New kit..
Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 8:49AM 
Remember that new Mac mini I told you I was going to get ages ago (well, when the models came out anyway). Well, I finally bit the bullet and bought one of the base models from the Liverpool One Apple store last night. The base configuration is:
- 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
- 1GB memory
- 120GB hard drive
- 8x double-layer SuperDrive
- NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
Shame on you Apple for selling a machine with 1GB!
Seriously, would it have hurt to cram in another 1GB stick for the same price?
Ah well, based on my experiences with my older G4(?) PowerPC based Mac mini, it's no big deal to upgrade the memory and a 4GB upgrade kit is only £50 from crucial.
At least, that's what I thought!
Gazmaz from ForMacEyesOnly sent me a PDF (see his Mac mini page) and video he's put together and the memory upgrade looks to be significantly more fiddly now :-( I may just leave it with the 1GB but the extra RAM is really needed. We'll see!
Before you ask, why have I acquired yet another Mac, well this one is for several reasons connected with the show. I'll be using it this week to demo a new piece of hardware that's just been released and I needed a standard Intel based machine with multiple USB ports. I didn't want to use the Mac Pro as that might "colour" the real life performance of this new gadget.
I'll also be doing a show or two in the near future about using the Mac mini as a replacement for the Apple TV for all your media playback.
Besides, you can never have too many Macs.
And before anyone else comments that I get a new Mac every month (boy, getting defensive aren't I), I went a whole year between buying the MacBook Air and the Mac Pro so cut me some slack ;-)
So what if I'm making up for it now!
Reader Comments (9)
Stop being so defensive Don, you do whatever you want mate.
Besides, you do this stuff so we don't have to :-)
Just keep up the good work and stop apologising :-)
Here, here Paul :)
Well my comments were a bit tongue in cheek, but I really am sensitive to being in the fortunate position to do this for a living.
I know a lot of people would love to be able to, but circumstances dictate otherwise so I appreciate just how lucky I am.
You are quite right of course in that, I'm running a business, and the business is writing and demonstrating Mac related stuff, so perhaps I should just get on with it and stop being so English!
We love you for who you are Don and I certainly wouldn't have it any other way. You have a great sense of humour and are always up for a laugh and I certainly appreciate that.
It shouldn't diminish the hard work we know you do Don. I can only imagine how demanding such a task is and not sure I could keep it up week in week out.
You're right of course, we're intensly jealous but probably not for the hard work aspect. :-)
Well.... I cannot say anything about the new mac mini... because me, nor anyone in my family has ever owned one....
If I was you... I would have it as a gaming machine/dedicated media machine....
I have an old powermac G4 running Boxee connected up to my TV... and well... I think that I could do with a new Mac Mini.... but... the old one works so .... :D
The only thing that it doesn't do is HD playback... which is quite annoying... so another reason to get one!!!
You are like really lucky though, and this may be a reason for me to persuade my wife to allow me to get one!!!
J
Thanks for the link Don, for anyone out there I have used Screensteps to clean the guide up a little, and have posted that guide onto a MacMini Update page at gazmaz.com, if your interested ;-)
Plus I'll let Don know when the video is avaiable.
To anyone thinking of doing the upgrade and you want to chat I'm gazmaz in Twitter, I went into the box 5 times (another story) so I feel I have plenty of experience in opening the new mini :-)
Don - Upgrading the mini isn't too difficult. I just followed the take apart shown here (You only need to go to step 9) - http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/First-Look/Mac-mini-A1283/659/2
The mini runs amazingly well with 4GB...
Another one ;-) We are just pulling your leg!
Anyway I bet you don't need to turn the heating on any more :-)
I've done the 4Gb upgrade, and if you follow the steps on the earlier post you should be fine. It's a bit fiddly, but okay.
Once you install the 4Gb the Mini will allocate more RAM for the video card, which makes all the difference.