[ Background music ] >> Rich Brown: Hi I'm Rich Brown Senior Editor for CNET.com. Today we're gonna take a look at Apple's new Mac Mini. So this is the 799 Mac Mini and that's the only one we're talking about in this review. There is a lower end model for 599 as well as a server oriented version for 999. We haven't reviewed those so we're just focusing on the mid range one. So this system is basically the same as the old Mac Mini and at least in its external design. You can see the case is made of the same aluminum and plastic that Apple has used for several years now with the Mac Mini and the ports in the back are completely unchanged from the last version. You get 5 USB ports, an Ethernet jack, mini DVI and mini display port for the video outputs as well as a couple of analog audio ports up here. Now that's really about it and it's a little bit clunky to actually put this system in the living room for example which you might kind of want to do with a small PC like this. Now the thing to mention about the video ports is that it does come with a dongle so you can go from mini DVI to DVI out of the box, that's not a problem if you want to connect a regular monitor. The problem is you can't go from the Mac Mini to an HDMI output without a separate adaptor. You can see the slot for the DVD burner up here. There's no Blu-ray in any of Apple's products, Apple's pretty much planted its flag in the standard def send so if you have it in mind to use this system for HD video content you'll have to pretty play whatever you can download or get on here digitally. Now as far as the specs in this Mac Mini they're a little bit disappointing for its price. It comes with a 2.53 gig Intel Core Duo CPU, 4 gigs of RAM, a 320 GB hard drive, a G-Force 9400 M graphics chip, an 8.211 Wi-Fi. It's not overly slow I mean its standard apps that most people come across. You can edit photos, you can convert audio files, switch between multiple apps at once. Now the problem is that you can get Windows PCs that are significantly less and that had the same sort of small design that are only a little bit slower and they have better features. That's makes it sort of hard to justify spending 800 bucks on the Mac Mini. So while the new Mac Mini keeps Apple's great design and it's relatively fast for day to day use we can't get too excited about this particular Mac Mini for its $800 price tag. [ Background music ] >> Rich Brown: So I'm Rich Brown this is the 2.53 gig Apple Mac Mini. [ Music ]
