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Price Drops For Mac mini Upgrades
RustNeverSleeps writes "Apple has just lowered prices on certain build-to-order options on the Mac mini. The combination Bluetooth and AirPort Express option has gone down to $99 from $129, 1 GB RAM upgrades have been reduced to $325 from $475 and the price of an upgrade from a 40 GB hard drive to an 80 GB hard drive has been reduced to $50 from $90. Also, the original 4x SuperDrive has been upgraded to an 8x drive for the same price. Interesting that they dropped prices so soon after release. Perhaps Apple actually listened to people complaining about overpriced upgrades."
this goes against the apple business model of the last six or seven years: offer a "cheapish" mac and make a thin margin on it. make it a self-contained widget that the avg joe can't muck about in easily and then reap the fat margin on the upgrades.
2 1337 4 u!
Or perhaps they were losing upgrade sales to cheaper players in the market? I have always been very annoyed at $200 upgrades from anyone, where a generic alternative is $12.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Amazing - Apple seems to have finally realized that when you market something high quality and feature rich at low cost, people will flock to your stores. There may be hope yet for mass market acceptance of the Mac platform.
The Mac Mini - Greatly Insane!
A question: can a Mac mouse/keyboard from an old G3 system be used with the Mini?
Look, everyone's going to be excited about this, but let's just say this and get it out of the way:
All this did was correct stuff that was already WAY overpriced to begin with. I'm thrilled, and this pretty much seals up that I'll buy a mini, but I don't think it makes a huge difference to most people, maybe just to those on the fence. If they weren't going to buy one before, they probably won't now just because of these incremental price "normalizations."
I've already decided that before long I want a Mini and at least an iPod shuffle withing a short period of time.
Improving the prices even more just makes it that much sexier.
I wonder if these price drops are because they've been able to get an idea of the volume of these they'll be selling, and relying on economies of scalre just got even more attractive to them.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
What do you need the PCI slot for? (not retorical)
With the exception of Graphics, I would venture to say all consumer level options usually upgraded via PCI on a PC are either (1) built in (like Bluetooth or Firewire ports) or (2) available via Firewire (like Audio/video input/output devices).
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
if someone wanted a bundle including a mouse/kb/monitor, there's a perfectly good (and more powerful) alternative called iMac. (and it's not much more expensive that buying a mini with all the accessories from apple, as you suggested.)
Apple carefully selects the components and controls the drivers that are supported on their OS. That is why they don't encourage DIY configurations.
The key for Apple is a smooth experience with their Hardware/OS integration. If at the $499 entry price point you are still complaining the odds are you are never going to buy a Mac. So understandably they won't really care much about options and favor overall user experience.
"In God we trust, all others must bring data" - W. Edwards Deming
I spent the weekend researching the 20" iMac G5 the GF is getting. In the process of trying to figure out what/when the new iLife 05 and iWork software would be bundled with it (at no $19.95 handling fee. Anybody know?)
I got caught up in the Mac Mini frenzy. To me $499 is impluse buy pricing. I figured it was worth it to let me have my first Mac to enjoy and learn on. I had been holding out for the next gen PowerBook. I went to the Apple Store and began an order.
$100 more for the SuperDrive and faster CPU. I'll buy my own RAM and deal with a putty knife to put it in. Yeah, I need Wi-Fi and Bluetooth because you can't add that afterwards. Applecare? Good idea. Now it was $800, even with my educational discount. It was no longer in impulse buy range. I left the site.
You think maybe that Apple saw that happening again and again and took this action to keep the buyer there until they completed the order?
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
Perhaps Apple actually listened to people complaining about overpriced upgrades.
Or they misjudged market demand for upgraded units and have warehouses full of units that aren't selling while the bottom end is oversold.
-Adam
Could be that the pre-orders for the Mini mac are exceeding expectations.
That means that Apple can put more parts in the pipeline, and get better prices.
It may also be that Apple is starting to look at the mini-Mac as a market grown opportunity, more than a cash opportunity. It may make more sense to drop the prices closer to cost, if it means selling more boxes.
-ECC is "error correction code" aka parity.
-Registered/buffered makes for slightly slower RAM (though at pc2700, you could use higher-end circuitry) by storing memory fetches in latched registers/buffers to ensure that no timing weirdness occurrs (ie, reading a byte when only 4 of the bits have been set)
-the extra bits (72 vs 64) are used for the parity bits for ECC.
