OK. So what have we got here?
This is my favorite image, I think. On the Mac mini product pages, Apple is making a big deal of how the mini “fits with what you’ve already got”, and here’s why. For a box this size, there’s an impressive array of connectivity options.
The biggest surprise isn’t HDMI, but the SD card slot. But on second thoughts, it’s now in the iMac and the MacBook Pro line; it makes sense for it to appear here. The Mac mini is a low-cost option, though, and I rather expected that an SD slot would be one of the things sacrificed to keep costs low.
Here’s what you see underneath. It screams consumer product, doesn’t it? The two little dimples are an instruction book in themselves: twist me, it says. Twist me to open me.
And once twisted open, here’s what you see inside. It reminds me of the old G4 iMac, which had the curved circuit board designed to fit inside its unique hemisphere container.
On the right there you can see the RAM card, ready to be easily replaced. It looks like there’s only the one DIMM slot though, so you’ll have to replace one card with one other. UPDATE: No, there are two DIMM slots; thanks to Cult commenters for correcting me on this.
Interestingly, the new mini comes with an HDMI-to-DVI adapter, so you can continue to use your DVI monitor if you’re upgrading from an older mini.
Even more impressive: the power brick is gone. The power management is built-in. You just get a single, slip power lead with no brick.
The processor inside is still the aging Core 2 Duo. Before you get all enraged about this, remember the argument about use of the same chip in the recent MacBook Pro 13″: from Apple’s point of view, the chip’s age doesn’t matter, it’s what it’s capable of that counts. Apple will say that the Core 2 Duo is good enough to make this machine work well, and cheap enough to keep the costs down. Which is part of the point of the Mac mini, right?
