The Mac mini has long been the oddball child of the Mac family: it's the only consumer-level machine from Apple that isn't a fully-integrated experience, and it's the only Mac to have had a sub-$1,000 sticker price in some time. But people love this little weirdo, and they love to do weirdly awesome things with it -- we've seen Mac minis stuffed into everything from old G4 Cube shells to volleyball-playing robots to pianos to... DeLoreans. Yes, DeLoreans. And, of course, people have longed been connecting Mac minis to HDTVs and using 'em as a media players -- it's small, quiet, relatively powerful, and it's a real computer, so it can play virtually any video file you throw at it. And now it's gotten even more attractive as a home theater PC, since Apple's given the newest Mac mini a striking unibody makeover, NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics, and -- a first for any Mac -- an HDMI port, making it a dead-simple addition to your HDTV. On the flip side, the base price of the only stock consumer configuration has gone up to $699, and to be blunt, much cheaper PCs have had HDMI ports forever. So is the mini worth the premium? Is it the ultimate small PC for the living room -- and beyond? Read on to find out.


The new mini represents the first major redesign in the product's history since it was first introduced in 2005. That's partially a testament to the minimalist good looks of the previous design, of course -- it's managed to blend in with every Apple design trend of the past five years. By the same token, the new design promises to have equal staying power: it's at once both simpler and more deeply considered. Obviously the major portion of the case is the aluminum unibody, which is thinner than the previous-gen at an inch and a quarter, but slightly bigger around at seven by seven inches square. Apple tells us the new and old minis are essentially the same size by volume; you might think of the new mini as being a flattened-out version of the old. In fact, the new mini looks like nothing so much as the Apple TV -- but we'll get to the heart of that comparison later.


The new mini doesn't actually sit flat on a surface -- it actually rises up off the ground by a few millimeters on a circular pedestal. This is for two reasons: the front lip houses an air intake, which is vented out the back, and it also creatively conceals a WiFi antenna, which would otherwise be stifled by that all-aluminum enclosure. Bluetooth and a second matching WiFi antenna are also located on the plastic back panel for 360-degree coverage. We tried the mini all over the house on our 5GHz WiFi network and suffered zero problems, so it seems like this little trick was effective for us -- we'll see how others with larger or more complex WiFi setups fare.


About that pedestal: as you might have noticed from our hands-on photos, flipping the mini over reveals a circular access door, which you can twist off to get at the RAM. It's hard not to marvel at the sheer Apple-ness of the panel the first time you interact with it -- other companies simply don't make computers like this. Unfortunately, you can't get at anything other than the RAM once the panel is off, as the hard drive isn't user replaceable. That's pretty silly, in our opinion: hard drives have a nasty habit of failing, especially when you run 'em non-stop in servers and video playback machines, and we'd much rather have a hard time upgrading the RAM once at the outset than feel helpless about replacing a glitchy hard drive.


Round back there's a pretty standard array of ports: four USB, FireWire 800, gigabit Ethernet, an SDXC card slot, mini DisplayPort, HDMI, mic in, and audio out, which supports optical out as well. Apple says the idea is for the mini to be able to plug into most everything out of the box, so there's an HDMI-to-DVI adapter packed in the box, and you can obviously score a VGA mini DisplayPort adapter as well. The HDMI port itself is said to be "HDMI 1.3-compliant," and it'll carry up to eight channels of audio and run displays up to 1920 x 1200, although it doesn't support the little-used Deep Color. As with the previous mini, you can use both display outputs simultaneously; the mini DisplayPort supports a max res of 2560 x 1600. Oh, and this is the first time Apple's done an SDXC slot, so that's nice -- expect to see that on other SD-equipped Macs as time goes on.

Inside, the mini is very similar to the $999 MacBook: our tester was the lone standard configuration, with a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, an NVIDIA GeForce 320M GPU, 2GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive. It's not a ton of computer for $699 -- you can get any number of Core i5 PC towers with similar GPUs for the same money -- but as usual, that's not really what Apple's going for, and what you lose in raw computing power you gain in saved power power, as the mini draws less than 10 watts of power at idle, lower than almost every other competitive machine. What's more, the new 85-watt power supply is now built right in, so there's no power brick, which is quite nice, especially for home theater and other nonstandard installations. (In fact, the power plug is the same as the Apple TV, so you can swap in the mini right in place.)

The mini is also exceptionally quiet: we never heard the fan kick in, even while we played games or watched videos. That's not to say the fan wasn't going, but just that we never heard it. Given our recent experiences with incredibly obnoxious MacBook Pro fans, we're marking that in the plus column. The mini was also laudably cool -- we never felt it get even slightly warm after a full day of testing.

Of course, there's one very notable hardware omission here: a Blu-ray drive. It's sort of amazing that Apple will happily sell you a $700 computer with an HDMI port that doesn't support the best, easiest and highest-quality consumer HD playback format available, but for whatever reason the company just doesn't offer any machines that do Blu-ray, even though it's a member of the Blu-ray Disc Association. When we pressed them about it, Apple told us they just don't see customer demand for BD drives because the format has yet to take off. We obviously disagree, but that's the final answer -- maybe the mini's newfound affinity for HDTVs will finally push Apple to offer Blu-ray in the future.

Performance

At this point the performance characteristics of a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo Mac with a 1066MHz bus are pretty familiar territory; Apple's had similar basic hardware in its lineup since 2008. The new mini adds the NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor to the mix, which is a more potent successor to the familiar 9400m from the previous model -- it's still integrated graphics, but it's reasonably fast integrated graphics.

Needless to say, the new Mac mini was more than capable of basic tasks like browsing, word processing, and running iTunes. And unlike the Atom- or Ion-based nettops you might consider putting under your TV, the mini is also more than capable of running HD Flash video without any hesitation -- and it'll be even better when Flash 10.1 "Gala" ships with hardware video acceleration for Mac OS X. The mini can also play virtually every other video file you might throw at it using either QuickTime with the open-source Perian component or other popular video apps like VLC or Movist, which is our new favorite. We didn't have any issues playing 1080p files from a variety of sources, and we wouldn't have any hesitation doing a little light iMovie work on the side. On the straight benchmark front, the mini put up a Geekbench score of 3385, which is right in line with what we'd expect.

Where the mini does struggle is gaming performance. Although the GeForce 320M can handle less taxing games and lower resolutions just fine, it can't hang once you crank things up -- we averaged between 17-20fps running Portal at 1920 x 1200 with the default settings, and about the same when we ran it at 1080p connected to our TV. If you're willing to step it down, though, you should be fine -- we got 30fps running Half-Life 2 Episode 2 at 1280 x 800. Passable, but if you're a hardcore gamer you're probably not looking at Macs anyway.

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Mac Pro

Apple’s updated 2010 Mac Pro line was a long time coming, but it certainly addressed would-be buyers’ key complaint: the choice of processors. Now offering everything from a single Intel Xeon through to a pair of six-core chips, the new Mac Pro range claims to be “the most powerful, most configurable Mac ever.” We’ve had a dual-processor quadcore Mac Pro on the SlashGear test bench for a couple of weeks; check out our full review after the cut.


Our review unit slots into the middle of the updated Mac Pro range, with two of Intel’s 2.4GHz quadcore Xeon E5620 CPUs, 6GB of 1066MHz DDR3 memory and an ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB video card. With a 1TB 7,200rpm hard-drive it comes in at $3,499 – for $1,000 less you can have a single 2.8GHz Xeon quadcore and half the memory, while for $1,500 more there’s the dual 2.66GHz hexacore Xeon flagship. Still no Blu-ray – not even the option – so it’s a standard 18x SuperDrive, four PCI Express 2.0 slots, five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports. Networking options include two-gigabit Ethernet ports, Bluetooth 2.1 and WiFi a/b/g/n.

