Electronics repair service iFixit has given the new "unibody" Mac mini the teardown treatment, revealing a few interesting design decisions by Apple. Perhaps the most interesting revelation, however, is how Apple was able to drastically reduce the Mac mini's power requirements to fit the power supply inside the case and eliminate the external power brick.

As already revealed, Apple added a removable bottom panel, giving easy access to the installed RAM, a first for a Mac mini. Since the top is now part of the carved aluminum unibody, Apple routed Airport antennas to the plastic back panel where the ports live and to the bottom. Widening the design allowed Apple to route cooling pipes and heat sinks around the 2.5" hard drive and optical drive, which also let Apple shave over half an inch from the height, resulting in an overall volume reduction.

Speaking of hard drives, replacing the internal hard drive might be a bit of a DIY chore, though it doesn't appear to be any more difficult than in previous Mac minis. Apple says that as long as you don't damage anything, the warranty will still be valid, but with all the tight tolerances, swapping out a mini's hard drive is not for the faint of heart.

Most impressive, though, is that the smaller case also contains the power supply instead of relying on a bulky external supply. A lot of the power savings came from swapping the NVIDIA 320M for the previous generation's 9400M. Adding other power efficient parts and improved power management enabled Apple to cut idle power draw down to just 10W from more than 13W, and maximum power to 85W from 110W. The new power supply is now 90 percent efficient as well, making the Mac mini one of the "greenest" desktops currently available.

Be sure to check out the full teardown, complete with gratuitous and well-lit pictures of the Mac mini's insides.