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In Reply to: RE: More serious. Power supply is now internal posted by Steve Jones on July 20, 2011 at 15:13:00
Of course the modders have a solution to the so called 'problem'. They stand to make money off their solution even if it does nothing or very little to improve things.
I have an older Mac Mini with external power brick power supply AND the newer style with internal power supply. In a side by side comparison of the the Minis set up as music servers, I heard no difference whatsoever. Much bigger differences can be heard among quality external DACs.
Oh, and it makes perfect sense that Apple deleted the Optical Drive in the most recent Mini. Most people don't use 'em that often and external optical drives are cheap. The industry dropped Floppy Drives long ago and with high speed internet for most software downloads, losing the Optical Drive makes sense.
Follow Ups:
There is a long arc of computer history in this decision. Steve Jobs decided to use an optical drive instead of a conventional hard drive in the original NeXT computer. That innovation just didn't work out.
Now Apple is signaling the end of the line for the optical drive in their low end products. If it is widely adopted, Thunderbolt will make conventional desktop computers unnecessary for most people.
---
My Toshiba CULV laptop doesn't have an optical drive and I have not missed it. The new Air laptop looks sensible to me. The Air and the larger laptop are very clearly separated and cover a good range of user requirements. Explaining the differences will be easy for Apple store employees.
Leaving the optical drive out of the new mini seems a reasonable decision for Apple too. Apple is a take it or leave it sort of company; they decide on form factors and content of their product line and customers can can buy those products or not. I wonder if removing the optical drive allowed Apple to cool the i5 and i7 chips more effectively in the mini form factor.
I may or may not have an optical drive in my next personal PC. I plan to have a 3 TB hard drive in or attached to that computer. If a 3 TB Thunderbolt based drive is available at a reasonable price by the time I am ready to purchase my next PC, I'll consider a Mac mini.
Bill
I'm sure not everyone is happy with Apple's product decisions but they seem to have a strong following and even those who are initially upset seem to get on board and stay.
About the laptop.... We bought a Windows 7 13" Toshiba for my wife almost a couple years ago (less crapware preinstalled, and an overall great value!) and to keep the size and weight down, there is no internal optical drive. She doesn't miss it at all. If there's software to be loaded, it either comes off the network or we attach the external optical drive while the laptop is at home.
It will be interesting to see what comes of Thunderbolt. It's still new with very few peripherals. It might gain traction in Apple's niche of 'professional' audio / video content creators and expand to have wider appeal... or it might flop! Apple has the cash to take those risks.
Looks like HDMI on steriods. I for one am glad they are trying it--would love to try it with their new display.
> We bought a Windows 7 13" Toshiba for my wife almost a couple
> years ago (less crapware preinstalled, and an overall great value!)
The hard thing in the Windows PC world is finding out all the information you need to make good choices. I considered an Acer laptop at the time I bought the Toshiba. I didn't have a clue about the amount of shovelware either choice would have on its hard drive.
> It will be interesting to see what comes of Thunderbolt...
> Apple has the cash to take those risks.
Convincing 3rd party manufacturers to bring out a range of products will be crucial. As the installed base of macs with Thunderbolt connectors builds up, the market will become more viable.
---- another Mac exclusive
Here is something you don't find in the Windows PC world:
"Entire Apple stores being faked in China"
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_18521590?nclick_check=1
I wonder if they have Lion yet?
Bill
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