New Mac Mini Gets Better Processors, Loses Optical Drive

by Christina Warren

In addition to releasing a new MacBook Air and OS X Lion, Apple also updated the venerable Mac miniWednesday.

Like the upgraded MacBook Air, the dual-core Intel Core i5 processors are standard on the new Mac mini, putting the Core 2 Duo days behind us. The new Mac mini with Lion Server goes one step further, shipping with a quad-core Intel Core i7. Taking another cue for the MacBook Air, the Mac mini now ships without an optical drive. Apple says this allowed for faster processors, better graphics chips and a lower price.

The new Mac mini line also includes support for Apple’s Thunderbolt technology, which means it can connect to the new Apple Cinema Display, as well as a growing list of Thunderbolt-compatible storage devices. The mini still supports Mini DisplayPort and HDMI out.

The basic Mac mini starts at $599 and includes a 2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 2GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. For $200 more, users can upgrade to a 2.5GHz processor, 4GB of RAM and AMD Radeon HD 66430M graphics. The $799 model can also be configured with a dual-core i7.

The Mac mini with Lion Server is $999 and it ships with a quad-core i7, 4GB of RAM and dual-500GB hard drives. The $799 Mac mini looks like it hits the sweet spot between price and performance.

What do you think of the new Mac mini? Any plans to add one as an HTPC or for the home office? Let us know in the comments.

Report: Motorola Xoom, HTC Thunderbolt Due This Month

• By Mike Isaac

Someone screwed up at Best Buy this morning, letting slip two big product release dates. Now we may be seeing a new Android-powered tablet and smartphone sooner than we thought.

Onsale dates for Motorola’s new Xoom tablet and HTC’s Thunderbolt smartphone were posted to a Best Buy retailer’s Facebook page early Friday morning. According to the Grand Rapids, Michigan Best Buy store’s status update, we should expect the Xoom to debut on February 23 and the Thunderbolt on February 14.

The status update has been promptly taken down from the page, as the higher ups at Motorola and HTC probably wanted to wait to announce the product debuts at Mobile World Conference, a major mobile industry event occurring in Barcelona, Spain in mid-February.

We can’t say for sure whether or not the release dates will be firm. “The info from the Grand Rapids store was posted in error, as the details included are not yet finalized,” a Best Buy spokesperson told Wired.com. “We will share updated and accurate information when we have it.”

Details on the Xoom have been sparse since the tablet’s announcement at CES in early January. Speculation has filled the void of information — a previously leaked internal Best Buy memo showed a potential $800 price tag for the Xoom, which will run on the upcoming Android update to version 3.0 (Honeycomb). We do know, however, that the tablet touts a 1-GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, a 5-megapixel back facing camera, and a 2-megapixel front facing camera for video chat.

Motorola’s upcoming Xoom-promoting Super Bowl ad will also tease the company’s tablet, while simultaneously taking a shot at Apple’s famous 1984 Super Bowl ad, making the Cupertino-based company out to be an Orwellian version of itself: