Okay, I was almost two months off of my prediction of an upgrade to the Apple Mac mini desktop, but everyone and their mother believed that Macworld would've been the place for it to happen. It just makes sense to announce something that everybody wants to a collection of your biggest fans and fanatics, making the last appearance to the expo more special than it was (No Steve Jobs, and Office software? Really?!). I know I can't see you in my direct line of vision Cupertino, but know damn well I'm giving you the hardest “stink eye” I can muster from here in my non-existent shrine of all things Apple. I hope you can feel that.

But I digress. I am happy that they've finally refreshed the Mac mini, and they've even taken further steps into upgrading and lowering the premium prices on the iMacs, and even the Mac Pro joined the late party and picked up a good bag as well. Here are all of the the upgrades in brief:

The Mac mini now has faster Core 2 Duo's, the much-needed 9400 M integrated graphics from Nvidia, higher spec'd DDR3 memory, and roomier Serial ATA hard drive options. If you look at the external side of things, you'll see that the cute square-footed desktop now boasts five USB ports, and two display ports (1 Mini DisplayPort, 1 mini DVI Mac Display port), the usual gang of Ethernet and audio, and I have some mixed excitement in seeing that the proprietary Firewire is making another appearance on the machine.

The iMac received a nice price drop across the line, brining the 24-inch down to the old 20-inch price point ($1,499) lowering the 20-inch to a new low of $1,199, too. The 20-inch now sports the new Nvidia graphics as well (GeForce 9400M), the 24-inch has the option of replacing the integrated graphics with a discrete graphics card (either Nvidia's modest GeForce 120/130GT's or ATI's decent Radeon 4850). You can see that separate from faster Core 2 Duo's and more memory and hard drive options, there are only a few minor changes left to really point out, like the lack of Firewire in exchange for another USB 2.0 port. Overall, the price drop and graphics options are what really make this a reasonable option compared to the computers offered by the competing manufacturers.

Finally, the Mac Pro was the target for standard upgrades as well, increasing the electronic speed limits of both its processors (sporting the new server-grade Intel Xeon “Nehalem” cores), and refreshed graphical options (now with the Nvidia GeForce 120 GT, and optional Radeon 4870). Also, the price dropped $300, from the old $2,800 to the new $2,500. There isn't too much to really see that's new about the Mac Pro, but do take note that this machine still follows the rule of “serious computing is serious business, bub”. And if that holds true to you, then I'll remind you that Intel is finishing up on developing their prize 8-core processors this year, which leads me to imagining a 16-core Mac Pro in the not too distant future. Because if you're going to spend that kind of money for serious business then don't let the price drops distract you from spending it well; and get something more worth your time that'll last well through another generation or two.

Apart from the Airport Extreme and Time Machine getting a new wireless networking system (dual-banding wifi, meaning your devices can connect to these peripherals on different frequencies (2.4GHz and 5GHz) at the same time, there isn't really anything more to be said. So what would I recommend given these changes to Apple's hardware, where is your money well spent?

In my opinion, for a daily use machine that has some graphical strength, it has to be the Mac mini. People with adequate tech experience should look into taking advantage of the $599 standard mini and reap the benefits of the Core 2 Duo and Nvidia 9400M chipset. Buy the basic Mac mini, upgrade the processor if you can afford it (ups the price to $749), and splurge on third party upgrades to the memory and hard drive. To max out the potential in this day and age (meaning 500GB hard drive, and 4GB of memory) would cost somewhere in the ballpark of $170, which is hundreds cheaper than what Apple would charge you for from the factory. Just take your time in removing the case, keep track of the few cables you disconnect, and replace them in the right order. Use your included system disc to install OS X on your new drive, and enjoy the best price per performance value from Apple hardware that your sub-$919 can buy.