You would certainly expect a speed boost when purchasing the 2012 Mac mini, although some people are wondering how much faster the new hardware is? Thanks to one popular Apple blog getting hands-on we now know that the 2012 Mac mini is roughly a third faster than the last generation, which has been decided after measuring the performance with Speedmark 8. The results were attained after running 15 individual tests, which deliver a single figure at the end of the hands-on

The image below reveals the 2012 Mac mini score for a graphics test and compares this to the mid 2011/2010 models. We’ve included a second table as well that shows the overall 2012 Mac mini review scores, Speedmark number, which also compares the figure to the last couple of generations as well. The full 2012 Mac mini review can be seen in this article, and you’ll be able to see a number of tests for different applications and more insight into the hardware on the latest generation.

We’ve also included a few videos below this article that feature an unboxing of the new 2012 Mac mini with an overview of the main specs, so take a look at the first and second video to see what you can expect inside the box. The third video shows an Ivy Bridge Geekbench test on the 2012 Mac mini, so feel free to take a look at this as well.

What do you think of the new Apple Mac mini, is it something you’d like under the Christmas tree? The 2012 iMac stole the show at the recent Apple event in our opinion, and this had been due to the radical redesign and new storage options. You can see our earlier article here that takes a look at the Fusion drive and other storage options for the new iMac.

We are starting to get a tingly feeling in our stomach following the growing rumors towards the 2012 iMac launch, and also the likelihood of a new Apple Mac mini also arriving at the same time. Most analysts and Apple fans agree that the Retina display isn’t going to be included in the 2012 iMac specs, but we can expect improved features with a price that stays pretty much the same.

Towards the end of last week we noticed the UK Apple Store had a new shipping date that didn’t follow the normal “in stock” message, so this hinted towards a new iMac for 2012 just like it has in previous years. This situation hasn’t changed with the shipping times, and they’re still sitting at 1-3 business days before shipping, which is pretty convenient considering there’s an Apple event tomorrow obviously featuring the iPad mini and most likely a refresh of the iMac as well.

The new iMac will feature a price point in 2012 similar to the cost of current models, so this should mean prices ranging from just under $1,200 to almost $2,000. There is a chance that the top-end 27-inch model could drop in price slightly with a 2012 refresh, although this might vary by country when taxes are taken into account.

Feedback from UK Apple Stores – It is worth noting that we rung two Apple stores in the UK today, and when we asked about stock of the 27-inch iMac we had been told there’s none. After asking when stock is likely to return, the two different staff members said “come in later in the week”, or “visit the website within the next couple of days”. Very strange, but this could also be confirmation of the 2012 iMac landing as well.

We’re also hearing that the new Mac mini, expected at the same Apple event on Oct 23, will also hold its price and should start at just under $600 and increasing up to just under $1,000, which would include better specs thrown in at no extra cost. It will be interesting to see what features are improved on both of these products, and the idea of RAM increasing as an option to 32GB could be welcomed a lot on the both computers.

UPDATE: See the new 2012 iMac here.

The idea of a slimmer 2012 iMac is a nice thought as we sit here looking at our year old model, although we’d need to see specs jump up considerably to upgrade so soon from our last update. We understand that not everyone is in that position and some of PR’s readers have been holding off purchasing an iMac in 2012 for a long time, so this refresh couldn’t come soon enough, or they’re going Mac for the first time but heard a new model will see a release date this year.

We reported last week that the 2012 iMac should be joining the iPad mini for a launch event next week, although a picture has surfaced on a Chinese forum claiming to be an internal part for the new iMac. You can see that forum post here, which has been translated into English, and reveals insight into the possible form factor for the final 2012 iMac design. If you see the leaked image disappear, one sure sign of its authenticity, then also try this source.

We saw Apple revamp the iPhone 5 display to help create a thinner device, and it seems that they’ve targeted the 2012 iMac screen as well with rumors stating it could be glued to the front glass, which will deliver better display quality and help towards a thinner design. We also expect the rear to be more curved than square, which shows this upgrade could be much more than a normal refresh although that would take a Retina display to really tempt some potential buyers.

Would you like a totally new design for the 2012 Mac Mini, or would just a specs upgrade be enough? Another report published within the last 24 hours states that a new Mac Mini will arrive in 2012, and would also be a feature at the event rumored for next week. We also hear that the Mac Mini will go live on the Apple Store right after the announcement, and the specs on the current model are aging fast with an update last year and the aluminum enclosure being a design revamped 2 years ago.

