Guest jgrodri Posted February 28, 2006 Share Posted February 28, 2006 Who else here feels like apple has completely killed the appeal of the mini? I was just looking through their german store, and after adding 1 gb of ram, a superdrive and the applecare warranty, the price washigher than 930 euros!!! thats no longer a cheap computer... specially if you have to get a monitor, keyboard and mouse... it will probably cost you around 1100 euros. why would apple do this? my guess is that the mini was eating away too much market share from other apple products. they have now made it the logical choice to get the imac. I guess apple realized the huge profits they can get from people wanting a media center.... too bad i never got a chance to get a cheap mini first :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SolidSapphire Posted February 28, 2006 Share Posted February 28, 2006 I agree. But i think it depends on the user and what they have. I'm kind of angry that i just brought a mini before the new release. But i am waiting for all the bad reports to come in. :) if they do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfalcon Posted February 28, 2006 Share Posted February 28, 2006 I don't think they killed it. With the educational discount, it's only 80$ more to get a pretty well updated machine, that now comes w/frontrow and a remote. The Mac Mini is marketed as supplemental to your existing machine, so it's not really the same target market as the iMac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shihchiun Posted February 28, 2006 Share Posted February 28, 2006 I wouldn't call the first cheap either - it was $400 USD, without a monitor, keyboard, or mouse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
topher1078 Posted February 28, 2006 Share Posted February 28, 2006 Yeah the price increase should not have happened. Its price point is currently way too close to an iMac's. And additionally, the Mac mini now has an integrated graphics card, which is just terrible for CoreImage and gaming. Other than the additional ports, these are steps backwards, not forwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betasp Posted February 28, 2006 Share Posted February 28, 2006 Yeah the price increase should not have happened. Its price point is currently way too close to an iMac's. And additionally, the Mac mini now has an integrated graphics card, which is just terrible for CoreImage and gaming. Other than the additional ports, these are steps backwards, not forwards. Though it was never designed to be a gaming machine, the new graphics are CoreImage compatible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
topher1078 Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 Good to know. But even if it's not a gaming machine (obviously), isn't this a step backwards in graphical power? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betasp Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 Good to know. But even if it's not a gaming machine (obviously), isn't this a step backwards in graphical power? Extremetech did a thing on the chipset that showed it was about the same as the 9200. I don't like the shared memory thing either, but you do see it on a bunch of low-end PCs. It is really neither a step-up or step-down. The mini also has a 2nd RAM slot, so you could max it out to help. I wonder if they are going to let you allocate memory yourself. I would give it 256MB and max the machine RAM at 2GB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoXY Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 Esh...thank godness someone is on the same page as me.. I mean...WTF?! I could get a MacMini YESTERDAY for $499 and all of a sudden, I need to throw in a extra $100...what did I miss here? Yes I know it have a new Intel chip, FrontRow and remote etc etc...however $599 all of a sudden just became too-expensive-for-some-people-to-afford. I mean the top line Mini is $799. Add 512MB more RAM and AppleCare, all of a sudden ITS MORE EXPENSIVE THAN A iBOOK! (this isn not including tax btw) WTF?! On the bright side, if you do decide to get the more expensive line, you can probabely do some (not very heavy) but considerable Photoshoping and Video/Audio editing, however what's up with the on board Graphics Card? Mac Mini: Pro: Intel Chip (much faster) Front Row Con: Price Graphic Card Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aristotle-dude Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 (edited) Why would you add apple care to a mini? That makes no sense. It is a "low end" mac. If you are going to add extra warranty and higher end features, of course the price will balloon. Everyone also knows that most companies over charge for ram so why did you upgrade to 1 GB? About the gfx. It is good enough to run games like Warcraft III. If you are expecting to run WOW, then you are not being realistic and you are not the target market for this. The chipset is good enough for video and displaying the Core Image effects as the Transition kit had a similar chipset. Edited March 1, 2006 by aristotle-dude Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoXY Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 Why would you add apple care to a mini? That makes no sense. It is a "low end" mac. If you are going to add extra warranty and higher end features, of course the price will balloon. Everyone also knows that most companies over charge for ram so why did you upgrade to 1 GB? Alright, no Applecare...and let's assume 3rd party charge what? $60 for 512MB of RAM(sounds resonable to me, Apple charge 100) and plus what? At least another $60 for tax that's brings the total to what? $920... When you can get a iBook for $999+tax... I mean if you compare Product price Ratio, the iBook is JUST a better buy won't you agree? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueJawa Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 you compare the mini with tax to the ibook without tax... not very logical. also comparing a mini with upgraded ram to an ibook without upgraded ram. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoXY Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 you compare the mini with tax to the ibook without tax... not very logical. also comparing a mini with upgraded ram to an ibook without upgraded ram. Fine I admit defeat (seeing that to bring the iBook to the same config as the MacMini would be more than $999 ((I could have swarn you get a bigger HD on the iBook))) I still think the MacMini is too expensive though :p (still talking about Product Price Ratio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malbojia Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 But still the compared items are to desktop vs mobile solutions so when in Doubt why not go mobile for a few hundred then be stuck stationary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aristotle-dude Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 Are there any other nano atx machines out there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JiveMasterT Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 the thing you have to remember is that the mac mini is geared towards people like me... You need the barest bones minimum mac to do some development work, email, web surfing, and playing back videos. That's why I am saving my money for one. I don't want to buy a G5 tower or a mac laptop when I already have a PC tower and laptop. I just want a mac box to do mac stuff on that I can't do on my PC... such as write code for AdiumX and so forth. I also do not really like macs, but I want one for doing certain things sometimes. A mac mini is like half the price of an equally spec'd laptop. What is everyone getting at here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
User6060 Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 Maybe they did it so you can say "Hey for just a 'bit extra' I can get the MacBook Pro or iBook!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aristotle-dude Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 If you want a gaming machine, you will have to either stick with PCs or wait for other machines but if you want to have a home computer for surfing, using word, excel, coding, playing videos/music and editing video/music etc... then the mac mini has enough CPU and GPU power for you to do all that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vancity001 Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 ^ The thing is, most people who want to buy a basic computer for using word, excel, surfing will now be much more likely to chose a PC than a mac. The price margin is now a lot higher as low end PCs are getting cheaper and cheaper, and now the Mac Mini is even more expensive. The novelty of having a mac just isn't worth the extra price anymore Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doli Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 NOw if apple came out with a mac mini thats a PVR like MCE, and can record HDTV, have a very large hard drive (HDTV takes up a lot of space) for $400 I will get one. I would like to see how apple would do a slick display that would compete with MCE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betasp Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 I would buy one to connect to every TV in my house. I can then stream all of my movies and music to anywhere at anytime using frontrow. I can then sync my ipod for travel or for playing back in the car. I can use it to check email while there and check the internet for things. Cant do that with an all-in-one MCE machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AltecXP Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 I was gonna get a Mini...but now I cant...need to save more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sundayx Veteran Posted March 1, 2006 Veteran Share Posted March 1, 2006 well. retailers still got cheap minis out there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt T Posted March 1, 2006 Share Posted March 1, 2006 Although I agree that both the graphics and the price hike are a huge setback on Apple's behalf, I think we all need to take note of a few things here; • The low-end Mac mini now has Airport Extreme and Bluetooth as standard • The high-end Mac mini is so expensive because it has a dual-core processor • Name me one other budget computer that has the media-centre-like features of the mini • It's faster - maybe not 4x faster like Apple claim, but it's still faster than the PPC models • You won't find anything that comes close to iLife or OS X on a budget PC • I doubt you'll find Firewire on any budget PC It's plain and simple; the Mac mini is more expensive because it gives you more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted March 1, 2006 Veteran Share Posted March 1, 2006 I just dont understand why these systems cost more now then PPC versions... as the PPC chip costs MORE then the Intel chips to start with... even in dual core format... i know they added airport and stuff but sheesh since when does a wifi card cost $100.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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