Newer Technology, Inc. today announced the NuCube Vertical, a handcrafted, made in the US acrylic enclosure that enables a 2010-2011 Mac mini to be placed into a vertical position to free-up desktop space and create a stunning visual display.
Quality, Elegance, and Operating Efficiency
The thick, 3/8″ polished clear acrylic of the NuCube Vertical turns a Mac mini into a computing work of art. By reorienting a mini into a vertical position within an elegant housing, the NuCube Vertical frees up useful desktop workspace with a visual presentation reminiscent of the acclaimed PowerMac G4 Cube. Plus, its unique design provides full access to a mini’s rear ports while enabling the mini to run cooler than the normal horizontal position.
NewerTech NuCube Vertical Features:
• Thick 3/8″ polished clear acrylic
• Full access to rear ports
• Heat tested…mini runs cooler in vertical position
• Saves desktop space
• Non-skid rubber feet
• Weighs 2.4lbs.
• Measures 2.16″ W x 8.75″ D x 8.75″ H
• Holds all Mac mini models after 2010
“The original NuCube for earlier Mac mini models was a big hit, so we’re sure new mini owners will love the new NuCube Vertical,” said Grant Dahlke, Brand Manager, Newer Technology Inc. “Both cool in appearance and offering cooler operation of the mini, the NuCube Vertical turns a new mini into a functional work of art.”
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I’d very much like to have a stand that would hold my 2011 Mac mini side-by-side with the
external Apple SuperDrive. Would two of these work OK? Granted, the SuperDrive might
rattle around a little inside the clear box.
We have an OWC turnkey mid-2010 Mac mini 2.66 GHz with 8GB OWC RAM and a 240GB OWC SSD, that has already had its MB replaced by Apple under warranty shortly after the upgrade. (The Apple tech at the Genius Bar was somewhat in awe.) I’ll likely be ordering one of these OWC/NewerTech acrylic plastic thingies shortly, so the beastie will fit on the user’s desk while presumably sucking in less dust.
I confess I’d already given up hope that Newer Technology would ever produce this vertical desktop stand for the Mac mini 2010-2011, and had resigned myself to having one custom CNC machined out of transparent aluminium when that material becomes more readily available. I’m grateful we won’t have to wait that long.
This announcement answers several long-standing questions.
Q: Has the original NuCube been successful enough for a follow-up product?
A: Yes. “The original NuCube for earlier Mac mini models was a big hit…”
Q: Still, would OWC eventually carry an updated NuCube for the mid-2010 Mac mini?
A: Yes…
Q: How long before that product would be announced?
A: Eighteen months.
As an long-standing OWC customer, I’m genuinely curious about some remaining, unanswered questions.
Q: What circumstances led to such a lengthy delay in bringing this product to market?
Market uncertainty? Lack of resources? Complex engineering? Testing issues? Manufacturing problems? Ennui?
Q: Given that the footprint of the NuCube for the 2010-2011 Mac mini is narrower than the original NuCube (2.16″ W vs. 2.875″ W — nearly .72″ or 25% narrower), and also 1/2″ taller, it ought to also be correspondingly less stable laterally. I imagined this could be a potential issue as soon as the mid-2010 Mac mini form factor was revealed. In the new NuCube, how often will it likely fall over in regular use on the user’s desk?
No matter how shiny pretty it is, if she keeps banging over, it’ll look foolish. I trust this has been taken into consideration, and it was determined (over the course of eighteen months?) that it wasn’t necessary to widen the footprint with flanges. That, or am I going to have to break out the superglue?
It is almost daunting the sheer amount of new products that Other World Computing and Newer Technology Inc. collectively bring to market each and every year, and honestly some products pull much more focus from our development team than others. This year in particular we’ve released the Newer Technology Power2U, expanded our line of award-winning Solid State Drives including the only 6Gb/s capable flash upgrade for the 2011 MacBook Air, and this coming week at part of CES we’re releasing even more cool stuff. Stay tuned to the blog as we post all of our new release announcements here first.
We’re also not willing to bring any product to market that doesn’t meet our exacting quality and performance demands. If we don’t feel we’d be perfectly happy using the product with our own machines, we don’t think our customers would be either. Several prototypes and iterations of all of our products are put through some pretty rigorous testing before we have a final product manufactured – such as strength and stability testing on the NuCube to insure that the narrower footprint and additional height doesn’t result in “Sudden Mini Toppling Syndrome”. :-)
Solid State Drives were on the market for a few years before we introduced our first. We simply weren’t satisfied with the technology ourselves and until we could design and manufacture a drive worthy of our name, we were not about to release a sub-par product. We feel that coming to market with the right product is much better than beta testing with early adopters. That same sentiment applies to all of our product lines, and our exacting standards do sometimes take more time as a tradeoff – but it’s a tradeoff we’d be happy to make again and again.
Thank you for your reply, OWC Michael! And also thank you for your personal reassurance regarding this product.
I can certainly understand that your development team doesn’t have unlimited man-hours and other resources, and they have certainly been busy — and productive. Just note that OWC would’ve had our order for this (deceptively?) simple follow-up product well over a year ago, had it been available. I really was beginning to imagine the delay was simply a matter of limited customer demand, and I had been seeking other solutions.
Anyway, if the user does have, shall we say, issues with it on her desk, I’ve decided I’ll suspend the Mac mini inside the NuCube six inches above the desk with virtually invisible nylon monofilament loops. That ought to generate a few startled reactions.
You folks do a good job, make great stuff, carry great products, and support them well. I’m looking forward to seeing what cool announcements you have this coming week here and at CES — as well as to continuing to do business with OWC for many more years to come.
How about a rack muntable mac minis for a datacenter?
Huh, heard of a lot of uses for the miniStack but a datacenter is a new one…typically multibay housings used…so curious how you would use?
Actually, while we do not manufacture one under the OWC or Newer Technology brands, we do carry rack mounts for the Mac mini perfect for datacenter usage:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Macessity/MX4V2/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/RACKMIN2X/
Still waiting for the data doubler . . .
Where’s the model that holds miniStack enclosures in addition to the Mac mini? ;-)