Apple Mac Mini 2010

The Apple Mac mini continues to develop. Ever more compact and with ever higher performance, it packs quite a punch and can easily replace a desktop computer when it comes to office docs, internet and more. For the 2010 model, Apple has reworked everything upwards.

Hardware, design and build: a pared down style...to excess?

Minimalist and compact are two of terms that come to mind when you get ahold of this baby. Entirely in aluminium, the casing inspires confidence with faultless manufacturing quality and finish. In the purist Apple style, only the DVD rewriter slot breaks with an otherwise bare façade. No USB port nor memory card reader at the front of the machine! A heresy for some, this is however what appeals to lots of people when it comes to their Macs, even though this might make them impractical on a day-to-day basis, as is the case with this Mac Mini.

It has nevertheless retained all its qualities. The low running noise is particularly impressive. It's no more audible than Apple's laptops. The mains adaptor is nevertheless built into the casing, which is always a bonus as it reduces the cabling running over your floor.

The connectivity is all at the back. 4 USB 2.0 ports (when will Apple adopt the 3.0 standard?), 1 FireWire, 2 optical mini jacks (mic and headphones), 1 RJ45, 1 HDMI and 1 mini DisplayPort. Although impossible to fault, the aesthetic of the machine can quickly become less elegant if you have to use adaptors, a mouse or keyboard with cables and so on. As with other Macs, best to go for wireless accessories so as not to spoil the pared down effect.

In contrast to the previous Mac Mini, the 2010 version can be undressed in a single movement. The black plastic base can be opened after a quarter turn. Simple and easy, this gives you easy access to the RAM and fan (to remove any accumulating dust).

Note, in contrast to the iMac, the Mac mini comes without a keyboard or a mouse. To keep in the spirit of the pared down Mac Mini, the wireless Apple keyboard, Magic Mouse and/or Magic Trackpad are available for £59 in the Apple store.

The Mac Mini 2010 from above	On/off, power supply, RJ45, FireWire, HDMI, DisplayPort, 4 USB 2.0s, SD card reader, mic, headphones
A standard Blu-Ray beside the Mac Mini. It is around 2.5 times as thick as a blu-ray case.	The insides of the Mac Mini 2010, very easily accessible

Processing power: a Core 2 Duo that does its job well

In spite of the availability of Intel Core i3 and i5 processors (the Core i7 would no doubt give off too much heat), Apple has preferred to go for a Core 2 Duo. Clocked at 2.4 GHz on our test model (against 2 GHz for the 2009 version of the Mac Mini), it offers sufficient performance levels for desktop and internet usage. You can even envisage photo retouching or video editing, as long as you don't demand too much of it, in which case you'll need to be patient as the Core 2 Duo does not give the same performance levels as the new Core i3s or Core i5s for example.

Indeed, the new Mac Mini takes 432 seconds to execute our Photoshop script, compared to 343 seconds for the Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820T that is equipped with a small Core i3-330M (2.13 GHz). A Core i5-520M takes 276 seconds for the same task (on the Sony VPC F11 PC laptop). In comparison to the previous Mac Mini and its 475 seconds, progress has been made, but things could have been much better as these other recently-tested PC laptops show.

In comparison with the other Mac computers that we have tested, the Mac Mini does pretty well, equaling the performance levels of the 2009 iMac (the new ones give higher performance). Only the hard drive is dragging its heels with Apple going for the 2.5 inch format (like on the MacBooks), which limits speed (rotation at 5400 rpm).
To compare them, we used the Xbench test tool.


3D gaming: graphics settings at minimum for recent titles

The Mac Mini has not been built for gaming. However, as long as you're reasonable with respect to graphics settings, the NVIDIA GeForce 320M GPU that equips this new Mac Mini does honorably well on a few less demanding titles. The most recent titles will run with graphics settings at a minimum and, more often than not, at low resolution.

Audio: digital and a very clean audio out

As with the previous Mac Mini, the 2010 version gives good quality sound thanks to its 2 optical mini-Jack sockets. The headphones out is also very clean.
The worst part is the sound from the built-in speaker. Best only to use it when you really need to or perhaps just for the sounds for office-type software.

Energy consumption: very low indeed!

At less than 8 watts, the Mac Mini 2010 draws 2 watts less than the 2009 version in idle. Even when heavy demands are put on it, it never exceeds 30 watts, which is quite exceptional if you compare this to the energy consumption of standard type desktop computers which can draw up to 200 watts.

Note however that you'll have to factor in screen consumption, which is around 35 watts for a 22-inch screen and over 40 watts for a 24-inch.