So to recap, what apple is installing is "better" in terms of stability, and if they use faster-rated RAM (say, PC3000) to build it, the speed lost to ECC and buffering will be negligible compared to normal PC2700. Theres a good chance they used normal PC2700 with buffering and ecc, which would make it slower than PC2700 without.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I've said this before, but I have to disagree. I've worked with Macs with 256MB of RAM, and they were fine. I wouldn't want to run Photoshop with 256MB RAM, but I wouldn't want to run Photoshop on one of these anyway! Yes, 512MB is nice, but it's hardly a necessity.
As to the people saying you need 1GB, what for? I've got a flatmate that does graphical work on a PowerMac with 512MB, and it's fine for everything except Photoshop. Everyone seems too used to Windows XP's memory usage, and is assuming OS X is similar...
"Why can't the better (from an engineering point of view) instruction set architecture (i.e. PowerPC) win in the desktop market?"
Because the desktop market would not be best served by having Apple take the lead. Half of everything Apple does would be considered "anticompetitive" if they were in Microsoft's position. And talk about vendor lock-in! Apple doesn't even allow clones any more.
Apple would need to make a *lot* of changes to become dominant, and would need to take some big chances.
What do you need the PCI slot for?
TV Tuner. I know you can get a USB tuner, but that kind of defeats the whole form factor thing.
I'm not complaining though - this is going to be one really sweet DVD/DivX/MP3 player machine. I picked up a Remote Wonder control today, and now I can comfortably select and play movies from the couch.
If Apple were to release a version of the mini with 6-channel sound, a TV tuner, PVR software, and a good looking remote Windows Media Center wouldn't stand a chance. It would be the iPod of the living room.
READY.
#
This has been covered countless times before. The Mac is actually a very good deal if you equip a PC with comparable software.
I've never owned a Mac, but I would buy this if I didn't already have more computers than I need.
You're missing the intangibles. According to your pricing, a prospective customer would have to ask "is a much lighter, smaller, cooler looking Mac without the headaches of Windows that includes iLife worth an extra $89?"
Apple is betting yes. And next quarter we'll see what the market said.
Okay, fed up with everyone saying "1GB of RAM is sooooo expensive". Yes, it is. Bad Apple.
However, why do you want 1GB of RAM? I use a PowerBook with a 1.5Ghz CPU and 512MB as my desktop replacement at work, and have no problems. I've currently got Thunderbird, Adium (IM), iTunes, Firefox, Azureus and X11 open, with no noticable slowdown or disk swapping.
Unless you're going to be doing something you know is memory intensive (Photoshop), you probably won't use anything more than 512MB. If you're that worried, and live anywhere near an Apple store, see if you can try one of these out, open half a dozen applications and see what performance you get.
256[MB] to 512[MB] upgrade (both DDR333 SDRAM on single stick):
- Mac Mini: $75
- Power Book: $200
This isn't a fair comparison as the laptop uses SO-DIMMS, which are more expensive. I should also point out that people who get Apple memory upgrades have money to burn, especially with a powerbook, since the memory is user installable.
Don't count your messages before they ACK.
Wherever you can find an 80GB 2.5" (a.k.a. "laptop") drive for $40, let me know. I've got an older PowerBook that could use a hard drive upgrade, and the cheapest I've seen an 80GB drive is $115. (Even assuming Apple gets a 50% discount for volume, that's still $57.50)
And as 40GB drives are $64, paying only $50 for the upgrade sounds like a good deal to me. (Only $1 'tax on the stup[id and gullible'.)
As for memory? Yeah, Apple has always charged WAAAAY too much for memory. (I even see 1GB DIMMs for $85 in places.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
- XP Home isn't anywhere near as powerful as Mac OS X. Put XP Pro on that box.
- DVD-RW vs. DVD-ROM. Drop the Superdrive from the Mini, or add the burner to the Dell.
How's that comparison now? Enough to absorb the missing keyboard and mouse?Oh, and for the record, the real savings is in having a system that has fewer annoying habits, has a consistent UI across applications, and is less susceptible to worms, virus infections, and spyware, as well as including a robust suite of polished, easy-to-use applications that will cover most of the needs of the freshman computer enthusiast (photography, music, basic word processing, even movies).
