Comments on: New Mac Minis: Still too expensive

The entry-level Mac Mini still costs $599--and that's still too pricey a proposition for some folks. Why won't Apple do a $399 Mac Mini? The market is begging for one at that price--or at least editor David Carnoy is.

[more_cowbell]

... and i would like a $5,000 ferrari, a $7,500 beachfront mansion, and a $10,000 gulfstream V. thanks.

[ZetaZeta_]

Again, if you think the Mac Mini is the Ferrari, Mansion, etc. of computers, you're kidding yourself.

[maybeinoregon]

How about a larger hard drive? I have just over 500GB of music, video, and pics...which I am now storing on a 1 TB time capsule...should I really have to fork out $3K for a Mac Pro to get decent storage?

It seems to me that there is a HUGE market for a sub $1000 entertainment hub that holds 1 TB of entertainment stuff....I was really hoping the 'new' mac mini was going to be it...

[Markus2008]

I have 2 hard drives hooked up to my G4 mini, works great for me. I agree though that it would be nice to have it internal.

[unix4ever]

You clearly don't value your time at all. I used to spend a huge amount of time keeping my wife's PC clean and working well for her. Since replacing with a Mac Mini, hardly a peep. The administrative advantages of a Unix-based machine that requires a trivial amount of work to keep up to date are huge. I bill my time out as an embedded developer at $100/hr. The Mac Mini is a bargain -- buying one for my wife returned many hours to me. Do the math.

[BigGuns149]

Even if your time is *only* worth $40/hr it doesn't take long for the total cost of ownership for a Mac to be lower. Too many people seem to only consider the initial cost, but are happy to be nickel and dimed to death with costs to keep it running.

[riegler.d]

I've bought a lot of $500 computers in my day. Most of them, to be blunt, have been craptastic. Find me a laptop with NVidia 9400 graphics and a Core 2 Duo processor, and I'll buy one tomorrow. But here's the thing... it ain't gonna be a Mac. And all you PC fanboys out there can't tell me "there's no difference." Get me Garage Band on the PC. Or MOTU's Digital Performer. Heck, get me a dashboard that is as trouble-free and easy to use as a Mac.

And yes, I have a PC as well. I'm typing this on it. It's my gamer box. And it cost me a heckuva lot more than $600.

[FroZone]

If Apple could stand to benefit from lowering the price of the Mini, they would.

I paid 353 for my Compaq desktop which came with a 160 gig hard drive 1 gig of ram and a 2.2 ghz dual core processor.. and i bought an 8600gt 2 gigs of ram a new power supply and a beautiful 19 inch monitor and still barely matched the price of the lowest end Mac Mini. This has been Apples problem for a long time, you get alot less for alot more money. In this bad economy Apple will fall further behind unless they can drop their prices. Nobody wants a 6-800 dollar computer that doesnt even include a basic MONITOR, which could cost anywhere from 150-250 by itself.

[Tanear]

I just purchased a net book with atom processor, all solid state (82GB (40 SSD, 32 gb SDHC) 2 gb of ram, case, and mouse for $550. I am running full GIS, doing analysis and 3d renderings at high resolution (Half the state of washington) with out any clipping or gliches. The data sets are in the multiple GB not the 100's of mb range most users deal with. The mac mini is a poor form factor and component spec. Why would it even be a consideration? You can't take it in the field, it's a mini desk top which lacks any benefits of a laptop.You can get twice the processing power at half the cost anywhere. It's cute, thats all.
I also do music editing, video editing, graphic production, etc on the netbook. It smokes the 1 year old apple desktop with twice the processor and 4x theram in REAL time processing. I don't care aboput benchmark values/scores, I care about how much time I am sitting infront of a computer for the task I am doing to complete, Apples fail everytime.

[seven7dust]

lol! yr kidding yourself if you think yr system outperforms the Mac Mini
first of different O.S different performance !
2nd Mac mini has a 9400m graphics card that'll smoke the intel with ease
3rd for music,video and graphic production
Macs r always considered the absolute best
look at all the professionals in these fields they always use Macs
btw nobody would use a Mac mini or a laptop for these purposes !

I doubt if you have even used a Mac before ,
a computer is more than hardware !

try them out before bashing them so much
cause being more open minded never hurt n e body !

[pithenumber]

@77dust
I have used a Mac, I still have a dual G4 tower

A computer to me is still the hardware

[leflyman]

Nice troll.

