Well the release of Lion and two new Mac models have been highly anticipated and today they have been officially released. If you are running Pro Tools do not rush to install Lion as it is not yet qualified! Lion doesn't bring many more features to the table, however it does offer quite a few refinements, including re-sizable windows from any corner. You can read more here.
Appart from Lion, Apple today also released a new range of MacBook Airs and Mac Minis. The Airs now come with Core i5 and i7 processors claiming speeds up to 2.5 times as fast as the previous model.
What I was interested in was the new Mac Minis. These too have had the i5 and i7 upgrade and now appear to be a desktop version of the MacBook Airs. This includes the redesign of the housing to EXCLUDE the internal DVD drive. I was completely optimistic in hoping that this model may of included Blu-Ray as many people are using Mac Minis for home theater use. Apple have been having licensing issues with the inclusion of Blu-Ray drives, however I had hoped that this may have been resolved. Now if you want a Mac Mini you need to purchase an external SuperDrive separately. Something that MacBook Air owners have already been doing. I feel that Apple will lose sales on the Mac Mini on this detail alone... unless they release an external Blu-Ray drive in the near future. If you are wanting the mini for a HTPC you may be better off buying the recently outdated generation... it will be cheaper and includes an internal DVD drive!
1 comment:
I've been tempted by the new Mac Mini... but I cannot decide if the lack of a superdrive is a deal-breaker, purely because of the option to buy an external blu-ray drive to replace it. I already have a PS3 to play my blu-ray movies, and as the mini is most likely to spend its life plugged into my TV to save on buying a HDMI compliant monitor, that's not really a terrible loss even if I have to wait for Apple to create some sort of support for blu-ray. Also, I've noticed that I haven't used a CD in my MacBook for around half a year, so even passively I don't think I'm reliant on the CD drive any more, especially with 4 USB, one Firewire 800 and a (one day relevant) Thunderbolt port.
Lion does make me question however; I'm still on Leopard here! No Snow Leopard has ever graced this laptop, so if I upgrade, I wonder if it's wiser to upgrade hard, to slowly work my current computer up using the upgrade CD that I got around a year ago to ease into it.
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