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THE LATEST OVERPRICED CREATION from Apple’s Mac Mini line has gone under the scalple showing just how much over the odds fanbois are willing to pay for a shiny logo and some angular industrial design.

Apple’s Mac Mini is supposed to represent a low-cost Macintosh computer and years ago it was not a bad bit of kit for the price. However the latest version, which came out earlier this week, costs upwards of £529 and Apple thinks a £849 version can be used as a server. But after the chaps at Ifixit took the latest Mac Mini apart we were left to wonder whether you could even stuff £529 worth of tenners into an empty Mac Mini.

Being fair to Apple, its design department has been very clever in slimming down the Mac Mini further. No smoke and mirrors here, oh no, just remove the built in DVD writer and watch the fanbois fawn over ‘cleaner lines’, creating an opportunity for Apple to flog the same USB drive it offers Macbook Air customers for £66.

After taking the lid off Apple’s ‘mid 2011′ Mac Mini, the Ifixit boys found out that there is enough space for a second hard drive, though Apple doesn’t provide the connections required to hook one up to the motherboard. However Apple kindly offers fanbois the option to make use of this space by opting to have a 750GB SATA drive and a 256GB SSD for only £600, doubling the cost of a Mac Mini. At that sort of price the space inside the Mac Mini is priced higher per square inch than most of London’s Zone 1.

On the whole Apple has done a very good job of packaging the pint size money hole, and it should be commended that it can fit a 2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 chip into such a small space.

What users can easily do, as is evident from Ifixit’s teardown, is upgrade RAM and the hard drive easily, which is probably more than what most fanbois would ever dare to do. That said, after spending so much to buy a Mac Mini, most fanbois won’t have the cash left over to upgrade anyway. µ

NETWORK OPERATOR Three has confirmed it is selling the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc and Samsung Galaxy Mini smartphones from today.

The Xperia Arc is one of two smartphones that go on sale today, the other being the Xperia Play gaming phone. The Xperia Arc is a large display phone with a 4.2-inch touchscreen that has 854×480 resolution and is powered by Sony’s Mobile Bravia graphics engine.

There are various ways of getting hold of the Xperia Arc from Three with different contract or non-contract options. The cheapest contract is a £35 per month 24 month deal and comes with 5,000 txts, 5,000 minutes and a 1GB data allowance. The phone is available on pay as you go for £449 with numerous 30 day plans.

A similar phone on the market currently is the HTC Desire HD which has a slightly larger display at 4.3-inch with 480×800 resolution. The Xperia Arc is a fair amount lighter and thinner at 8.7mm at its thinnest point due to its concave rear and 117g compared to the Desire HD’s 11.8mm and 164g. Both have 8MP cameras and run Google’s Android operating system. The Xperia Arc will come loaded with Android 2.3 Gingerbread but the Desire HD currently has Android 2.2 Froyo, which according to HTC will receive an update to Gingerbread soon.

Three is also selling the Samsung Galaxy Mini from today. The Galaxy Mini is Samsungs budget Android phone, comparable to Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10 Mini, and is available on contract from £15 per month or on pay as you go for £99. The phone runs Android 2.2 Froyo and has a 3.14-inch capacitive touchscreen, WiFi, GPS and a 3MP camera. µ

We’ve seen more than our fair share of Pine Trail netbooks since their launch late last year. Performance has never been spectacular, but battery life and portability have been strong points. Today we’ve got a look at HP’s Mini 5102, which marks a couple of firsts for our Atom reviews. Not only is this the first “business” netbook we’ve reviewed, but it’s also our first look at what Broadcom’s Crystal HD decoder can do for Atom. Read on to see how HP’s latest compares to the competition.

For the first time since its introduction in 2005 Apple has significantly updated the design of the Mac mini. The new model is thinner, although it requires a bit more surface area. Basically a 13-inch MacBook Pro without the display, this new 9 Mac promises to be the most energy efficient desktop on the market. We look at its performance, power consumption and even compare it to a five year old Power Mac G5 to see how well Apple's mini update holds up.

Read on for the full review.

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