Mac mini fits in the palm of your hand

NEWS Apple has announced the Mac mini, the low-cost Mac rumoured under the codename of Q88. Available in the US from January 22nd, the unit will be available for £339 with a specification of a 1.25GHz G4 processor, 40GB hard drive and 256MB of memory. A £398 version will have a 1.4GHz processor, and more hard disk and RAM.

The tiny unit - half the height of an iPod Mini, according to Steve Jobs -- contains a slot-load Combo optical drive that will burn CDs and play DVDs. It also has FireWire, Ethernet, USB2.0 and analogue and digital output -- DVI/VGA. No keyboard, display or mouse is supplied with the unit. Although it comes with iChat AV, the instant messaging system with audio and video, it has no audio input or microphone as standard. However, it will work with existing USB peripherals, including the iSight camera/microphone and the Griffin iMic audio input adaptor.

The Mac mini also comes with the Panther operating system and iLife 05 software. Other software announced at Macworld included iWork and updates to iMovie,Garageband and iPhoto - the latter adding RAW and MPEG 4 facilities.

Apple also announced the iPod Shuffle, a display-less flash-based music player that weighs an ounce and comes in either 512MB or 1GB sizes for $99 or $149 respectively. With a battery life of 12 hours, the device either picks random songs or uses a playlist set up by iTunes.

For more detailed product information, read our reviews team's preview of the Mac mini.

Apple's new Mac Mini, unveiled on Tuesday at Macworld in San Francisco. Apple's Mac mini

Talkback

I think this is the start of a new era in PCs, just carry the little monster in your pocket, I guess we'll be discrading our laptops in the near future. Good job let's see what Windows based counterparts come out

12 Jan 05 03:14 Reply

Its a pity the mac mini is not ready for existing pc users out of the box. You can plug in your existing PC monitor but you cannot plug in your key board and mouse unless you are lucky enough to have USB versions of these.

Nevertheless this is an exciting new development and I as and existing PC am seriously thinking of switching to the mini mac for the first time.

12 Jan 05 09:34 Reply

you can get conveters for that.. not that expensive..

seriously.. as a mac user.. i gotta say..

UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS

why wouldn't you have usb? it's called universal for a reason..

12 Jan 05 09:50 Reply

Like most users I'm waiting to see what the PC makers do in response to this. Otherwise I'm ready to switch to Mac ASAP.

12 Jan 05 13:20 Reply

As a web developer this is excellent. now i can afford to buy a Mac so I can test my websites on. Apple just became golden delicious to me. Sweet.

13 Jan 05 13:53 Reply

There must be a manufacturer out there planning to create a range of keyboard/mouse/screen packages to use with the Mac mini.

All in white!!

TR

14 Jan 05 15:56 Reply