Did Apple just kill the mini?

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Grand Master

Danrarbc

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Posted (edited)

• 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

Includes Windows XP Media Center Edition, and yes, it has firewire.

For less than $100 more than a Mac Mini. Still integrated video though, just ATI instead of Intel.

Edit: Just noticed it makes no mention of a remote though (odd, I though Media Center PCs had to include them).

Edited by Danrarbc641
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milty

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I was very much looking forward to the Intel mini but after I configured and education top-line mini I decided to spend a few extra bucks and get the 17" Intel iMac. Bummer.

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Grand Master

Bizkit

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I really like the idea of the mini. You could just get a wireless keyboard and mouse, and set it like next to your tv, and lay in bed or your lay-z-boy and have a computer right there. Granted, its not gonna be the fastest, but I think I will look into these alot more.

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Grand Master

Chicane-UK Veteran

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I'm gutted to be honest. They've not only killed off the G4 Mac Mini but ramped up the prices. I've been thinking about buying a Mac Mini for a long time but now I just don't think i'm going to bother. Too expensive, and even though they had a great chance to make some great design revisions, I don't feel that 2 extra USB ports and an extra RAM slot do it for me. I'd of expected the keyboard and mouse to be thrown in at these new prices.

I mean really - is a 1.67GHz Single Core CPU going to offer THAT much more performance over a 1.5GHz G4 chip?!

FFS - shared video memory?! Arrrghhhh.. only the cheapest POS computers use that :(

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?

Thing is, thats pretty much all I do as well. But i'm sitting here thinking "Yeah but.. for the same money I can get myself a pretty well featured Athlon64 box and it can absolutely NAIL the Mac Mini performance wise!" - and don't get me wrong - I love (and so badly want to be able to use) OSX but i'm not willing to short change myself on hardware to do it.

I'm so bummed out by Apple today. Bad move IMHO.

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betasp

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I'm gutted to be honest. They've not only killed off the G4 Mac Mini but ramped up the prices. I've been thinking about buying a Mac Mini for a long time but now I just don't think i'm going to bother. Too expensive, and even though they had a great chance to make some great design revisions, I don't feel that 2 extra USB ports and an extra RAM slot do it for me. I'd of expected the keyboard and mouse to be thrown in at these new prices.

I mean really - is a 1.67GHz Single Core CPU going to offer THAT much more performance over a 1.5GHz G4 chip?!

FFS - shared video memory?! Arrrghhhh.. only the cheapest POS computers use that :(

Thing is, thats pretty much all I do as well. But i'm sitting here thinking "Yeah but.. for the same money I can get myself a pretty well featured Athlon64 box and it can absolutely NAIL the Mac Mini performance wise!" - and don't get me wrong - I love (and so badly want to be able to use) OSX but i'm not willing to short change myself on hardware to do it.

I'm so bummed out by Apple today. Bad move IMHO.

The chipset is faster and spec'ed higher than the old 9200. There is no debate that it is better than the old chipset.

The son'ge core should be about 20% faster than the G4.

Also, if all you want is performance, then build a box yourself. It will be bigger, louder, generate more heat and eat up more power. It will not run OSX or the iLife suite and will not be able to act as a media hub/computer at any TV in your house without running third party apps without real good integration.

It is also $100 more. That is all. I spend more than that on a night out with the wife.

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Grand Master

aristotle-dude

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^ 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

The thing is that the bargain PC is not going to include a media center system with remote or stuff like iLife or have the same form factor.

People only looking for something to do word, surf etc... are obviously not the target market for this.

Apple will never compete with the cheapest out there and they would never want to. If they can be competive with other reputable brands and sell enough computers to earn a decent profit, they are going to be happy.

Competing with Dell killed IBM's desktop business and it almost killed HP too. The race to the bottom is not good business sense. I don't care if it is good for the consumer in the short term. I never think in the short term.

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Grand Master

.....

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I agree, I think they have raised the price too much; it was already too expensive, in my opinion. I don't care what extra features it has, it's too expensive for its purpose, in my opinion. Everyone I have spoken to would rather buy a base-model iMac instead.

