Product Reviews

The Mac mini and 20" iMac are the first Apple computers to use Intel's Core Duo processor. If you're wondering whether you can install Windows on them, we have the answer. It's possible, but tricky, as our FAQ (right) explains.

If you're just after a Mac, the real question is how well do the Intel Macs stack up against the old ones? Apple claims its new Macs are up to four times faster than their predecessors. In place of our usual Windows-based benchmarks, we measured how long it took the iMac to convert a 220MB MPEG1 movie into DV format using QuickTime Pro. The iMac took 29 minutes, which is in line with what we would expect from a Pentium 4 PC, but the older iMac G5 took just under 15 minutes.

We also measured how long it took the iMac to convert a DVD into MPEG4 format using the open-source utility Handbrake. The iMac was much faster, taking 43 minutes compared to the older iMac, which took nearly two hours and 30 minutes. Current Mac applications have to be rewritten to take advantage of the potential extra speed provided by the Core Duo processor, but as our tests show there is still room for improvement. Applications that have not been rewritten, such as Microsoft Office, do run but not as quickly as they would on a non-Intel Mac.

The iMac is still an impressive machine. The 20" widescreen

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display is very bright and is ideal for watching DVDs or working on two documents at the same time. It has a beefier 128MB Radeon X1600 graphics card, which should be able to cope with most of today's games; a 256MB X1600 option is also available. We wish the 8X DVD writer was faster and the 250GB hard disk bigger, but we appreciated the inclusion of WiFi and Bluetooth.

The remote control and Media Center-like Front Row software allow you to browse your music, videos and photos easily. It can even play music organised using iTunes on Windows PCs connected to your network. The iLife '06 software included, which is useful for creating music, home movies and web pages and editing photos, is easy to grasp and produces impressive results.

The Mac mini is impressively small. It shares many of the same features as the iMac but uses a slower processor, has an 80GB hard disk and doesn't come with a monitor, mouse or keyboard.

Unlike the iMac, the Mac mini uses an integrated Intel graphics chip so it won't be able to play the latest games. The chip can also gobble as much as 80MB of system RAM, which is annoying as the RAM is difficult to upgrade. The Mac mini did well in our ad hoc benchmarks, taking 33 minutes in our video test and 46 minutes in our DVD test, just a few minutes behind the iMac. The Mac mini also has Gigabit Ethernet and optical audio in and out, which, combined with Front Row, makes it a perfect compact media centre for pre-recorded video and music.

Apple hasn't damaged its reputation by switching to Intel processors, and the iMac and Mac mini are as beautiful as ever. Until all the software has been converted, though, the new Macs will run a bit slower than previous models. If you're after a Mac, the Mac mini is a competent home PC. But unless you already have a keyboard, monitor and mouse and you don't want to play games, the iMac is a better choice.