You're smoking something atomic if you think an Atom-processor based netbook with 2GB of RAM can do GIS, video editing or any sort of graphic editing. Even Intel acknowledges that the Atom's processing power comes in about half that of the same speed Pentium-M (that's 'M' as in mobile processor based on Pentium 3 core). It's called a netbook for a reason-- it's only good for surfing the Internet.

Oh, and if you hadn't noticed, the mini isn't intended to be used as a laptop.

As a consumer, I'd love to see the mini drop in price. Like others have posted, I'd like to use the mini in my entertainment center as a Boxee device, but not at $599... $499 maybe, $399 definitely. But if companies made pricing decision based solely on demand, they would soon go out of business because consumers will always want more for less. Apple's decision to lower prices come to three major factors:

1. Branding - Like it or not, Apple is a premium brand. Decreasing prices into the range of making their devices a commodity item is not in their best long term interest. Decreasing prices slightly to maximize profit and still maintain brand image in a down economy is not a no-brainer.

2. Current/Future Costs - It's not just the consumer that are trying to cut spending, component suppliers are also cutting back on production in order to maintain or increase prices. A prudent company will take this into consideration before rashly jumping in to cut prices.

3. AppleTV - I'm not sold on this device, but if Apple wants to justify keeping the product in its lineup, then it can't price the mini too close to the aTV.

You don't need to please everyone to be a really profitable and successful company. You just need to maximize the profit you get from the sale of each product. Sucks for us, but good for Apple... that's why I'm a shareholder :)

[JonnySpeed1971]

resell value of a mac is much, much higher than a PC. I just sold a 2 year old, very well used mac book pro for £750 = > $1,000 on ebay.

[fosaveo]

I always hear people claim that they can find better equipped PCs for significantly cheaper than Macs. In general, I think most people that make that claim aren't looking close enough at the actual specs or their real cost. Do I think Macs are more expensive than PCs? Yeah, but not in the wildly significant way it's always painted. Take a Mac Mini, look at the specs, find a laptop with all of those features and specs, then add in the required software (don't forget your virus protection). In the end, I would be very surprised if the delta was more than $50. Factor in Apple's reliability, ease of use and support, and slick form factor and I will always choose the Mac.

[lkrupp]

Meanwhile, as the usual carping about Apple prices continues ad infinitum, the company sits on $28 billion in cash and is worth more than four times what Dell is. Nobody in this thread would soil their hands with an Apple product but somebody is buying them I guess.

[iPhoneUser]

I struggle to grasp why I need to buy this or would ever want to buy this? I mean, there are some really great applications for this, like in a car or in a living room hooked up to a tv, but not for $600. This is a great idea, but will most likely end up in the same trash pile as the MiniDisc and soon-to-be-growing pile of Kindles (1 and 2).

[ikramerica--2008]

Then don't buy it. Mini has been on the market since before the iMac G5. Somebody is buying them. ;)

[JFerrari427]

Incredibly overpriced for the hardware you are getting. Operating system is nice, hardware is underpowered and overpriced.

[seven7dust]

same hardware different O.S means different performance
I can multi-task better with these same specs on OSX
than on my desktop with a quad core 4 GB ram and 8800gt graphics
and it boots up twice as fast too !
it depends on wat yr using the computer for !

[ZetaZeta_]

Seven7dust, That's why you install Linux. Also linux is a little bit less expensive than OS X, as well, especially when it comes to upgrades.

[seven7dust]

@zetazeta
but Linux works on my macbook as well
plus linux is not ideal for me cause there's too much mac software
that I depend on and unfortunately Wine only emulates windows programs

BTW the Mac mini is not much more expensive than a similar Dell or HP
granted you compare the exact same types of computers
a Dell studio hybrid with mcuh slower specs is 700$ while a mini is 600$
so why is the mini being accused here ?
when the dell is the one thats overpriced and underperforming
and imagine running vista on that hardware

[raseri]

The problem here is a self inflicted wound by Apple. They do not understand the product market for the Mini. There will be people who by this as a main computer but most people interested in a Mini want to apply it to a custom application. The rights for Blueray have come down a lot and Apple has significant pull in this area, add a Blueray drive and HDMI output and suddenly you have a versatile product that will definetley sell at much higher volumes. In essence this is combining the Mini with AppleTV and adding Blueray, suddenly you have a device that can interact with your home network and iPhone to bring unlimited media possibilities, perfect. Come on Apple, get with it on this one.

