Releasing OS X Lion, new Macbook Airs, and new Cinema Displays, just doesn’t cut in anymore…. how about new Mac Minis too? That’s more like it! 🙂
The new Minis have nearly double the processor power of the previous generation and rock out with i5 and i7 Sandy Bridge processors. Also getting a double up is the graphics with new AMD Radeon HD graphics. The new Mac Minis also feature Thunderbolt i/o ports and include a built in HDMI port to effortlessly hook up your Mini to your HDTV.
Storage wise, the Mini comes with 500GB of storage and 2GB or 4GB of RAM. However, there is a twist! The bottom of the Mini can be easily twisted off and you can expand the storage and the RAM to a maximum of 8GB. Nice.
The 2.3GHz Mini (2GB RAM, 500GB HD) with Intel HD Graphics ships for $599 while the 2.5GHz (4GB, 500GB) model with AMD Radeon HD graphics costs $799. A third model, Mac Mini with Lion Server costs $999 and features a 2GHz quad-core i7 processor, 4GB RAM and costs $999.
One thing missing from the Mac Minis is an optical disc drive. This is a strange move since I know a lot of people would like to use the Mini as a home entertainment system but removing the optical disc means it can’t playback DVDs. Hopefully a DVD/ Blu-Ray third party add-on won’t be long coming.
The new Minis will also ship with OS X Lion.