My trusty old 2010 Mac Mini is still going strong as the backbone of my network, however a few OS upgrades, a few more services for it to host, and it’s starting to creek under the pressure. I decided that as the current model was four years old, and was only the mid range version, it was time to upgrade.

I decided this time to go with the top of the range, not the upgraded top version, the simple off the shelf top of the range. This meant that not only couple I walk into an Apple store and pick one off the shelf, but I could also save myself £400 for a simple memory and processor bump.

A few notable differences between the two version. Only four USB 3.0 ports, instead of the six USB 2.0 ports on the back of the other, however there are now two thunderbolt ports. There is no longer a firewire port, you now need a £25 thunderbolt to firewire adapter to continue using your legacy device. This model now comes with the welcome addition of a built in SDXC card reader, and a HDMI port. The hight of this model is a lot shorter now, thanks to the removal of the DVD drive.

The model I went for was the

2.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i5,
8GB of 1600MHz LPDDR3,
1TB Fusion Drive
Integrated Intel Iris Graphics processor.

That’s about it, it does exactly the same as the previous version, just quicker.

Unboxing pics below.