We’d happily keep an iMac on our desk, but we can see one minor downside: If you buy an iMac and want another monitor, you’ll want to buy a Cinema Display to match the design - and they’re not cheap. We don’t have any complaints about the design at all - it’s minimalist and looks excellent. The recent Apple iMac refresh is almost all internal - the only external changes on our 27in test model compared to the last generation iMac are the two Thunderbolt ports (an identical shape to the previous MiniDisplay Port, but with a different symbol above them).
You can also order both the Magic Mouse and Trackpad together, for an extra $99.
#MAC MINI REVIEW 2011 I7 MAC#
We think this is a move by Apple to get more users ready for OS X Lion, which brings a lot of the gestures found in iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad to the Mac desktop. Both the Magic Trackpad and Magic Mouse are touch sensitive and have support for multitouch gestures. You can also opt for an Apple Magic Trackpad when you order a new iMac from the online Apple Store - we would, but that’s because we’re navigating OS X with a trackpad. And as indicated above, we're just getting started as we work through our suite of real world tests.The iMac’s all-in-one design makes it easy to set up, especially since the bundled Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Mouse don’t need to be plugged in. We plan to include more permutations of MacBook Air in the mix. The dedicated AMD GPU, as expected, is stronger in 3D gaming and animation but the limited VRAM hampers it in the Motion playback.
#MAC MINI REVIEW 2011 I7 PRO#
As you can see from the graphs, it falls somewhere between the 2.7GHz MacBook Pro and the 1.8GHz MacBook Air in CPU crunching power. Notice I squeezed the 2011 Mac mini in the middle of the graphs for yet another perspective.
This will be further illustrated with soon-to-be posted tests using After Effects, Aperture, Final Cut Pro, etc. Though more than adequate for mere mortal tasks (Safari, Mail, etc.), the 2011 MacBook Air remains at the bottom of the Mac "food chain" when running apps that stress the CPU, GPU, and memory. For serious laptop gamers and 3D animators, you'll want a MacBook Pro with a dedicated GPU. In the case of Portal, it was only barely faster than last year's MacBook Air. The 2011 MacBook Air Core i7 is twice as fast as the 2010 MacBook Air Core 2 Duo in four of the five tests we featured on this page.
The other two Macs were running OS X Snow Leopard. The 2.3GHz MacBook Pro, the 2.5GHz Mac mini, and the 1.8GHz MacBook Air were running OS X Lion. 2011 MBP 2.3 Core i7 = 2011 MacBook Pro 2.3GHz quad-Core i7 with 8G of 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM and AMD Radeon HD 6750M GPU with 1G DDR5 memoryĢ011 MBP 2.7 Core i7 = 2011 MacBook Pro 2.7GHz dual-Core i7 with 8G of 1333MHz DDR3 and Intel HD 3000 integrated GPU that "borrows" up to 512M of main memoryĢ011 mini 2.5 Core i5 = 2011 Mac mini 2.5GHz dual-Core i5 with 4G of 1333MHz DDR3 and AMD Radeon HD 6630M GPU with 256M DDR5 memoryĢ011 MBA 1.8 Core i7 = 2011 MacBook Air 1.8GHz dual-Core i7 with 4G of 1333MHz DDR3 and Intel HD 3000 integrated GPU that "borrows" up to 384M of main memoryĢ010 MBA 2.13 = 2010 MacBook Air 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo with 4G of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM and NVIDIA GeForce 320M GPU that "borrows" up to 256M of main memoryĪll four laptops had Apple's 256GB Solid State Drive.