you know... i don't understand how and why apple does this... everybody, look at those specs! i just feel like i need to rant a little.
2 ghz processor and 120 gb hard drive... for $600, and doesn't include keyboard or mouse? i mean.... seriously.... that's so incredibly BAD. It probably takes them $10 to make a keyboard and mouse.
Even worse are the new iMacs. While other manufacturers' desktops have quad core for a long time (over a year?), the NEWEST imacs still have only core 2 duo. that's just so ANTIQUATED. i mean, there are laptops out there with quad core. i look at these macs and it's just such antiquated technology for EXTREME prices. i don't even see how apple can keep the price this high in an economy like this.
it's just so disappointing. you look at these computers by dell that cost $600 and have 3 GB of 1066 MHz RAM, and 320 GB hard drives. Steve Jobs said he doesn't know how to make a computer that isn't a piece of crap under $1000. Well, guess what, the $600 computers by dell aren't pieces of crap! sure, they run windows, (which i re-realized why i hate it yesterday), but they're well priced!
you know, in the end, it's not about specs to dollar ratio. It's about the principle. macs used to be for the people... machines that did things better than pc's. i'll be honest here and say that i'm willing to pay the premium just for the operating system... but it's just hard, you know?... knowing that you're buying obsolete hardware technology with premium prices (just look at those 120 GB hard drives... that 's like 2 year old standard. everybody uses 320 gigs now. you can get a 320 gb 7200 rpm hard drive on fry's for $60. apple can sure get it for less.
anyway.. nice ranting to you guys, i just wanted to get this off my back for once.
Spot on, Oliver. I'd been waiting to get an updated mac mini to use in an entertainment center for the past year, and I'm totally disappointed with what they released yesterday (across the board). Frankly, I'm happy that I have a 2008 mac pro & 2008 macbook (back when they still used firewire 400 on their systems!). These recent updates not only suck for the stat boost, but more so when the price jumps are factored in.
I would agree with you if most Mac users were buying Macs to use Vista or some other bloated OS, but OS X runs blazingly fast on the Macs with these current specs. My best friend has an old dual 1.8 G5 and that thing runs Leopard as good as any Mac I've seen.
A couple of revisions ago, I think it was 10.5.4 or 10.5.3, there was some obvious slow-downs, but whatever was causing problems on the PPC versions, was fixed by 10.5.5.
So, in other words, I just don't see how you can go wrong with the specs on iMacs, when I five year old PPC Mac runs Leopard at fairly standard clip.
Dude please link me to the Dell you claim has a 3GB of SDDR3 1066 MHz RAM for $600, am also pretty sure other people will wanna see it to, Also your looking at just the fact that it's a Core2Duo when you should have been looking at the Bus Speed and the L2 cache on the Prosessor instead. Plain and simple there's not a all in one machine with similar Specs cheaper than the iMac and if there's one i wanna see it.
I think they are just trying to stay in business over the long haul. Simple as that. Sure, the could cut margins, sell more, but not result in more profit. All they need to do (which I'm sure they have) is find the price elasticity of demand and that will help them set their prices.
Well I agree that the specs could be better, cause every American wants the top of the line stuff whether they need it or not; pairing the current Apple computers with OS X already gives me drastic improvements and speed over the top of the line computers running Windows.
I'm sure there will always be the gamers and the super high end crowd that needs to build their own custom boxes with top of the line everything... but for the people who like simplicity and productivity, the updates and the soon to be upgraded OS X will take full advantage of the available hardware.
What good is 4, 32, 64 or a billion cores if the software that promises to use it doesn't take full advantage of it? It's just there generating heat and raising your electricity bills. My MBP gives me a huge boost in my productivity and the UI is intuitive and the viruses are non-existent. All of that is worth the premium that I spend on the machine.
@brotato, I really don't know where your getting $399 from when it says on the site that they start at $669. It looks more attractive than the mini cause it comes with a free monitor but would you want a cheap $120 dell monitor instead of a Nvidia chipset, 802.11n, Bluetooth, SDDR3 Ram running at 1066Mhz, and the fact the not only will it run OSX but it will also run any type of windows version you throw at it.
Untrue. I just bought a Mac Mini and it runs like crap with OSX. OSX is bloated as much if not more than Vista. The mini had 1 gb installed and it runs very slow and multitasking on a mac is near impossible with how slow this 1.8 ghz core2 duo is on this machine. I ripped the machine apart and upgraded it to 4gb of ram. OSX is just like Vista, with less than 2 gb the machine runs horrible. Apple should be ashamed of even thinking of selling any machine with less than 2gb.
