Similarly, if you have a VGA Monitor rather than one with an HDMI socket, you'll need an £21 adaptor which is annoying. If you're using it alongside an old MacBook Pro, you'll feel completely at home and won't notice any difference in performance when using Safari and apps like Pages and Keynote, even while something like Spotify runs in the background.įor a price vs performance level, this is a compelling machine against a home made PC - you may be able to manage a better spec with a PC but Windows won't be as fast or as flawless as this desktop OSX Mountain Lion experience.įollowing the M ac Mini 2011, there's no optical drive here - if you have CDs or DVD to rip or burn, you're going to need to buy an external drive. OSX Mountain Lion is the standard OS and it runs well. The 500GB hard drive is standard and the only spec downside is the Intel HD 4000 graphics chip which means gaming will suffer when compared to high-end MacBook Pro products but it's an acceptable compromise for the price. In use, it's near silent and rarely runs hot to the touch. There's four USB ports, a Thunderbolt port, SD card slot and a FireWire port too. Of course, a wireless keyboard and Apple Magic Mouse aren't included so you'll need to budget £100 for those extras but connecting your own mouse and keyboard is easy.

The only moving part on the body is the removable disc on the bottom of the Mac Mini which manually allows you to upgrade the RAM. As a trendy metallic square for your home office, it looks the part and is rugged. The minimalist design with all sockets hidden at the back mean it's one of the most stylish gadgets Apple make.

Mac Mini 2012: BuildĪt 7.7 inches square and just 1.4 inches deep, the new Mac Mini won't strike many as a computer at all. The point of the Mac Mini is that it's, well, mini - we've seen bigger hard drives than the modest footprint of the sleek silver box. At £499 for the entry level model reviewed here, it's the cheapest way of getting OS X Mountain Lion in your life - the next available option is a MacBook Air or the new iMac 2012 with all hardware built into the ultra thin monitor. It's a small desktop Mac that needs a monitor, keyboard and mouse to function. The concept of the Apple Mac Mini is simple.

Mac mini i7 2012 specs