Apple fan mods Mac Mini into "Mac Pro Mini"
By Jonathan Schlaffer
Apple is missing a desktop from its line-up; something to sit between the Mac Mini and Mac Pro. An Apple fan has taken it upon himself to mod the Mac Mini into a “Mac Pro Mini.” If anyone from the company is reading, consider making this but with a few alterations.
Hideo Takano took it upon himself to take a Mac Mini and put it inside a case that resembles a Mac Pro case, only much much smaller.
Inside there is a Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz processor, 500GB hard drive and 2GB of memory; still no expansion slots. That is what Apple needs, something like this mod, only with a few expansion slots.
The problem with the Mac Mini is once you have bought it from Apple, that’s the configuration you live with for the life of the computer. No graphics cards, no sound cards, that’s it. Unless you want to purchase a Mac Pro, the choice of Mac desktops is rather limited.
Apple could easily make a desktop like the “Mac Pro Mini” mod but with the addition of say, two PCI and one PCI Express x16 slots for the addition of a graphic and sound card. WiFi and BlueTooth could even be options for it.
How about it, Apple? Make that and I would most certainly consider buying a Mac desktop; maybe a lot of other people would too, namely, PC switchers who are more or less used to that form factor and expandability in the $1,200 to $1,500 price range.
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March 14th, 2008
500GB hard drive?
Holy Crap….I wish!
March 14th, 2008
Apple isn’t going to market a model like you’re describing because it would eat into sales of more expensive, higher margin models. They would sell a fair amount of these super mini’s, but they would also sell less Pro models. Apple has never been about market share, just market positioning for their target demographic. They’ve had this hole forever, unless you want to count the specialized education Mac models.
You’ve got to think a great deal of care and market analysis goes into the models they sell. Jobs isn’t exactly a sloppy macro manager. The biggest sellers grabbing switchers are the laptops. I wouldn’t hold my breath, but I would probably spring for one.
March 22nd, 2008
I’m limping along with my dear G4 Cube until Apple comes out with something like a G5 Cube or a Super Mac Mini…and I will hold out! Do you hear me Apple?! There are legions of people waiting for this kind of machine both in the PC wanna transfer over and the Mac loyals. We are waiting…