Product Reviews

Apple's compact Mac mini started a trend for lunchbox-sized computers when it was first launched. Now, the ageing Core Duo processor has been replaced by a faster Core 2 Duo. The mini is small enough to fit inside a biscuit tin, and certainly looks classier than most PCs.

Even during processor-intensive tasks such as video editing, the Mac mini was virtually silent, making it one of the quietest desktop computers we've tested. It comes preinstalled with the Mac OS X operating system, but we installed Windows Vista using Apple's Boot Camp utility to run our usual performance tests.

Although it has only 1GB of RAM, the Mac mini performed surprisingly well in our Windows benchmarks. Its score of 214 in our video-encoding test and 143 in our image-editing benchmark shows that it can undertake complex tasks.

It would perform even better with more RAM, especially as the integrated Intel graphics chip shares system memory, but the compact case is tricky to open and upgrade. Instructions can be found at www.methodshop.com/gadgets/tutorials/macmini-ram.

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Unsurprisingly, the Mac mini couldn't run our demanding 3D graphics tests using its integrated Intel graphics chip.

Apart from RAM, there's little room for expansion. However, you're unlikely to need to do so, as wireless networking, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth, FireWire 400 and four USB2 ports are built-in. There's even an optical S/PDIF port for connecting a surround-sound amplifier. Apple has bundled its iLife 2008 suite of website, music, photo and video-editing software, which can produce surprisingly sophisticated results. No productivity software is included, apart from demos of Microsoft Office 2004 and Apple's iWork 2008, which is an odd omission.

A remote control is included for browsing your media collection using Front Row, which resembles Vista's Media Center. Unlike some Windows Media Center PCs, the infrared receiver is built into the Mac mini's case instead of being a separate receiver occupying a USB port.

The mini's size makes it an attractive option for a media centre sitting underneath your TV, but you'd have to buy a USB or FireWire TV tuner and a HDMI, S-video or composite video adaptor for the mini's DVI port to connect it to your TV. The 120GB hard disk also limits the amount of music, photos and videos you can store without adding an external USB or FireWire hard disk.

The Mac mini is a compelling choice if you don't have room for a full-sized tower PC. However, you don't get a keyboard, mouse or monitor, so you'll have to supply your own. If you already have these essential peripherals then the Mac mini is good value. But if you don't then a budget notebook, such as those reviewed in this month's Labs, would be a far better-value compact computer.