$399? The link sends me to a page that says that Dell costs $669, has Intel integrated graphics, no firewire, slower RAM (800MHz), no wireless, no bluetooth... (not to mention the difference in physical footprint and in included software: Vista Basic and a 30 days antivirus vs Mac OS X Leopard + iLife '09 on the Mac mini).
So true. In March of '06 I bought a dell latitude, core duo 2GHz, 2 gigs ram with nvidia 256mb. That was three years ago! Sure there have been improvements with the core 2 duo and nvidia chip, but for the most part Mac's are just now catching up. I definitely would like one for the OS, but haven't yet justified the cost-to-performance.
@PG, Son first thing when you get a chance get yourself check for lead poising. People these new machines come with so little Ram cause it's DDR3 1066Mhz ram not the old DDR2 667Mhz found on most computers. Vista is not as bad as people think it is the main problem is people buy these $500 machines with bullshit 4GB of ram and then they wanna run the Ultimate version and expect it to run perfectly, My macbook pro runs vista and am loving it, never had a issue but before i had a hp pavillion dv6930us and i wanted to throw it out a window
@Brotato That may have better specs but look at the size of it compared to a Mac Mini. when you buy a Mac Mini you pay for the size. If your are not willing to pay that much for a Mini then it is not the computer for you just like any other computer of that size and that's not apples fault.
@Oliver If you compere the Mini to a similar sized Dell like the Studio Hybrid with similar specs you would see that the price to performance ratio is on par where it should be for a computer of that size. In spite of the fact that the Dell is larger and uses some older hardware (Pentium D CPUs on the low end, DDR2 RAM, Intel Graphics) and lacks some features like wifi (optional) and bluetooth to keep costs down.
DDR3 memory has really come down in price. And I think the point being made is that adding another 1GB stick only cost them at most ~$20. Newegg has a 2GB stick of DDR3 SO-DIMM for $27.99 and a 1GB for $30.99. It can't cost them that much more to put another 1GB.
That Dell you link is a tower. If I wanted a tower, I'd buy a tower. I have a great one (Core i7) in the other room that I built.
Yes, this thing is overpriced, but it's providing a lot in a small package if you have the money for it. So please, if you don't want it and don't to pay for it, just keep it to yourself. Not everyone makes the same buying decisions as you or even wants to. Be happy with what you buy and let others make their own decisions.
The older mini's were ddr2, in fact ddr2 has lower latency than ddr3. The amount of memory is the problem not necessarily the speed of the memory. OSX simply cannot run properly with less than 2gb of ram, try opening muliple windows of safari and garage band, the machine starts to tax itself badly. After I upgraded the machine up to 4gb the thing flies. This is no different to how Vista behaved before I upgraded it with tons of ram. Both of these OS's require way too much memory to run properly.
Fun fact, when you actually factor in the extra cost for wireless N, switch to Vista Ultimate (actually comparable to OS X, Home Basic is a sick joke), and upgrade to the Radeon 3450 (roughly comparable to the 9400), suddenly that dell that was only costs $399 has shot up to $727, and that's with a $270 instant-discount, so normally it would be $997, and the Mac Mini is the overpriced one?
You can call the Mac Mini overpriced all you want, and yes, the upgrade for it is overpriced as hell, but the $600 unit is at a pretty damn good price considering what you get for a comparable price elsewhere, especially when you factor in that Apple doesn't use cheap parts like Dell and many other system builders do.
You do realize they don't use quad core processors because there isn't a mobile version....And all iMacs use mobile processors. Everyone does realize that, right? MOBILE Processors. What a joke.
The Apple logo alone is worth the extra bucks. I'd pay money just to keep the Dell logo off of my computer.
Do you know why Dell's business is failing? They're obviously not charging enough for their products and they're losing money. It's going to impact a lot of services within Dell from employee dissatisfaction from layoffs and customer service support and customer satisfaction is on the low side. Dell has a very poor business model. I believe Dell's main home users are high-school graduates with income that enables them to barely scrape by.
Do you know why Apple is thriving? They're charging more for their products and believe it or not, there are people (you call them fools) who are willing to pay those prices. Customers are very satisfied with Apple products and customer support. It's been reported that Apple's business model is very sound. Apple sells it's computer products to mainly college graduates that have relatively high salaries.
If you were running a business, what business model would you choose? You would prefer to make high profits and stay in business, right? Personally, I don't find Apple computers overly expensive even though they clearly cost more than the average Dell or Gateway or HP. It ends up a couple of hundred dollars a year over the cost of, say, five years use. Hardly that much in the scheme of things. If people can afford a trusted brand, then many times they'll just go with it. Clearly it's just a matter of brand preference between two close products.