Take off the side panel – an easy task with the flip-up (and lockable) latch on the back – and Apple’s unusual interior layout is revealed. Everything is sectioned off, with the processors and memory at the bottom in a pullout tray, the PCI Express 2.0 slots in the middle, and then the four 3.5-inch hard-drive bays slung above. Each bay has a drive carrier that a standard SATA 3Gb/s drive clips into, before slotting – cable free – into place. Our review unit had a single 1TB drive, but you can specify up to 8TB of traditional HDDs or up to four 512GB SSDs and an optional RAID controller for drive redundancy (RAID levels 0, 1, 5 and 0+1 supported).

Slick design, a sensible layout and plenty of ports are no use at all if the core system doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain, and happily the 2010 Mac Pro is capable of some serious crunching. We performed some of our benchmark testing natively in OS X, and then other elements in Windows 7 Ultimate running in either Parallels or Boot Camp. It’s common for Mac Pro owners to spend at least part of their time in a dual-booting or multimode environment, depending on the software tools they’re reliant on, and so we felt this would give a more balanced view of the desktop than OS X figures alone.

We started out with Geekbench, a synthetic test of processor and memory performance. Tested natively in OS X 10.6.4 Snow Leopard (with the latest patches and updates installed), the Mac Pro scored 14,378. In comparison, a 2009 Mac Pro – with a single Xeon 2.66GHz processor but 12GB of DDR3 memory, a configuration costing roughly the same as the machine in today’s review – scored 9,600.

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iPhone 4s

It was the most anticipated iPhone announcement since iPhones begun. In the 16 months from the launch of the iPhone 4, we've had antennagate, the unveiling of iOS 5 and three versions of Google Android's Honeycomb.  

The world's handset manufacturers have also been playing a fierce game of catch up, releasing a raft of ever-improving smartphones with faster processors and more features. All trying to steal a march over Apple and its seemingly unstoppable freight train of success.

Many T3 readers have told us how they'd forgone the iPhone 4 because of reported signal problems, or were tied into long 3GS contracts. They were itching for something new. Something special. Something worth waiting for. So, when Phil Schiller took to the stage to announce the long-awaited 'iPhone 5' last week, he needed to pull something big out of the iBag.

What we got was the iPhone 4S. The most powerful iPhone Apple has ever made, yet criticised by many as nothing but a cosmetic upgrade.

So how different is it and, crucially, is it worth upgrading? We've been living with the iPhone 4S, iCloud and iOS 5 for a few days. Here's what we think, in a few words...

iPhone 4S Unboxing
Out of the box, the 4S looks identical to its older sibling bar the distinguishing birthmark of a brace of top-mounted incisions signifying that a new antenna design lurks within. Switch on the phone, however, and things are different.

Unless you're restoring the data from an older iTunes backup, the 4S doesn't require a computer for activation. You can restore the phone from an iCloud account, or set up as a new phone. If you don't have an Apple ID, you have the option to create one.

iCloud can also be activated from the phone for storing and wirelessly pushing photos, apps, contacts, calendars to and from your 4S. The whole process, whether restoring from iTunes or setting up fresh, takes less than five minutes. And because it's the same case design, iPhone 4 users can just swap over their SIM card.

Unfortunately, in-app information isn't transferred, so you'll need to re-enter login details, re-download offline Spotify playlists and re-affirm personalised settings in every app that requires it.  An obvious security measure by Apple, but it was these actions that took the longest to complete.


The iPhone 4S hardware changes (processor)
Many iPhone 4 owners will be asking themselves why they need an iPhone 4S when the free iOS 5 upgrade will equip their current phone with most of the new 200-odd features. We'll get into the meat of those features later, but know this: Apple has built its best phone to date.