The old mini was verging on being too expensive as well. I expected a price-drop, if anything.

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.

I would add AppleCare to any system I buy from Apple; just because it is a cheap machine does not mean it should only last a year.

Here's something I find hilarious though:

Lock the Target

Or one 3D game. Go ahead, just try to play Halo on a budget PC. Most say they?re good for 2D games only. That?s because an ?integrated Intel graphics? chip steals power from the CPU and siphons off memory from system-level RAM. You?d have to buy an extra card to get the graphics performance of Mac mini, and some cheaper PCs don?t even have an open slot to let you add one.

Just like the "100 DPI is best" they've completely changed their stance. The same applies to comparing Intel with PPC chips.

Apparently because superficial benchmarks make the Intel chips look faster, that mean:rolleyes:. :rolleyes: Sure, in a year or so when software has all been updated they might be, but they made the switch far too quickly, in my opinion.

I was just talking with a friend earlier tonight who was waiting out for an Intel mini, and he has now decided to go for a PC. For around the same price as the high end mini (1gig ram, 100gig HDD, AppleCare) he can get:

  • Athlon X2 4200+
    1gig DDR400
    512mb GeForce 6800XT
    250gig HDD
    19" Widescreen LCD
    etc...

Now, of course it doesn't run OSX, but he has an iBook and uses Windows for his work, and has no preferences. Another friend has decided not to switch, after all the Intel troubles. I'm a big fan of OSX, but if I didn't have a Mac or any real experience with one, I'd be tempted to stick with a PC these days. All they seem to offer is meagre specs in a very expensive case, running a nice OS. (but to many people that isn't worth the premium)

Apple were doing a great job reducing prices, but have now started to undo it.

Edited by andrewfee
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Grand Master

aristotle-dude

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The old mini was verging on being too expensive as well. I expected a price-drop, if anything.

I would add AppleCare to any system I buy from Apple; just because it is a cheap machine does not mean it should only last a year.

Apparently because superficial benchmarks make the Intel chips look faster, that means that are. :rolleyes: Sure, in a year or so when software has all been updated they might be, but they made the switch far too quickly, in my opinion.

I was just talking with a friend earlier tonight who was waiting out for an Intel mini, and he has now decided to go for a PC. For around the same price as the high end mini (1gig ram, 100gig HDD, AppleCare) he can get:

  • Athlon X2 4200+
    1gig DDR400
    512mb GeForce 6800XT
    250gig HDD
    19" Widescreen LCD
    etc...

Now, of course it doesn't run OSX, but he has an iBook and uses Windows for his work, and has no preferences. Another friend has decided not to switch, after all the Intel troubles. I'm a big fan of OSX, but if I didn't have a Mac or any real experience with one, I'd be tempted to stick with a PC these days. All they seem to offer is meagre specs in a very expensive case, running a nice OS. (but to many people that isn't worth the premium)

Apple were doing a great job reducing prices, but have now started to undo it.

Bottom of the barrel machines will either fail or not fail within the first year. The Apple care is only really worth it for laptops or high end machines IMO.

You should realize that benchmarks are affected by both the hardware and the software running the benchmarks. The previous benchmarks were for software running on Windows.

I'm sure that Athlon is a fine machine for gaming and what not if the OS does not matter and you are a gamer but you are comparing Apples to oranges. The Mini is a machine that can be used as a media hub or as an extender to expand the reach of a more powerful computer in another room. It is not intended to be a powerful general purpose machine or as a game machine but rather a media delivery platform.

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Grand Master

Jase

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when i first wanted a mini it was roughly $500 - $600, but now its $1,000... the reason i wanted a mini was because it was cheap and portable, mostly because it was cheap, thats what cought my eye a Mac that is cheap and is smaller than a Xbox why not.. but now its a Mac packed with things you dont need that costs more than $1,000

i think ill look around on Ebay for a seccond hand one.

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Grand Master

Southern Patriot

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when i first wanted a mini it was roughly $500 - $600, but now its $1,000... the reason i wanted a mini was because it was cheap and portable, mostly because it was cheap, thats what cought my eye a Mac that is cheap and is smaller than a Xbox why not.. but now its a Mac packed with things you dont need that costs more than $1,000

i think ill look around on Ebay for a seccond hand one.

