MacPrices.net

The Mac mini’s Essentially A MacBook Inside; Can It Serve As A Laptop Replacement?

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

by Charles W. Moore

iSuppli Corp. reports that while its teardown of the latest Mac mini demonstrates Apple’s ability to make computers better, smaller, and more attractive, those achievements come at a premium due to the mini’s use of internal components designed for mobile PCs, according to iSuppli’s Teardown Analysis Service.

The teardown revealed that the current entry-level Mac mini model carries a Bill of Materials (BOM) totaling $376.20, its cost rising to $387.14 when manufacturing costs are factored in, which is of course more than the retail cost of many cheapo PC desktops and netbooks.

“Unlike most desktop computers from other brands, the Mac Mini and, indeed, Apple’s entire Mac line make extensive use of components designed for notebook computers,” commented Andrew Rassweiler, director and principal analyst for iSuppli. “This enables the Mini and other members of Apple’s computer line to achieve their very sleek and compact form factors, and to reduce energy consumption. However, the use of these components, along with other cost adders like software, yields a computer that is more expensive to make.”

For example the latest Mac mini comes with the Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics and I/O controller hub chipset used in recent MacBooks and most MacBook Pros, a laptop-style 2.5-inch Hard Disk Drive and a slim form factor laptop-type Optical Disk Drive.

Actually, Apple has a long history of grafting laptop technology into desktop computers. There was a great deal of commonality in the internal engineering of the original teardrop iMac G3s and the contemporaneous WallStreet and Lombard PowerBooks back in 1998-1999.

The G4 iMac packed a fair bit of Titanium PowerBook engineering into its hemispherical CPU housing, while early G4-based Mac minis shared engineering with the then-current G4 iBooks, and there has been a great deal of laptop-developed technology used in the current form-factor iMacs in both their white and aluminum/glass iterations.

I consider this mainly a good thing because laptop computer components are designed for ruggedness and close tolerances, but it does arguably drive the cost of Mac desktops higher than would be the case if Apple used the cheaper internal componentry one typically finds in low-priced PC desktops.

Advantages of using laptop components in desktop units include their more compact dimensions that allow smaller, lighter and often more stylish or innovative desktop enclosures, lower power draw and heat generation allowing smaller power supplies -- The Mac mini uses a 110-watt external power supply -- more compact housings and less sophisticated, powerful, heavy, and noisy cooling systems. Downsides would include possibly lower performance compared with cheaper, bulkier, higher-volume conventional desktop components.

In its summary of the Mac mini teardown iSuppli notes that when they tore down the first Mac mini some four years ago, they discovered it was built ‘like a laptop without a keyboard, display or input device’, and that subsequently they’ve determined that many Apple desktop computer models use laptop components for the most part.

Besides the benefits to desktop users, this practice also indirectly benefits Mac laptop users like myself by enhancing the economies of scale for components commonly used by both laptop desktop models, therefore helping bring laptop computer prices down.

Notwithstanding its laptop-esque engineering, the Mac mini, which I’ve always admired, doesn’t qualify as a real portable computer because it has no internal battery power, but with a small power inverter that costs about 30 bucks you can be good to go anywhere, say in a car or RV, where you have access to 12 volt power.

So can the Mac mini serve as a viable laptop substitute? It depends. Not if you need a really portable computer of course. In that case get a MacBook, a MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air. However an awful lot of laptops sold these days are purchased for use primarily as desktop substitute computers that spend most of their time plugged into AC power, an external keyboard, mouse, other workstation peripherals and in many instances have an external monitor hooked up. My main production ‘Book can go for months at a time without ever being called on to run on battery power (I do maintain a “road” machine for mobile work). For mostly desktop laptop users like me, the “transportable” Mac mini presents an intriguing and potentially cheaper alternative to a ‘Book.

Now, personally, I wouldn’t want to be without a real, portable laptop, but I typically have three of them in active service, and a mini would theoretically be an excellent compliment to serve as a general-purpose workstation that’s still doesn’t take up much space and can be relatively easily moved around.

I’ve already been down this road, sort of. When the G4 Cube was unveiled in 2000 I was smitten with its smallness and elegant looks, and it immediately occurred that this new compact desktop Mac just might be a sensible alternative to my PowerBook. I got a Cube several months later, but discovered that while my idea I had sounded good in theory, in practice the Cube with its satellite speakers and speaker amplifier, external power supply for which “brick” was more than just a metaphor, along with a keyboard, mouse, and display, still needed about as much desktop space as my SuperMac S-900 tower. The tiny Mac mini has an internal speaker, a more reasonable, laptop-sized power adapter, and is itself about one-fifth the volume of the Cube CPU, so it should size up quite favorably compared with an iBook or PowerBook on a laptop stand connected to an external keyboard and mouse, at least provided you connect it to an LCD monitor instead of a humongous CRT.

I love small computers. Compactness is the essential quality of a laptop -- even my mighty 17-inch PowerBook. Light weight is also an attractive characteristic. I much prefer handling my 4.5 pound MacBook to my nearly seven-pound Pismos.

For me, the principal deficiency of the mini is its lack of battery power, not so much the lack of real portability, but because I live in a rural area where power outages are fairly common, which was another reason why I never really got comfortable with the Cube as a workhorse computer.

The workaround would be some sort of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and/or the aforementioned power inverter and a 12 volt automotive battery or power pack to run the mini rig off of during power interruptions. With its modest 110-watt power supply, 2.5-inch hard drive and an LCD display, the mini should be able to run for a fairly long time from a portable 12 volt power source.

As for the economics of this concept so far, so let’s take a look. The entry-level 2.0 GHz Mac mini starts at $599, and you can get a very decent keyboard and mouse combo, even from the Apple store, for about $60. Add a 24” Apple LCD Cinema Display for $899 and you’re up to $1558 -- $141 less than the base 15” MacBook Pro or 59 bucks more than the high-end 2.53 GHz 13” MacBook Pro, and I would personally opt for one of them at the price. However, if you shop around you can find very respectable 19"-20" third-party monitors for $125 to $150 such as the HP 20-inch 2009m pictured that colleague Joe Leo just picked up to use with his MacBook Pro, which lowers the mini setup price to about $800, or $200 less than even the price-leader white MacBook, which is where the concept gets really interesting.

Am I wavering in the laptop faith? Not at all. Were I to be limited to owning just one computer, it would definitely be a conventional laptop. However, the Mac mini offers as close to the laptop virtues as we’ve seen yet in a desktop computer, and really represents a crossover category -- the “transportable” computer, and deserves consideration as a desktop workhorse alternative.

CM