Simon C

Looking at minis and alot of places are showing out of stock.


Are they about to be changed or dropped completely?

jowl

Rumours of both.

Apparantley there is an Apple event on Tuesday that is all Mac related. Supposed to be new iMac announced - but I'm hoping that there might be a new mini too.

Or that they drop the mini - so I can pick up a bargain!

Although if they drop the mini, there's no longer a low-cost switcher Mac.

corradoboy

I'm hoping for a new switcher Mac but with an emphasis on multimedia. If not I'm building my own C2D, 2gb, multiregion machine with EyeTV from a cheap old Solo.

jowl

I want the Mini to be my main Media computer. I've been holding on for Updates/Leopard.

I'd like C2D, a larger HDD and possibly a DVDRW as standard.

I think that the AppleTV maybe Apples push for a living room media centre - and it just doesn't have the flexability I need.

corradoboy

Some say the Mini may transform into ATV 2.0, being more a media hub, but I don't see it. ATV's have already been hacked and people have fully installed OSX, bt without a media drive for playback and archiving you will always need another Mac. For a true media solution Apple need to realise the business potential of getting a Mac into every home, instead of select commercial creative markets and limited private use. They seem to get more and more like Sony and Microsoft every day, wanting to limit accessibility to technology and media. Why can't we just have a C2D media hub with combo HDDVD-R/BD-R (easily hacked to multiregion) running 1080p through HDMI and coax audio out for surround ? Of course, they're probably looking much further into the future than me and are basing their products on their designs on replacing physical media with downloads, and ensuring they'll be a major player in that arena.

C2D is quite easy to do on an existing Intel Mini, and an external HDD will answer the storage problem. The internal drive is just a laptop drive, but if it's a 9mm Mat$h!ta then your scuppered. I think they are the more conventional sized drive, so swapping it out for a Pioneer K05/6 and flashing the firmware to allow multiregion through RegionX will give universal DVD playback. I just did that on my old G3 Powerbook with an Optiarc (NEC/Sony) DVD+/-R(W) drive for under 30 quid.

jowl

I'll be building a (RAID 5) fileserver for storage really - just nice to have a decent amount of internal storage for EyeTV recordings - until I get to archive/delete/watch them. I've used up 60gb of space on my Macbook very easily!

A HD-DVD/Bluray internal disk would be nice - but at what cost? Though I wouldn't mind it as an option. (and can we have Blue-ray, I'll get an xbox HD-DVD if I need that format!)

I'm sure that Apple TV is the future - and download will replace DVD. But it's so far in the future in the UK - the broadband infrastructure just isn't capable/fast enough to do it yet.