[ikramerica--2008]

I think Apple has researched who their customers are for this device.

I am sure you are unaware that many major casinos in vegas run farms of minis to support their security systems. There are mini server farms around as well. There are custom applications in automation using minis, all because they are small, stable, and Mac OS X+ server is a solid unix platform for developers.

The MMPC market is a bonus for them. As is the artist market, which is why I imagine they added dual head support...

[Awesomebase]

Mac Minis make great servers too... low power and small space! It works very well!

[BigGuns149]

I remember at the Getty Museum I recall seeing a Mac Mini on a ceiling attached to a DV camera. It was for some interactive art display, but there is no reason that they couldn't have them set up for security as well. They might have them set up for security as well, but I wasn't looking carefully for them. They certainly seem well designed for such a option.

I still think that Apple should have made the $800 model with a BD-ROM drive and a 500GB HDD. It would make a rather ideal media center PC, but without a 500GB HDD or a Blu-ray drive it doesn't work very well as an ideal media center PC. Merely because the $600 model is great for small server farms or security systems doesn't mean that they couldn't have a slightly higher end version as a media center.

[ikramerica--2008]

I agree that the size could have been made a little bigger, thus allowing for more power (and cooling), 3.5" drives, etc. But I imagine there is now such an installed base of mini-sized racks for these purpose built uses that increasing the size would be a bad thing.

I would imagine that these would be useful in kiosks, too. I can't tell you how many times I've been to a museum or airport where the kiosk was broken with a BSOD or worse, where windows had simply popped up some pointless informational message on top of the display that required a mouse/keyboard to dismiss, when the kiosk was only touch screen.

I believe that running the Mac OSX in kiosk mode would be a far more stable than those experiences, and the size and power consumption of the unit makes it worthwhile for a lot of unique installations.

[dougiec3]

I'd jump on it for $499. Funny where people draw the line on "value", isn't it?

[eljitto]

on buy.com they have an HP with amazing specs for 570

This has:
4gb RAm & vista 64 bit.

17 inch screen

bluetooth, wireless G and all that jazz

built in Bluerayplayer

an ATI Radeon HD 3200 (best integrated graphics card on a laptop)

this thing own the MAC mini AND is cheaper.

sounds like a much better deal to me.

[ikramerica--2008]

How big is it? Is it quiet? Wireless N? Gigabit E-net? FW800? Is the 17" screen a piece of crap? (answer to that is very likely). Does it have dual head support?

Downside of course is that it runs Vista... ;)

[venomxxxx]

I predict under this economic recession apple would be forced to go down their prices. I mean 700 for just a mac with no screen sounds ridiculous. Iam sure with the rising of netbooks and windows 7 the cute apple 7sooner or later it would fall from the tree. Go windows 7!! :)

[BigGuns149]

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple slightly cuts their prices more due to the launch of the Nvidia Ion platform and the impending launch of dual core mobile Atom processors. The sagging economy certainly is a growing factor though. With or without the poor economy though I think upselling customers to Apple's higher end hardware becomes a tougher sale. Once upon a time a $400 desktop couldn't do much beyond word processing and some light web browsing. Increasingly as the low end graphics chipsets improve 720p video playback is smooth and 1080p playback isn't far fetched. Video editing in a practical time frame and high end gaming still is the domain of higher end hardware without a doubt, but for a lot of more common tasks a lot of low end hardware is good enough.

As more and more people find that the low end hardware is good enough for their computing needs a lot of people will be reluctant to buy higher end hardware even if they weren't concerned about losing their job.

[jscott418]

I agree Apple adding a Nvidia GPU does not make up for a small hard drive and lack of things like a card reader. Just because its a small form factor does not mean its costs that much more. Look what they do with the netbook's. No Apple is just trying to make its unreasonable profit margin at the expense of the consumer. I considered a Mac Mini for my daughter but ended up with a eMachine for $277 at Wal Mart.
Granted the Apple fans will say its not as good . But it performs well enough to not justify another $300 for the Mac Mini! Apple seems to have forgotten that it now competes with the PC running virtually the same hardware. Apple cannot hide from comparisons anymore . It has to make products that are competitive with the PC manufactures if it is going to continue to gain market share.

[BigGuns149]

Apple has always been in competition against other computers going back to the 70s before the Mac was a twinkle in Steve Jobs eye. I am not sure where you got the idea that they just started competing against other computers.