As we’ve stated before, if this Apple event will take place next week then the invitations will have to go out this week, so we are literally hours away from finding out if this press event will really happen and an invite that could hint towards what new products will be there. You can see a leaked inventory listing here that details the iPad mini price in Euros, although some people claim these prices are too high for a downsized Apple iPad.

Currently Apple’s MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac Mini offerings all feature a single FireWire 800 port (the Mac Pro has four), but if you compare functionality and transfer speeds to Thunderbolt you will see that FireWire 800′s days could be numbered. Also it’s far slower than USB 3.0 and devices are much more expensive in comparison, but will Apple decide to snub this interface in 2012? It’s a tough decision to make.

The image below shows just how much faster Thunderbolt is when compared to rival technologies, we previously explained how it’s faster than USB 3.0 and eSATA, however what’s most noticeable is just how much has changed over time and how FireWire 800 can no-longer be regarded as a fast means of transferring data.

In theory it would take FireWire 800 just shy of 5 minutes to transfer 25GB of data, however Thunderbolt has the potential to do the same in under 30 seconds. The biggest problem with both technologies is price, the Apple Store lists a 1TB FireWire 800 drive for $179.95 1TB, or a 2TB drive for $219.95, alternatively you can pay $479.95 for a 1TB Thunderbolt drive or $579.95 for a 2TB – to put this into perspective you can easily get hold a 1TB USB 3.0 drive for $115 or a 2TB USB 3.0 drive for $130. We don’t think Apple will adopt USB 3.0 – which means Mac owners will have to choose between pretty expensive FireWire devices or stupidly expensive Thunderbolt device – not much of a choice ey?

We honestly think that FireWire 800 has had a good innings and is now showing its age, snubbing the once-popular port for its 2012 line-up and dropping the price of Thunderbolt devices and cables would lessen the blow, but we’re sure that there’s enough Mac users out there with FireWire drives who would hate to hear that their ‘trusty old’ FireWire drive won’t plug into new Apple products.

As usual Apple has kept very quiet in regards to the next-generation of Mac offerings, therefore all this speculation about FireWire’s future is unfounded, we just can’t see any reason other than convenience to include it – can you?

Given the choice we’d sooner see USB 3.0 than FireWire, how about you? Want to save FireWire 800? Tell us why below!

In terms of design it’s cosmetics are pretty much the same as the previous model. And although the Mac Mini is a rather curious piece of machinery, it still falls short of what is to be expected. For one, you still have to get yourself a mouse, keyboard and a monitor to even make it functional.

Certain qualms aside, the Mac Mini is still beautiful to look at. It’s sure to catch the eye of any unsuspecting techno-geek, who will ask the question “exactly, what is it?” When you tell them it’s a mini PC, they will wonder exactly how everything can be so compacted into such a small 7.7 x 7.7 x 1.4″ box.

Being so small, it is also hard to fathom how they managed to fit an Ethernet, FireWire 800, a full-sized HDMI, Thunderbolt, SDXC, audio input and headphone port into the back. Then on top of that we get four USB 2.0 sockets, but why they are not USB 3.0, we just do not know. If you plan on using a monitor which only has a DVI input don’t worry Apple decided to include a HDMI-to-DVI adapter, if money is no concern for you check out the 27-inch Apple Thunderbolt LED display t.

On opening the bottom lid, you can see some of the components that the Mac Mini houses. The only thing to note is the two SODIMM 1GB memory modules, which even the most un-savvy PC fiddler could replace, preferably with bigger ones.

Another hindrance here is that Apple are still keeping the HDD away from prying eyes and hands, which means that you are stuck with a rather sluggish 500GB (5,400RPM) hard drive. After some vigorous testing by Engadget, they say that boot times were rather snappy (45 secs), and other mundane applications such as Office were pretty quick. It’s when some of the heavier applications such as Photoshop, Word, Firefox, Chrome, TweetDeck and Lightroom were open for a few hours that they really noticed heavy slowdowns in performance. Oh, and did we mention the lack of an optical drive too?

Yeah, it’s getting rather silly now right? Apple surely are pointing this towards the media market, but with no optical drive and no choice to even have a built-to-order Blu-Ray installed, you could almost say it is laughable. Ok, we can pay another $600 on top of the $599 you pay for the Mini itself just to replace the sluggish HDD with a 256GB SSD, but this still does not allow you to play audio CD’s, DVD’s, Blu-Ray, or install any media-bound software, is this a mistake? We think so…

Engadget have the full-review that you can take a look at, but be aware that they only marked it as a 6/10, citing good points as it’s gorgeous design, the inclusion of the Thuderbolt port, and it’s snappy performance, but the bad is pretty much explained above.

