In mid-2010 Apple released a different version of their little plastic block of computing goodness known as the Mac Mini. The newer iteration switched over to a hefty chunk of machined aluminum and actually made it possible to easily upgrade some parts. After Hell thawed out it was a popular little computer for folks who were interested in seeing what all of this Macintosh stuff was about.
The machined aluminium body was what Apple called a Unibody. Around three pounds, the unit is a 7.7 inch square and 1.4 inches tall. The bottom of the computer had a large round plastic disk that folks could rotate a few degrees and remove to see the innards. Right on top (assuming you opened the disk and the computer was upside down on your bench), on the right-hand side you can see 2 GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (PC3-8500) memory, in the form of two 1 GB RAM units. The Unibody Mac Mini could be updated to 8 GB of memory or, if you flashed the unit, you could even get to 16 GB of technically unsupported memory.
The CPU was a non-upgradable 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (P8600) processor soldered to the logic board. The graphics were supplied by an on-board, non-upgradable NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor with 256 MB of shared memory. The only thing on the front of the unit is a slot for the 8X dual-layer SuperDrive.
The back of the computer had plenty of ports, including an HDMI and a Mini DisplayPort, a Firewire port, four USB 2.0 ports, audio line in and audio line out/headphone minijacks, a 10/100/1000Base-T Ethernet port, built-in AirPort Extreme (802.11a/b/g/n), a Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, and an SD card slot. The power button is also located on the rear of the unit.
The model is A1347, MC270LL/A, Macmini4,1 for those who like to delve into the arcane details. The original sales price was $699, a bargain for anything that had "Apple" in the pedigree.
These days the Mac Mini is terribly underpowered but they can allow folks to have a Mac without breaking the bank. You can pick up these older units on Ebay for $100, upgrade the RAM to 8GB for $31, and replace the original 320 GB 5400-rpm SATA 2.5-inch form factor drive with a much faster SSD unit for $50. It's a bit more involved but replacing the drive is easy. Just make sure you reconnect the little temperature sensors on the drive so your Mac cooling fan doesn't run full-blast all the time.
Why bother, you ask? There are some folks who like the Mac for its Unix-based operating system, and the mid-2010 supports up to OSX 10.13.6 with no issues. You can push it further but the tradeoff is lots of hardware/software compatibility problems.
I just found I had one of these units in a box in storage, so I updated the hard drive and the RAM. I need a Mac because I have some software that only works on Apple products. In this case it's Vellum, which I use to generate eBooks. I do have a Macbook Air but I use that just for writing novels and stories. Now I have a dedicated machine that I can use to work on the book production side and I don't have to worry about someone stealing it at a convention. Also, it saves the landfill from some nasty compounds that would leech out if I tossed the unit.
If you sell ebooks or upload podcasts to the Apple store having a Mac makes things much easier.
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