The new A5 dual-core processor (as seen in the iPad 2) makes things noticeably nippier. Apps launch quicker, web pages load faster, multi-tasking is more fluid and resource-hungry apps like Pages now allow you to edit documents without any lag. Competitors will argue that their phones have been able to produce similar results for months, and they'd be right, but it remains a welcome (if a little late) upgrade.

The processor also supercharges the iPhone 4S's graphical prowess. We tried Real Racing 2 HD and, while the visuals were a little smoother, we didn't notice the 7x improvement as claimed by Apple. This is because games will need to be tuned to take advantage of the new chip. We had a demo of Infinity Blade 2 (confirmed to launch later this year) at the iPhone 4S launch and were blown away by the detail and speed of the polygon pushing. We're talking PSP Vita graphics, if not better.

Another benefit of having the A5 processor is to mirror 4S content over AirPlay. Wirelessly, the 4S will push out 720p to an Apple TV. Over connected HDMI, that will jump to 1080p. The simplicity of pushing small-screen content to the big screen on the fly is a neat trick, especially when you start rotating and zooming. It's also something to brag to iPhone 4 owners; T3 was told that the older model simply can't cope with the demands of such technological wizardry.

The potential for playing games on the big screen from your phone is something Sony and Nintendo should keep an eye on, too. Note that, in our demo, the super-charged Infinity Blade 2 was jumpy over wireless. Tiny Wings has never looked better, though.

The iPhone 4S antenna
Antennagate rocked Apple's world for the wrong reasons after the launch of the iPhone 4, so we were keen to see how the new design 'improves call quality' and 'reduces risk of dropout'.

Both the 4S's antennas, which run around the top of the phone, can transmit and receive data, allowing for faster 3G connections. Apple claims that maximum download speed over HSDPA is 14.4Mbps – twice as fast as the iPhone 4.

In the few days we've been testing, we haven't noticed an improvement in call quality and didn't experience any dropouts. But we have definitely seen faster download speeds over 3G and quicker  web page loading. T3.com took an average of 5 seconds to load on the iPhone 4S, compared to an average of 8 on the iPhone 4.

We also ran the SpeedTest app (on O2-UK network) and got an average of 3.34Mbps download and 1.45Mbps upload. On the older iPhone 4, on the same network in the same location, we achieved average results of 2.32Mbps download and 1.31Mbps upload.

We also tried the death grip (for old times' sake) and didn't see any signal bars dropping off a cliff. Hurrah.

The iPhone 4S camera
The camera's had a major overhaul, now capable of taking eight-megapixel stills and recording 1080p video. Apple claims upgrades to the optics allow for more light, better colours and improved white-balancing. We didn't dismantle the 4S to find out, but did take a range of shots in a variety of conditions to test the assertion.

Photos are crisper, no question, but it can't compete with traditional cameras with bigger lenses in low light. You can now choose to have a grid on the screen when taking shots, perform basic image-editing within the Camera Roll and jump straight to the camera function via a shortcut.

Log into Twitter and you can post photos from the Camera Roll directly to your feed. It's quick and makes a cute tweet sound when sent into cyberspace. Anti-cutes can, however, switch off this slice of audible joy before tucking into their sour-faced sandwiches.

iOS 5 brings with it the option to use the '+'  button as shutter when taking landscape shots. Face detection is also an upgrade and works well.

The 1080p, 30fps camera is impressive. Clarity and detail are excellent and the A5 processor allows for image stabilisation of the go. Shaky hand, be gone. We played back footage on our 47-inch TV and, even in full screen, video quality was great. We can hear the home camcorder industry wincing from here.

Sound quality is limited due to the small in-built microphones, but good enough for most things, especially YouTube where videos can be uploaded directly from the 4S. Which leads us onto a point of compromise; with an upgrade in image quality comes an increase in file size and it's no wonder Apple needed to launch a 64Gb version. You'll also want to do more uploading and sending over wi-fi as not to upset your network operator and/or bank balance.

