Apple mac mini review 2015 upgrade#
Apple mac mini review 2015 Pc#
Apple mac mini review 2015 tv#
Apple mac mini review 2015 windows#

This will also handle your 3D gaming, although Windows fans will point out that you can buy a respectable gaming rig for this sort of money on their rival platform. We tried some HD movies and video camcorder content and encountered no problem with playback of this type of material, thanks to the Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics chip, which Apple say offers 2x the performance of previous Mac minis. Rarely will you be running a number of applications as well as your HD content, but if you are in the business of editing large amounts of HD video, you might find it won't quite be up to the challenge.

Apple mac mini review 2015 tv#

If you are planning to hook it up to your TV to play HD content from your network, then it copes well enough. It will handle regular daily computing tasks with easy however and also being capable enough to work with our images and transcode your video. Ask it to do various tasks at the same time and you'll see it slow down and struggle, just as the MacBook will. The Mac mini isn't a power house like some of the iMac models. We didn't find that the slot-loading SuperDrive made much noise once running. However, the Mac mini will get warm once you set it to various tasks and you'll hear the fan changing speeds, throttling up and down. With the design offering no ventilation, we found that the Mac mini runs with a purr that is barely noticeable and nothing like the volume you'd get from the fan-cooling on games consoles, some Blu-ray players and PVRs. On the back beneath all the connections is the exhaust outlet. If you used emojis a whole bunch you might want to think about picking one of these keyboards up. These new keyboards by Logitech have our favourite emojis built in and we love them! The same could be said of the USB ports, if you want to regularly move files to a USB drive, you'll need to make sure you have easy access. Its less convenient for those who might have the Mac mini as part of an installation, but for those who have it sitting on a desk it isn't a significant issue.

Putting it on the rear makes the design look tidy, but if you regularly want to use it to access files from your digital camera for example, you'll be scrabbling around the back to do so. Arranged as they are we didn't have a problem, until it came to the SD card slot.

The connections are precisely arranged on the rear, offering up Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 800, HDMI, Mini DisplayPort, 4x USB 2.0, an SD card slot and headphone and mic 3.5mm jacks.

Apple mac mini review 2015 upgrade#

This simply rotates and comes away, revealing the innards, so you can easily upgrade the RAM yourself, giving you the freedom to shop around, or wait until you find you need to upgrade it. So there are configuration options available to you, but they do come at a cost.įortunately, one of the changes made to the Mac mini is the new removable bottom. There is a 320GB hard drive, with a 500GB version costing you an extra £80. This is supported by 2GB of RAM, upgradeable to a maximum of 8GB, although that would set you back an extra £400. Internally you get that Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at 2.4GHz, with a 2.66GHz version available for an additional £123.

Fans of Apple Mac computers can't help but notice the creep in price, especially as when we reviewed the Mac mini in March 2009 it was under £500. It measures 197mm square, with a height of just 36mm and effectively offers up the same internals as the MacBook (except the hard drive is a little bigger at 320GB in the Mac mini), which adds a screen and keyboard in its plastic enclosure for an additional £200. The Mac mini won't just look the part set alongside your high-end home cinema rig, but it offers up more power than your average nettop, such as the Acer Aspire Revo, which offers an Intel Atom processor, rather than the 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo on offer here. On several occasions when we were introduced to the Mac mini by Apple, they pointed out that people liked to connect the Mac mini to their TV, hence the inclusion of an HDMI connector, a first for Apple.

Apple mac mini review 2015 Pc#

Designed like this, the Mac mini is the sort of desktop PC you will be happy to have on display, and Apple also has its sights on the home cinema market.