Mac mini makeover considered likely for Macworld - Page 5

You said about expansion cards on the front. They look like this:

http://lion.xaraya.hu/images/ide64_p..._case_back.jpg

There's always a seam round it and gaps. It wouldn't bother me personally but I don't see Apple going for it.


Ports are different, you said PCI expansion slot. Ports can be designed into place. I would agree that a USB port or two on the front would be handy but it does complicate the design when it comes to being able to take it apart.


In the opposite direction you want them to. They're making them with no screws and moulding everything into place exactly how they want and leaving out functionality (firewire) with no way of upgrading.


It's the same on the iMac though and they're never putting ports on the front of that machine.


They won't be putting PCI slots in a Mini either. If you add those, you'd be increasing the case size by quite a lot anyway.


What do you mean reliable? If you mean compatibility, you just get Mac compatible cards like these:

http://www.welovemacs.com/pcexca34.html
http://www.freemacblog.com/how-to-us...r-macbook-pro/

Firewire covers video and audio capture adequately.


It would be easier for Apple to just include the eSATA port. You don't really need eSATA anyway as the internal drive will limit your data transfers.

Priorities:

Keep it QUIET. Bedroom quiet.
At leasts two Firewire 800 ports to boot from external drives.
At least Quad core.
Al least Internal 7200 rpm 3.5-inch drive.

Put a SSD in it.
Not going to happen
Not going to happen
SSD

Aesthetically, the mockup is butt ugly, unless the early 80s Silon look turns you on.

Well if you look at an installed card it will have different appearance from an empty slot covered with a bezel of some sort. For people that actually need card ports in front appearances mean nothing.

Actually I have a couple of post covering both needs. When it comes to the actual slot standard I'm open to alternative ideas.

Again you miss the point in that they came up with a dramatically different approach to the case. The fact that they did so indicates an ability to think outside the box. In any event I don't get too worked up over the lack of expandability in a compact laptop.

If there is enough demand they will. That is part of the point of these open discussions, that is to generate demand.

PCI & PCI Express are electrical standards not a specific card standard. There are actually a number of expansion card standards that use the PCI or PCI Express signalling standards over their electrical connectors. It simply shouldn't be assummed that Apple would use the common desktop card format.


What do you think I mean? Reliable is fairly clear and Express cards are far from that as the retaining mechanism is mechanically questionable.

That depends on the camera and what you want to accomplish with that signal. For some cameras FireWire 400 isn't fast enough.


That makes no sense at all! The external drives are limited by the connection to them not to the internal drive. Why do you think people buy high performance external drives for in the first place?

I'm not a fan of eSATA myself but for some low cost needs it is a good interface. A slot just gives the user the ability to choose the port that he desires. There are many possibilities to choose from so it would be a good move by Apple.


Dave

Yeah but I was mainly pointing that I hope he doesn't drop that. Which they probably won't... but these guys on here keep saying mini-displayport which doesn't include audio...

Oh well

Laters

If it is true that the new Mac mini will use the new Mini DisplayPort and use NVIDIA GPUs, do you speculate that the Mac mini will be able to run two monitors just fine? I have two NEC MultiSync LCD 1980SX monitors which I currently use my eight year old Power Mac G4 500. I want to get my hands on the new Mac mini hopefully as soon as it comes out, however, only if the Mac mini supports two monitors.

Unless there are two Mini-DP connectors, no.

Somewhere I read that the DisplayPort spec supports more than one monitor on just one cable. I don't know about mini-DisplayPort but it seems like it should, also. One never knows, when it comes to Apple.

Yes DP will support daisy chaining in a future version. I don't know if it's as easy as a firmwire update of some sort that may be turned on.

I could see Apple not allowing multiple monitor support from MDP mini because it would create a rush to mini over iMacs. A mac mini running dual monitor is a low compelling low footprint setup.

Are you saying that even with a mini-Displayport to DVI adaptor you can only run one monitor? I was hoping to get my hands on the new Mac mini. Are you saying that I will have to go for an iMac instead if I want to use two monitors?

Likely so, or a Mac Pro. But I'd wait and see what the specs say if the mini comes with mini-DisplayPort. It's only another week until Macworld. I hope we'll see a new mini then.

Even if it was supported now, the new ACD doesn't have an output port and there isn't a Mini-DP to Full-DP adapter.


Or a laptop or a Mac Pro. The DVI adapter has nothing to do with multiple displays, it simply allows you to connect a single DVI display to a Mini-DP port. Two DVI or VGA displays would require two adapters and two ports. I know it sucks, but unfortunately that how Apple operates right now, either low end consumer or ultra high end professional. Nobody in between.

YEP! I'll take TWO of these!!

nice render!

With the mini also using a notebook HDD it would be good to see an external SATA II port and perhaps even an option of an SSD instead of an HDD (every bit of performance helps).

Dobby.