Mac mini (Late 2009)

For those with older models considering an upgrade, a more-useful point of reference is the 1.83GHz 2007 Mac mini. Compared to this model, the late-2007 minis offer major performance boosts: The updated $599 model finished our benchmark tests in 29 percent less time, with the new $799 mini besting that older model by 36 percent.

Comparing the two new models directly, the $799 mini was 10 percent faster than the stock $599 mini in total time to complete our tests, although it was only 7.4 percent faster once we upgraded the $599 model to the same 4GB of RAM. Indeed, for some tasks, such as the Open Word Document in Pages test, the difference between the two new minis was significantly reduced by upping the RAM on the lower-end model.

Finally, comparing the new Mac minis to other current "consumer" Macs provides some additional perspective on performance. The new white Unibody MacBook was slightly faster than the $599 mini at completing our battery of tests, while the least-expensive new iMac was 28 percent faster than the new $599 mini and 20 percent faster than the $799 model.

Which to get

In my review of the early-2009 models, I noted that when deciding between the $599 and $799 models, the choice was easy: Despite the $599 Mac mini's paltry 1GB of RAM and small hard drive, the $200 premium you paid for the higher-end model got you only a $50 RAM upgrade and a larger--but still slow--hard drive. You could get much more value for your money by buying the lower-end model with Apple's RAM upgrade, and using the $150 you had left over to get a huge, fast, FireWire 800 drive.