The Mac Mini- Its features, pros and cons explained!

The Mac Mini, manufactured by Apple Inc, is first consumer level and small forms of desktop computer which was introduced without a display screen, keyboard and mouse. The product was introduced to reinforce the Apple marketing and intended to help users switching from traditional PCs to a Mac who already have a keyboard, mouse and display screen with them or could purchase if needed. The Mac Mini is one of three desktop computers apart from two others being iMac and Mac Pro. Though Mac Mini has all the components that are in contemporary laptops, its size has made a hotcake product in recent times.

The latest Mac Mini is the company’s first computer to have an HDMI video port for connecting it to a TV or any other screen such as home theatre. A lot of people were speculating small size computer introduction in the market after being fed up of seeing a bulky computer. In 2005, Mac Mini was announced alongside iPod shuffle as most affordable Mac ever. Though the introduced version of Mac Mini had less processing power than other Mac computers, the problem ended up in its 2011 version as it allowed users to choose a 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 or more powerful 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 for higher performance.

With a solid range of features the new Mac Mini has been appreciated as an affordable computer. However, for the lower segment of the market it is a high priced consumer durable product as one can buy computers at same price having more memory, better graphic card and high data processing power. The new Mac Mini with HD graphics 4000 allows you to play play games in much smoother and more responsive manner than over its previous generations.

Thunderbolt technology in Mac mini features two 10-Gbps channels for data transfer, which is up to 12 times faster than FireWire 800 and 20 times faster than USB 2.

Storage and memory. For easy storage of photos, films and music Mac Mini comes with either 500 GB or 1 TB hard drive. Configuring Mac Mini with up to 256 GB of flash storage  in solid-state drive is possible.

Mac mini also offers Fusion Drive, which combines a 1TB hard drive with flash storage of 128GB worth for intelligent management of data so that you enjoy shorter boot. The Mac mini comes with 4GB of fast 1600MHz DDR3 memory and you can add more new memory into SO-DIMM slot with removing bottom panel.

The redesigned Mac Mini can be opened using a round cover on the bottom of the computer whereas it previous version were difficult to open. Some of the Mac Mini had to be opened using putty knife. After the removal of optical drive, the new model has created space for second internal hard drive. The new Mac Mini does not include integrated TV tuner card and it lacks built in CD/ DVD player.

 Users see Mac Mini as an alternative to Apple TV as it has a remote control IR receiver, media browser interface and HDMI port with display capacity at a maximum resolution of 1080p, iTunes for media, a native user interface with front  row. Unlike Apple TV, Mac Mini supports video in formats like Divx, Xvid, VLC and Matroska.