - expensive Mac . However , iLife ’ 05 , which comes in the box , and most of Apple ’s other admit apps , such as Mail , Address Book and iCal , really add time value to the bundle . you may get a tidy sum of use from the Mac miniskirt right out of the box .

Apple also includes the Mac miniskirt with 90 days of free telephone keep — nothing to sneeze at — and a one - year special warranty , extendable to up to three years if you purchase the $ 149 AppleCare Protection Plan . And kudos to Apple for including a succinct , informative , and easy - to - read manual ( yes , it really is worth meter reading ) .

Decent Performer

Although the Mac mini is a desktop machine , many of its components — hard ride , optical drive , CPU , and artwork lineup — are the same as those in the iBook G4 . That entail that you should n’t expect the same sort of carrying out from this motorcar as you would from an eMac or iMac . In fact , our trial results showed that overall , the 1.25GHz Mac mini was significantly slower than an 1.25GHz eMac G4 , especially in the iMovie rendering examination , the Photoshop Suite test and the Compressor MPEG-2 encoding trial .

Macworld Lab Test

Best outcome inbold . point of reference organisation initalics .

Speedmark 3.3 stacks are proportional to those of a 1GHz eMac G4 , which is assigned a score of 100 . Finder , Cinema 4D XL , Compressor , iMovie , iTunes , and Photoshop scores are in minutes : seconds . All systems were running Mac OS X 10.3.7 with 512 MB of RAM . We exported a 1 - minute - and-40 - second moving picture to QuickTime : Email using iMovie . We try out MP3 encoding with an audio CD that was 45 minutes long , converting it from the hard parkway using iTunes ’ High Quality scope . The Photoshop Suite run is a solidifying of 14 scripted tasks using a 50 MB single file . Photoshop ’s memory was set to 75 percentage and account was set to Minimum . We used Unreal Tournament ’s Antalus Botmatch average - frames - per - second musical score ; we try at a resolution of 1,024 by 768 pixels . We used Compressor ’s Fast Encode preset . For more information on Speedmark 3.3 , go here .—Macworld Lab testing by James Galbraith

One surprisal in our examination appear when we tested the hard - drive accession hurrying by duplicating 500 MiB of data . The 1.25GHz Mac mini beat the faster 1.42GHz simulation by 10 moment . Upon further investigation , we found that the 1.25GHz model really contains a 5,400RPM drive , despite Apple ’s claim that it contains a 4,200RPM drive . The 1.42GHz modelling , does contain the slower 4,200RPM drive .

The other components worked as wait , with good AirPort receipt and quiet surgical procedure , except for the fairly flashy robotic whir of the optical drive as it was accessing a disc . Not surprisingly , the Mac mini ’s build - in talker is weak , so you ’ll require to connect outside speakers or headphone to listen to music or watch movies . In our many hour of testing , the Mac miniskirt did not heat up our desk much at all , probably due to its well - designed venting organization and power provision located outside the character .

We have three word about the 256 megabit of RAM included with the Mac mini : it ’s not enough . ( unluckily , most of the standard consumer - level Macs only fall with 256 Mbit . ) We used the mini with 512 M of RAM for hour , and were very happy with its speed and responsiveness , but once we hit that DIMM and put in the stock 256 Bachelor of Medicine DIMM , it seemed a turn sluggish , and was n’t such a pleasure to utilise anymore . As we ’ve noted in other Mac reviews , 256 mebibyte RAM simply is n’t enough memory for OS X , especially if you are planning to employ the iLife ’ 05 applications , which take a restrained amount of horsepower . At least it ’s possible to advance the miniskirt . But there ’s only one DIMM one-armed bandit , so if you get the standard miniskirt with 256 MB of random-access memory , you ’ll necessitate to buy a 512 mebibyte DIMM and replace the 256 M one .

Macworld’s Buying Advice

So is this short conception marvel suited for you ? The Mac mini will be a stellar bargain Mac if you need a midget political machine that let you do basic tasks like check eastward - mail , use office applications , surf the Web , and make movies and organize photos . It will be especially attractive if you already have a DVI or VGA monitor , USB keyboard and mouse , and other USB or FireWire peripherals from an earlier Mac or PC . Power users will need to snag it as a headless e - mail , vane , or file waiter to use with a remote program like Netopia ’s Timbuktu Pro 7.0 , Apple Remote Desktop 2 , or the assailable - source VNC . We were disappointed with the stingy RAM in the standard conformation , but take solace in the fact that it ’s upgradeable .

You get what you give for when it comes to take the $ 499 or $ 599 theoretical account — only you’re able to decide whether the $ 100 is deserving the extra CPU speed and 40 GB of storage . Windows user who want to get their Mac metrical unit wet without spending much money will find the Mac mini a good starting point . But if you postulate to corrupt a display , keyboard , and mouse — which can do you back $ 700 or more — we’d suggest see at the 1.6GHz iMac G5 ( , December 2004 ) , which costs $ 1,299 .

[ See more about the Mac mini atMacworld ’s Mac miniskirt pageboy . ]