Business
Apple held a "little" media event today at the California theatre in San Jose that turned out to be anything but "little" -- at least as far as hardware is concerned. Apple announced five (count 'em!) new hardware devices, including:
- Mac mini
- iPad with Retina Display (fourth generation)
- iMac
- MacBook Pro 13 with Retina Display
- iPad mini
In this post I want to discuss the new Mac mini (late 2012) which didn't even garner a press release.
Clearly at the bottom of the Mac pecking order, at least in terms of price, Apple showed the littlest Mac some love today. New features in the Mac mini include:
- Third-generation Intel Core processor
- 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, or
- 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 (up to 2x the performance of the previous-generation)
- 4-16GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory
- Intel HD Graphics 4000 (up to 65x more performance)
- Comes standard with a 500GB or 1TB 5400 RPM hard drive, or
- Up to 256GB SSD, or
- Fusion Drive, which combines a 1TB HDD and 128GB SSD
- Thunderbolt port
- Four USB 3 ports
- 802.11n Wi-Fi
Base prices are, as follows:
Good
- 2.5GHz Mac mini
- 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
- 4GB memory
- 500GB hard drive
- Intel HD Graphics 4000
- OS X Mountain Lion
- $599.00
Better
- 2.3GHz Mac mini
- 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
- 4GB memory
- 1TB hard drive
- Intel HD Graphics 4000
- OS X Mountain Lion
- $799.00
Best
- Mac mini with OS X Server
- 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7
- 4GB memory
- Two 1TB hard drives1
- Intel HD Graphics 4000
- OS X Mountain Lion
- OS X Server
- $999.00