Where are you getting this $1000 figure from? The price has gone up $100 ($499 vs. 599) on the base model or $200 ($599 vs. 799) on the high end model, and now has a second RAM slot, something that many owners of previous mini's complained about. Not only that, but it should perform better and now includes Front Row with a remote, as well as AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth, which were optional on older systems.

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Grand Master

MonkeyClaw Veteran

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How does it cost more than a thousand dollars?

They raised the price by 100 dollars USD so now it starts at 600 dollars. Not a thousand, just 600 providing you have a monitor, keyboard and mouse. And in that 100 dollars you get Front Row, Apple Universal Remote, Bluetooth, Airport Extreme, two extra USB ports, a better processor and though its integrated, its a better graphics processor. Yes the price went up, but you know what, you get a lot more than you did before.

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Rising Star

savedandfamous

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I don't think we're going to see cheaper Mac's with the Intel lineup, and I was going to wait and get an Intel mini but it's higher than what I had saved, so screw it. I'm not even getting a Mac anymore.

Why can't they just make some sort of consumer models?

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Grand Master

Matt T

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For those griping about Apple not doing a DVR...

Why the hell would they? They sell TV shows in the iTunes music store, if they added DVR functionality to their products no one would buy the shows...

:yes: I couldn't agree more.

it was like $600 before.

It started at $799.

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betasp

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a total waste of money now. ...integrated graphics? ...come on now, that's pathetic.

"I just ran XBench on my new stock standard Core Duo Mac Mini and uploaded the stats to XBench. The new model destroys the old one, and OpenGL performance is over 2x better than the G4 Mac Mini. Maybe the Intel GMA950 Is not so bad? 1080P trailers from trailers.apple.com run without dropping any frames also."

slow link...

http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=158732&doc2=146457

yep... darn pathetic...

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Cyrana

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a total waste of money now. ...integrated graphics? ...come on now, that's pathetic.

http://www.applefritter.com/Mac_Mini_Take_Apart_Guide

Feel free to redesign it, keep it the same size, and find room for a GPU+Dedicated RAM.

"I just ran XBench on my new stock standard Core Duo Mac Mini and uploaded the stats to XBench. The new model destroys the old one, and OpenGL performance is over 2x better than the G4 Mac Mini. Maybe the Intel GMA950 Is not so bad? 1080P trailers from trailers.apple.com run without dropping any frames also."

slow link...

http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=158732&doc2=146457

yep... darn pathetic...

I wonder if he had beam sync disabled? It is on by default for x86 w/xbench, but not ppc. If it is turned off, you get much higher results.

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Zolk

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a total waste of money now. ...integrated graphics? ...come on now, that's pathetic.

The integrated graphics in the new Mac mini can play 1080p with no problems, even with only 512MB of RAM. Try that on the dedicated graphics in the original Mac mini and see what happens. The integrated graphics also support Core Image, while the dedicated graphics on the older model did not.

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REM2000

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also remember with the mac mini it is targeted at pc users who wish to try out Mac OS X, so a lot of the time Mouse, Keyboard and monitor don't figure into the price, as you are expected to have these from your pc.

It's also a waste of time trying to compare two different computing platforms on price. Yes they can do the same things (word processing), but they are geared to different users.

Compare the mac mini to other apple products to see if the price's are right, but don't compare them to PC's as they are for a different target audience.

I think for the fact that you now get many things as standard (bluetooth + DVDRW etc) is worth the extra ?100.

The onboard graphics mean nothing on a mini, as long as they are up to the standard of core image, then it doesn't matter what the specs are. The mini is only a taster of what the apple platform can do.

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Grand Master

Toastyone

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a total waste of money now. ...integrated graphics? ...come on now, that's pathetic.

Probably one of the most uninformed posts in this thread :p read around mate the integrated graphics are not any worse than the 9200 and in some cases they are even better?.only thing I don?t like about them is they take away from your system ra:pinch:nch:

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