"How do I get photos from the Sony Mavica to iPhoto?" my wife asked me. Answer: Plug in the USB cable, and when iPhoto automatcially opens, click the blue pill clearly labelled "Import." Tell me that Dell will be able to do that OUT OF THE BOX!
Do not touch -Willie
I'm glad we cleared that up.
I don't particularly like their explanation, but for every person who says that generic memory will work fine on modern Macs, there is someone who says that it won't. Judging the company's business practices on the response of one customer service lackey is questionable at best. If the modules are not exactly the same and the more expensive one has a greater chance of meeting their guarantee to customers, they are justified in selling it at a higher price. Unless you're one of those people who thinks that the physical item itself is the only item of value, promises have a monetary value and Crucial is taking advantage of it. As far as sending back cheap lifetime warranty memory if it doesn't work, I've been there, done that, and concluded that for me, it's not worth the effort. I take the chance of getting a bad stick from Crucial, but unless there's a major price differential I'm willing to pay a little bit more for greater assurance of making a purchase that will work with my hardware the first time. It's interesting that there are so many intelligent people here like yourself who value their time at about, oh, $0/hour. There's nothing wrong with that, as it's your loss, but please don't gloss over the annoyance of diagnosing bad RAM (especially if you are building a new machine) and sending it back/waiting for it to reach the vendor/waiting for the vendor to send a new stick/waiting for it to arrive when posting.
If anyone is considering buying this machine to try to compile a Linux kernel tree (or any application/os that size) on it regularly, I think you need to rethink the purchase. Same goes for heavy video editing.
It's a budget, CONSUMER, box, it's not even the 'pro' consumer model (the iMac). The point of the parent was that perhaps 4% of the computing populace would even notice 1GB of RAM in their machine (as opposed to 512MB), which makes all the kvetching about the price of 1GB on Slashdot seem a little specious.
Price for iLife 05 on Dell Dimension 4700....uh.. there is no price for iLife 05 on theDell Dimension 4700.
No, instead you get years of heartache with driver issues with your camera and a corn-you-fscking-copia of bastard-ass photo organization applications that do fsck-all for you actually organizing, printing, and making books from your pictures.
Why do you think that they finally came out with printers with CF cards and fscking monitors on them? I'm sure easy to use software on windows was the reason!
I'm so sick of this debate, i'm not even going to go into trying to use Pinnicle's sucky DVD-put-together software. That has to be the most grabtastic pile of poo i've ever used.
Every time i hear this Cheaper Dell thing.. i aske people if they had to buy two cars - and one was twice as expenive as the other, but the cheaper one meant you needed to run your own cables to the throttle and brake lines and steering box, and they you had to drive-by-wire with bicycle handbrakes - would the car that was 1/2 as much still be worth anything?
btw: did i mention spyware, adware, viruses and trying to setup wireless networks without a CCIE on Windows vs. the more expensive Mac mini?
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
For $226.99 you are getting two DIMMs, one 256MB DIMM (with an Apple one year warranty) and one 1GB DIMM (with whatever warranty Crucial supplies)... not to mention the fun and games required to remove one and replace the other.
The latter sounds to me like the better deal.
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
Uh, if anything, OS X needs _more_ RAM than XP for decent performance.
I think apple probably thought they had a little time before it became such common knowledge how to open and service a mac mini. Now that the cat is out of the bag, they knew they had less chance of selling the high mark up prices they were offering as many people would do it themselves or have some mac savvy friend install the upgrades. So instead of just not getting any slice of that pie, they lowered the prices to try and hold on to some of that business.
I wouldn't want to run Photoshop with 256MB RAM, but I wouldn't want to run Photoshop on one of these anyway!
:)
Right, because no one ran Photoshop on a machine until a year ago... ???
Photoshop runs great on my 800 MHz G4 Ti PB. I guarantee it will run better on a mini with decent memory, which in most cases is going to be 512MB or greater (my PB has 1GB). The PB surely doesn't run PS as fast as a G5, but you know they didn't exist 2 years ago (and still don't in a portable format). Funny thing is it does run it a heck of a lot faster than my 400 MHz G3 downstairs.
Really, there's only one serious thing a tricked-out mini can't do well and that's high-end 3D gaming (or the like) due to the 9200, which is just a hair too light for my tastes. Just about every thing else you can do in a reasonable amount of time for a $500-$1000 computer. Just get that 512MB stick. At least.