Have you had a chance to play with this years Mac Mini? Are the faults listed here just as bad as we think they are, or are you happy with what Apple have done with the 2011 release?

One thing that stayed the same was the need for an optical drive in the new MacBook Air, it took a while for us to get used to this first time around but many months on, you wonder why laptops have optical drives. The world is going digital in almost every way, and now the new MacBook Air has received a much-needed improvement to make the need for optical drives completely obsolete, and this comes thanks to “Internet Recovery”. This service will use Apple’s servers to reinstall Mac OS X Lion, meaning you can repair problems much easier than on any previous OS X.

The new Mac Mini is also drive-less, which is a first for the Mac Mini and should lead to the same benefits MacBook Air users have become used to. Do you think physical formats like discs are history? If you still love to go old school, then you can do so with the help of an external SuperDrive that will work with both the Mac Mini and MacBook Air.

Apple has been planning this move for a few years, which saw the first-gen Macbook Air without an optical drive in 2008. Back then the product was more niche thanks to the screen options and price, but this year the range of sizes and low price point, when Apple products are concerned, should only help more homes have a MacBook Air.

Do you favor digital downloads? What do you think of installing OS X Lion via the Mac App Store? You may want to read about redeem code problems for Mac OS X Lion, or the invalid serial number issue.

From what we have read it looks as though the price of a new MacBook Air could have around $100 shaven off its price, which is about £62 in the UK. This could certainly help with sales, and would be keeping in line with what they recently did with the iMac and MacBook Pro. 9 to 5 Mac admits that this is a small price cut, but it is better than nothing.

The reason for this drop is to try and counter fluctuations caused by currency, as we know that changes in this can greatly affect how much you will have to pay. But that is not the only reason for this rumored price cut; Apple has been working constantly to streamline its operations, and as such the savings made will be able to be passed on to the customer.

The current price of the MacBook Air in the US is $999 for the 11-inch version; this could be reduced to $899. So going at that rate this converts to a price cut of 10 percent. Now if this were to happen Apple could show to the world that they are not afraid to offer aggressive pricing on its new products.

Going back Mac OS X Lion, we had assumed that UK consumers would now have the update, but that did not happen. We had assumed that this was just another one of those rumors, but the news had to be reported. There are so many reasons why this date was not plausible, and one of them is with app developers for the new OS. It seems that they are having a few issues, and that they still need time to iron out a few kinks.

How bad would it be to launch Mac OS X Lion without full app support? At least we know that Mozilla has made sure that their browser is ready, as they have just issued Firefox 5.0.1 update. The reason was due to a constant crashing issue.

The upcoming ZBOX mini-PC was at the recent Computex event and on first impressions looks like one of the older Mac Mini models. Inside things are very different; the processor is a dual-core model from VIA with speed choices of 1.2 or 1.6GHz. This pales in comparison to the Mac Mini, as you have a choice of 2.4GHz or 2.66GHz.

As yet we have no details of how much RAM there will be, but with know that Apple’s little computer comes with either 2GB or 4GB. The ZBOX has 3 USB ports, whereas the Mac has 4. However, they both have HDMI and display ports and boast a multi-card reader.

Engadget is hoping that the price of the ZBOX mini-PC will not be as much as others on the market, but we do not believe that it will be. Zotac knows that they need to compete in a tough market; so getting the price right could be the difference between success and failure.

AnandTech has spent some time with the device to see if ASRock has upped its game, and we can tell right away how impressed they were. We were even more shocked to learn that they believe that the Vision 3D HTPC is the best small form factor that they have reviewed.

Let us have a brief look at the hardware to see what makes this SFF so special; the first and most important piece of hardware is the 2.4GHz Core i3-370M processor, which works well in conjunction with its GeForce GT425M GPU. That’s not all, 4GB of DDR3 RAM helps to handle all what is thrown at it.

The addition of Blu-ray and a HDMI port helps to make this one hell of a media PC, but the price tag does seem a little high at just under a $1000. For a detailed review of the ASRock Vision 3D HTPC visit AnandTech.

ColorWare allows you to add a little bit of your own personal choice to your Mac Mini, you can choose a color for main case itself and then the Apple logo on top. There is a huge choice of color combinations to choose from, just like you can with an iPhone 4 or the new Xbox 360.

You can choose from solid, metallic or pearl, these choices are offered in gloss or softtouch. The price for this service is $250, or if you prefer to purchase your Mac Mini directly from ColorWare then you will have to part with $1000.

If for some reason you do not find the color that appeals to you, then you can choose your own color with Pantone PMS. This will cost and extra $250 and you will be sent a sample for you to make certain that you like it before committing to it. For more details on this process visit ColorWare