Product Reviews

Nothing prepares you for how small the Mac mini is. At only 16.5cm2 and 5cm tall, it truly is a tiny computer - about the size of a presentation box of chocolates.

More surprising than the size or specifications, though, is the price: the Mac mini starts at just £339. For Apple, a company that has always insisted that it wasn't interested in the low end of the market, this is a radical change of tack.

An analysis of the Mac mini needs to take into account its target market: the traditional model used to judge Apple's computers does not apply here, and much of the criticism of the Mac mini that appeared on the Web within days of its announcement indicates that many just don't get it.

By now you've probably heard that the Mac mini doesn't even come with a keyboard and mouse. Apple is making the broadly accurate assumption that most people will have a keyboard, mouse and compatible display, but you can add input devices at the time of ordering for £38. Wireless versions will set you back £70, but you also have to factor in the £35 cost of adding Bluetooth circuitry to the Mac itself, as neither it nor AirPort Extreme is fitted as standard.

A significant percentage of potential Mac mini buyers will be using legacy keyboards and mice (PS/2 on the PC side and ADB on the Mac), and will need to upgrade to USB versions, but there should be fewer problems with monitors; an adaptor is included to convert the DVI port to VGA, so the only people upgrading from older computers who should have any difficulty are those with ancient monitors using Apple's old proprietary monitor interface.

Besides, while Apple itself doesn't currently offer any keyboard, mouse and display bundles, it has just slashed the price of its displays by as much as £450, and many resellers are already putting their own packages together independently.

So let's look at the specifications. The bottom line is that while the performance of the Mac mini is unlikely to blow you away, Apple hasn't crippled the specs to keep the price down in the way it has been guilty of in the past with, for example, models from the Performa range and early iMacs.

Until we've had a chance to submit the mini to our barrage of technical tests, we can't be sure how it stacks up against the other Mac lines, but on paper at least we're broadly satisfied. Sure, we could have

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hoped for more - bigger, faster hard disk and more RAM would have been top of our list, with built-in AirPort and Bluetooth not that much further down - but that's missing the point of a low-cost Mac. What Apple has presented us with is a moderately powerful computer that's likely to offer performance similar to the eMac or high-end iBooks, at a price that has the potential to drive Mac OS X adoption, expand the platform and significantly dent the market for processor upgrades.

In the base configuration, the processor is a 1.25GHz G4 chip, which should be beefy enough to run the majority of consumer-level applications. True, video encoding and editing using iMovie will be a little sluggish, especially given the meagre amount of RAM, but for most tasks this will prove sufficient. Those in need of more power should look to the iMac or Power Mac; we think Apple's decision to stick with a low-cost G4 processor rather than plump for the hotter, more expensive G5 was the correct one.

The other specs are in line with what we'd expect. The 40GB hard disk is a little pokey, and at only 4200rpm is sluggish for some creative work, but adequate. The more expensive model, which costs £399, boosts the processor to 1.4GHz and the hard disk to 80GB; this latter upgrade can be applied to the base model for £30.

Apple still insists on including too little memory. The motherboard has one slot, so the 256MB chip that's installed by default has to be thrown away. Unusually, Apple has decided to make the Mac mini a closed system, so it's hard for users to upgrade the RAM or add AirPort cards themselves. Apple charges £290 to upgrade the RAM to the maximum 1GB; third-party sites like Crucial sell a 1GB chip for £142, and as authorised repair centres such as Cancom are likely to charge less than £XX, it still makes sense to eschew Apple's own upgrade system.

In both configurations, the Combo drive, capable of reading and writing CDs and reading DVDs, can be upgraded to a DVD-writing SuperDrive for £70.

The graphics performance is reasonable, and though the 32MB ATI Radeon 9200 card is far from cutting edge, it at least doesn't have to share memory with the main processor, a feature of low-end and compact PCs.

The software bundle is compelling. The absence of Office will dissuade PC switchers, but AppleWorks and the new iLife 05 suite goes some way to make up for it. The new iWork 05 package isn't included, but there is a decent list of games and tools included.

The operating system is Mac OS X 10.3, but Apple refuses to say whether early mini adopters will have a free upgrade path to 10.4 when it ships 'in the first half of 2005'.

Despite a modest specification, we're sure Apple has a hit on its hands with the Mac mini. It's cheap enough to buy for the kids, to act as a Web or music server or to replace an ageing beige box. It's moderate performance at a killer price. Buy one and reclaim your desk space.