Apple's prices are understandable if you look at it from both seller and buyer's point of view. Especially if you see the difference in targeted markets. The cheapest price isn't everyone's first consideration. Otherwise there'd be no higher priced-brands. Most people don't go to get a higher education and get high-paying jobs in order to buy the cheapest stuff they can find. It wouldn't make any sense to do that, would it?
So the above is just a little about the reason of why some people might choose a more expensive product over a less expensive product and not necessarily feel cheated over the fact.
As to why Apple didn't put a quad-core into the iMac, even that puzzles me. I would venture to guess that users that buy iMacs wouldn't benefit from a quad-core over a higher clocked dual-core as much as it would cut into Apple's profit margin. It's an excuse on my part, but what other reason would there be. A quad-core iMac would definitely not overlap a Mac Pro user's needs.
Are those quad-core Dells and HPs overwhelmingly faster to make a difference?
@OP: Bravo for seeing through the hype. Apple's been running on fumes since the iPhone came out, the last really innovative product from them. Everything has been overpriced since.
And to everyone who thinks OS X is god? OS X IS AN OPERATING SYSTEM. That's it. I mean seriously - I can get around faster in XP for chrissakes and it runs faster too, with 2 GB of RAM. I can only imagine how freaking fast Win7's going to be with a good 6-12 GB RAM.
@brotato, the specs could be better, but it's still missing bluetooth, wireless N, dual display out. Don't forget to up the Intel GMA to an nVidia 9600, and the list goes on, even with the software.
I would think for a media PC, the only thing that the mini is missing is an e-sata port. When I look at the additional costs of the integration of a remote control with the PC, the mini just kind of makes sense. The downside is no HDMI, but I can probably live with that.
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you know... i don't understand how and why apple does this... everybody, look at those specs! i just feel like i need to rant a little.
2 ghz processor and 120 gb hard drive... for $600, and doesn't include keyboard or mouse? i mean.... seriously.... that's so incredibly BAD. It probably takes them $10 to make a keyboard and mouse.
Even worse are the new iMacs. While other manufacturers' desktops have quad core for a long time (over a year?), the NEWEST imacs still have only core 2 duo. that's just so ANTIQUATED. i mean, there are laptops out there with quad core. i look at these macs and it's just such antiquated technology for EXTREME prices. i don't even see how apple can keep the price this high in an economy like this.
it's just so disappointing. you look at these computers by dell that cost $600 and have 3 GB of 1066 MHz RAM, and 320 GB hard drives. Steve Jobs said he doesn't know how to make a computer that isn't a piece of crap under $1000. Well, guess what, the $600 computers by dell aren't pieces of crap! sure, they run windows, (which i re-realized why i hate it yesterday), but they're well priced!
you know, in the end, it's not about specs to dollar ratio. It's about the principle. macs used to be for the people... machines that did things better than pc's. i'll be honest here and say that i'm willing to pay the premium just for the operating system... but it's just hard, you know?... knowing that you're buying obsolete hardware technology with premium prices (just look at those 120 GB hard drives... that 's like 2 year old standard. everybody uses 320 gigs now. you can get a 320 gb 7200 rpm hard drive on fry's for $60. apple can sure get it for less.
anyway.. nice ranting to you guys, i just wanted to get this off my back for once.
bravo
Spot on, Oliver. I'd been waiting to get an updated mac mini to use in an entertainment center for the past year, and I'm totally disappointed with what they released yesterday (across the board). Frankly, I'm happy that I have a 2008 mac pro & 2008 macbook (back when they still used firewire 400 on their systems!). These recent updates not only suck for the stat boost, but more so when the price jumps are factored in.
I would agree with you if most Mac users were buying Macs to use Vista or some other bloated OS, but OS X runs blazingly fast on the Macs with these current specs. My best friend has an old dual 1.8 G5 and that thing runs Leopard as good as any Mac I've seen.
A couple of revisions ago, I think it was 10.5.4 or 10.5.3, there was some obvious slow-downs, but whatever was causing problems on the PPC versions, was fixed by 10.5.5.
So, in other words, I just don't see how you can go wrong with the specs on iMacs, when I five year old PPC Mac runs Leopard at fairly standard clip.
Dude please link me to the Dell you claim has a 3GB of SDDR3 1066 MHz RAM for $600, am also pretty sure other people will wanna see it to, Also your looking at just the fact that it's a Core2Duo when you should have been looking at the Bus Speed and the L2 cache on the Prosessor instead. Plain and simple there's not a all in one machine with similar Specs cheaper than the iMac and if there's one i wanna see it.
