Who knows if the Mac Mini is dead or just dormant? On the one hand, Apple’s told retailers not to order any more; on the other, the fact that it’s the only entry-level Mac during a period of economic distress.
Still, rumors keep on sidling towards “update” over “dusted.” The latest rumor, courtesy of MacWorld’s Peter Cohen: that the next refresh of the MacMini will ditch the Intel integrated graphics motherboard for the GeForce 9-series of motherboards.
That would be great news, if true. It is in-keeping with the recent Macbook refresh, and it means the Mac Mini would become something you could actually run World of Warcraft on. And if the update to the GeForce 9-series means the Mac Mini can push video decoding to the GPU the way the new MacBooks can, it’ll make the Mini an attractive HTPC option again as well.
The motherboard pictured can’t possibly be that of a Mac mini II.
VGA?
Is that a PS/2 keyboard port?!
I’m a big fan of the mini and the upgrade would be great!
I believe that’s more likely a generic GeForce based motherboard for illustration purposes.
I want a nice Mac Mini. I’m not certain I’d pay for it, if the price was still over $500, but who knows.
iPods are the entry-level Macs.
Mmmmm, tasty. I’ve been thinking about getting a Mac mini to play movies and MAME and junk in the living room. This (probable) update will make it perfect for that.
#3
New Mini’s not so mini?
I can’t believe that they’d ditch their entry-level desktop pc, even if it has had lackluster sales.
… I am still sad that they ditched their high-capacity iPods, though… even though I wouldn’t buy anything that can’t run RockBox after experiencing its awesomeness.