Let's get Siri-ous
The main talking point of the iPhone 4S, quite literally, is Siri – a voice-controlled in-built app that acts like your own PA. Hold down the home button to launch Siri and then ask it to perform certain tasks. We barked a variety questions and demands, all with varying responses and success rates, which can be seen as follows:

The command “call my wife” resulted in Siri asking who our wife was from our address book. Once confirmed, repeating the same instruction resulted in a call to the wife. 1-0 Siri.

“What is 477 multiplied by the circumference of the moon?” we asked. Siri consulted the Wolfram Alpha engine and presented an accurate and detailed result. It's 6786.03 miles, in case you were wondering. 2-0 Siri.

T3: “Set a reminder to buy some milk tomorrow” Siri: “Calling Simon now” 2-1 Siri

Nevertheless, what makes Siri so clever is how it can maintain a conversation to perform a task. While driving we asked, through our headphone mic,: “what's the weather like in London tomorrow?”, to which Siri dutifully replied. ''Rainy”. We then followed with: “And on Sunday?” and Siri was clever enough to contextualise the conversation and give us a report: “Weather for this Sunday is....Rainy.”

You can also have fun with Siri – asking it things like the meaning of life, the meaning of naughty swear words, why Siri exists, or whether Brian Blessed has the loudest voice in human history. The results can be entertaining. We'll leave you to discover them.

Siri needs at least a 3G connection to operate and we found that Wi-Fi works better. It's presently in beta, so we're expecting some improvement as and when updates are released.

Albeit fascinating and entertaining, we don't think Siri is reason alone to upgrade to a 4S. It's undeniably amazing technology but we just can't see how often people will use it. Asking it to do things like “set the alarm for 6.30am tomorrow morning” will save a few buttons clicks, but most things we asked of it are quicker to do manually. Apart from the moon calculation bit.

If you do decide to form a relationship with Siri, a word of warning: your partner will go mental. Smartphones already come between us and our dearest, so striking up a conversation with a robot rather than talking to your beloved, or Siri being the last person you talk to before falling asleep might just be a step too far in today's society.

iPhone 4S and iCloud
The notion of cloud computing is still a mystery to many and we were pretty skeptical as to how Apple, the maestros of uncomplicated explanation, would decipher this one for the mainstream.  But therein lies the genius, you don't have to understand how iCloud works to get it working or benefit from it. You just need to enter your Apple ID and start using your Apple kit.

Mail, contacts, calendars, reminders, bookmarks, notes, are all updated whenever you make a change. It takes the pain out of worrying where things are and gives you time back. We're amazed Apple is giving everyone 5GB of storage free, but think an upgrade (and accompanying annual subscription) will be all but necessary for those with a half decent media collection.

iTunes in the Cloud isn't currently available in the UK so we haven't been able to test music, movie and app syncing.

PhotoStream is a cool feature of iCloud but we found the time between taking a picture on the 4S and it appearing in our iPhoto stream slow. We'll update as to whether this was a case of teething.

Notifications
Although part of iOS 5, rather than iPhone 4S-specific, notifications are a a great addition to the art of using an iPhone. Run your finger down the top of the screen to bring up a list of your latest feeds from Twitter, Mail, Facebook, calendar and reminders, among others. You can customise what appears in the list and how notifications appear – in the centre of the screen or a banner at the top of the phone. Again, many phones already have this, but it'll be a welcome first for iPhone fans.

iPhone 4S Battery
Battery life has also been improved. Apple claims 8 hours of 3G talk time, upto 9 hours of wifi use, 10 hours video playback and 40 hours of musical pleasure. In our experience, we can say that when compared to the iPhone 4, all of these activities had less of a drain on battery. Whether this will still be the case in six months time, we'll have to see. We did notice the battery draining a little quicker when in standby, however.

Among the 200-odd new features in iOS 5 and other things we've noticed thus far, here's a collection of what's floating our boat on the iPhone 4S. And what isn't...

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