Windows 7
I think they are just trying to stay in business over the long haul. Simple as that. Sure, the could cut margins, sell more, but not result in more profit. All they need to do (which I'm sure they have) is find the price elasticity of demand and that will help them set their prices.
Well I agree that the specs could be better, cause every American wants the top of the line stuff whether they need it or not; pairing the current Apple computers with OS X already gives me drastic improvements and speed over the top of the line computers running Windows.
I'm sure there will always be the gamers and the super high end crowd that needs to build their own custom boxes with top of the line everything... but for the people who like simplicity and productivity, the updates and the soon to be upgraded OS X will take full advantage of the available hardware.
What good is 4, 32, 64 or a billion cores if the software that promises to use it doesn't take full advantage of it? It's just there generating heat and raising your electricity bills. My MBP gives me a huge boost in my productivity and the UI is intuitive and the viruses are non-existent. All of that is worth the premium that I spend on the machine.
$399 for this dell http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=brcwa1p
3GB vs 1GB on mini
250GB HDD vs 120GB
2.8Ghz vs 2.0Ghz
Plus a 19in LCD!
As much as I love the look of the mini, I would rather pick up this dell and throw osx86 on it if i wanted a mac.
@brotato, I really don't know where your getting $399 from when it says on the site that they start at $669. It looks more attractive than the mini cause it comes with a free monitor but would you want a cheap $120 dell monitor instead of a Nvidia chipset, 802.11n, Bluetooth, SDDR3 Ram running at 1066Mhz, and the fact the not only will it run OSX but it will also run any type of windows version you throw at it.
@brotato, don't forget to add the cost of OS-X to your shopping list.
Untrue. I just bought a Mac Mini and it runs like crap with OSX. OSX is bloated as much if not more than Vista. The mini had 1 gb installed and it runs very slow and multitasking on a mac is near impossible with how slow this 1.8 ghz core2 duo is on this machine. I ripped the machine apart and upgraded it to 4gb of ram. OSX is just like Vista, with less than 2 gb the machine runs horrible. Apple should be ashamed of even thinking of selling any machine with less than 2gb.
$399? The link sends me to a page that says that Dell costs $669, has Intel integrated graphics, no firewire, slower RAM (800MHz), no wireless, no bluetooth... (not to mention the difference in physical footprint and in included software: Vista Basic and a 30 days antivirus vs Mac OS X Leopard + iLife '09 on the Mac mini).
In other words, apples to oranges.
Woops, I pasted the wrong link.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/desktop-vostro-220mt?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd
The third one for $399 was the one i was talking about. Even if u wanted to add a license for OSX that's only $429$ which is still 160$ cheaper than the mini.
$529* total with OSX ~_~. I haven't had my coffee yet.
So true. In March of '06 I bought a dell latitude, core duo 2GHz, 2 gigs ram with nvidia 256mb. That was three years ago! Sure there have been improvements with the core 2 duo and nvidia chip, but for the most part Mac's are just now catching up. I definitely would like one for the OS, but haven't yet justified the cost-to-performance.
@PG, Son first thing when you get a chance get yourself check for lead poising. People these new machines come with so little Ram cause it's DDR3 1066Mhz ram not the old DDR2 667Mhz found on most computers. Vista is not as bad as people think it is the main problem is people buy these $500 machines with bullshit 4GB of ram and then they wanna run the Ultimate version and expect it to run perfectly, My macbook pro runs vista and am loving it, never had a issue but before i had a hp pavillion dv6930us and i wanted to throw it out a window
@Brotato
That may have better specs but look at the size of it compared to a Mac Mini. when you buy a Mac Mini you pay for the size. If your are not willing to pay that much for a Mini then it is not the computer for you just like any other computer of that size and that's not apples fault.
@Oliver
If you compere the Mini to a similar sized Dell like the Studio Hybrid with similar specs you would see that the price to performance ratio is on par where it should be for a computer of that size. In spite of the fact that the Dell is larger and uses some older hardware (Pentium D CPUs on the low end, DDR2 RAM, Intel Graphics) and lacks some features like wifi (optional) and bluetooth to keep costs down.
DDR3 memory has really come down in price. And I think the point being made is that adding another 1GB stick only cost them at most ~$20. Newegg has a 2GB stick of DDR3 SO-DIMM for $27.99 and a 1GB for $30.99. It can't cost them that much more to put another 1GB.
1GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148195
2GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148192
That Dell you link is a tower. If I wanted a tower, I'd buy a tower. I have a great one (Core i7) in the other room that I built.
Yes, this thing is overpriced, but it's providing a lot in a small package if you have the money for it. So please, if you don't want it and don't to pay for it, just keep it to yourself. Not everyone makes the same buying decisions as you or even wants to. Be happy with what you buy and let others make their own decisions.
The older mini's were ddr2, in fact ddr2 has lower latency than ddr3. The amount of memory is the problem not necessarily the speed of the memory. OSX simply cannot run properly with less than 2gb of ram, try opening muliple windows of safari and garage band, the machine starts to tax itself badly. After I upgraded the machine up to 4gb the thing flies. This is no different to how Vista behaved before I upgraded it with tons of ram. Both of these OS's require way too much memory to run properly.
@ PAC man
"My best friend has an old dual 1.8 G5 and that thing runs Leopard as good as any Mac I've seen."
Really? as good as a MAC workstation? I think not.
Fun fact, when you actually factor in the extra cost for wireless N, switch to Vista Ultimate (actually comparable to OS X, Home Basic is a sick joke), and upgrade to the Radeon 3450 (roughly comparable to the 9400), suddenly that dell that was only costs $399 has shot up to $727, and that's with a $270 instant-discount, so normally it would be $997, and the Mac Mini is the overpriced one?
You can call the Mac Mini overpriced all you want, and yes, the upgrade for it is overpriced as hell, but the $600 unit is at a pretty damn good price considering what you get for a comparable price elsewhere, especially when you factor in that Apple doesn't use cheap parts like Dell and many other system builders do.
You do realize they don't use quad core processors because there isn't a mobile version....And all iMacs use mobile processors. Everyone does realize that, right? MOBILE Processors. What a joke.
The Apple logo alone is worth the extra bucks. I'd pay money just to keep the Dell logo off of my computer.
Do you know why Dell's business is failing? They're obviously not charging enough for their products and they're losing money. It's going to impact a lot of services within Dell from employee dissatisfaction from layoffs and customer service support and customer satisfaction is on the low side. Dell has a very poor business model. I believe Dell's main home users are high-school graduates with income that enables them to barely scrape by.
Do you know why Apple is thriving? They're charging more for their products and believe it or not, there are people (you call them fools) who are willing to pay those prices. Customers are very satisfied with Apple products and customer support. It's been reported that Apple's business model is very sound. Apple sells it's computer products to mainly college graduates that have relatively high salaries.
If you were running a business, what business model would you choose? You would prefer to make high profits and stay in business, right? Personally, I don't find Apple computers overly expensive even though they clearly cost more than the average Dell or Gateway or HP. It ends up a couple of hundred dollars a year over the cost of, say, five years use. Hardly that much in the scheme of things. If people can afford a trusted brand, then many times they'll just go with it. Clearly it's just a matter of brand preference between two close products.
Apple's prices are understandable if you look at it from both seller and buyer's point of view. Especially if you see the difference in targeted markets. The cheapest price isn't everyone's first consideration. Otherwise there'd be no higher priced-brands. Most people don't go to get a higher education and get high-paying jobs in order to buy the cheapest stuff they can find. It wouldn't make any sense to do that, would it?
So the above is just a little about the reason of why some people might choose a more expensive product over a less expensive product and not necessarily feel cheated over the fact.
As to why Apple didn't put a quad-core into the iMac, even that puzzles me. I would venture to guess that users that buy iMacs wouldn't benefit from a quad-core over a higher clocked dual-core as much as it would cut into Apple's profit margin. It's an excuse on my part, but what other reason would there be. A quad-core iMac would definitely not overlap a Mac Pro user's needs.
Are those quad-core Dells and HPs overwhelmingly faster to make a difference?
@OP: Bravo for seeing through the hype. Apple's been running on fumes since the iPhone came out, the last really innovative product from them. Everything has been overpriced since.
And to everyone who thinks OS X is god? OS X IS AN OPERATING SYSTEM. That's it. I mean seriously - I can get around faster in XP for chrissakes and it runs faster too, with 2 GB of RAM. I can only imagine how freaking fast Win7's going to be with a good 6-12 GB RAM.
@brotato, the specs could be better, but it's still missing bluetooth, wireless N, dual display out. Don't forget to up the Intel GMA to an nVidia 9600, and the list goes on, even with the software.
I would think for a media PC, the only thing that the mini is missing is an e-sata port. When I look at the additional costs of the integration of a remote control with the PC, the mini just kind of makes sense. The downside is no HDMI, but I can probably live with that.