That being said, a smaller form factor DOES increase the cost of the components. A slimline slot loading optical drive costs more than a standard desktop drive. Slimline DVD burners are hard to find <$50 while I can buy standard desktop DVD burners for <$25 and that isn't even buying them in quantity (ie. by the pallet full). 2.5" HDDs like those used on the Mac Mini can cost up to twice as much per GB as 3.5" consumer desktop drives. Ditto with the DDR3.

The $800 Mac Mini is definitely a ripoff because the marginal cost of the larger HDD and additional GB is less than a $100 at retail prices nevermind wholesale prices, but the comparing a $277 eMachine that is using DDR2 and probably a slower GPU/CPU to the $600 Mac Mini is a poor comparison. Compared to another small form factor machine like the Dell Hybrid Studio and you will find that the Mac Mini is actually a good deal at the moment even ignoring any of the additional costs one will incur with a Windows machine.

[JonnySpeed1971]

This is a fantastic little machine. I'm not sure why there is all the ******** about the price. In the UK these machines are £399 and £499 - now with nVidia they a very good value. The quality of the build and support is way above anything I've ever had from Dell, Sony or HP. The Apple upgrade programme is expensive and you pay a premium for not doing it yourself - the parts are easy to get hold of and Apple has full instructions on Apple.com.

My parents use the 1.8GHz entry-level machine with a cheap 2GB memory upgrade I did for £18 in under 15 minutes. Whilst that machine is more than fast enough for normal browsing and office tasks it is let down by its lack of 3D graphics support. The upgrade to nVidia makes this a very nice box that easily plugs into a flatscreen TV with a wireless keyboard.

If you have a problem with the price I suggest you stick to a cheap windows machine and everything that entails. I guarantee you can't get another OEM to put the same parts in a box for $399 with the same reliability and computing experience. If you can you know what you buy. What you dod with your money is up to you.

I personally think that £400 is very good value for the size, parts and Apple experience - fully supported by a very effective Apple warrantee.

[Dalmatian28]

I can't believe that people are still buying desktops! It has become so simple to put desktop together that almost any idiot can do it. There is nothing to it ...buy the components that you want and plug all the parts together! If you know anything about computers ...you know that you can build a quad core computer for 600.00$ and put any OS that you want ( yes, OSX included). You can duel boot Window 7 and OSX and the same machine that you have build so why would you go with cheep low end hardware that will irritate hell out of you when you can build top of the line desktop for the same amount! I will never buy a desktop from anyone as long as I live, because I want to build a desktop that has only things that I really need. Most of my money will go into the top of the line CPU, Mobo, memory and hard drive. All other junk I can take from my old box. The best part, I am NOT paying anyone's profit margin and commission!

[BigGuns149]

For low end desktops(<$400) particularly for low end Windows desktops with legit Windows licenses you aren't likely to save *any* money. The large OEMs can buy both their hardware and software and still have room for a modest profit for less money than you could buy the hardware nevermind the Windows license.

For $600 sure you can build a better machine than what most prefabs at that price point, but for the consumer who has no need for a quad core machine that would be overkill. In the entry level category(<$400) building your own machine doesn't make as much sense because in many cases the prefabs are cheaper.

Furthermore, while one can install OSX on a non-Mac it isn't always as simple as should be. A lot of people would prefer to not have to worry that some future MacOS update will break MacOS on their machine.

BTW, you do realize that you ARE paying for somebody's profit margin regardless of whether you buy or build? Intel and Nvidia aren't non-profits. Neither are NewEgg or Mwave or any of the other vendors who sell computer components.

[swiggins]

I'll tell you what, ... I have been using macs for 15 years now and this is the deal with Macs.... we have ALWAYS paid more... always.
Personally I liked it better when Macs were not the flavor of the month PC and before the intel switch and running windows on a mac, it's all just outta control...
Because of all the attention dedicated to the windows PC based user with the ipod, itunes and Safari, the mac of old had many less issues then my new G5 tower, imac and my Macbookpro....

the small town feel I use to have of being in a little club with most of the users on the same page is now effectively gone, ... replaced with less for more and a bump down in quality control...

I still use my maxed out quicksilver from 9 years ago, and it's still fast, and it never gives me problems..
my newer ones just , I don't know, are different,
Spreading themselves too thin will be Apple's downfall in the end.... I say keep the price where they are... I can't take another bump down in quality..