I Think Apple Has a "Price Hole"

[Mac In School]

I wrote about, what I call, their "price hole" in my blog a while back. Seeing as how this forum is loaded with Mac experts and enthusiasts, I'd love to hear your comments on my perception:

http://www.scottspain.com/?p=59

Am I right on the money, or way off base, in your opinion?

Thanks.

 

[psycoswimmer]

They do. But it's apparent that Apple hasn't wanted to get into that market.

And about the Mac Mini, it's definitely a good enough computer for your "most basic" computer user. And saying that 2 GB of RAM is the minimum requirement for OS X is just completely off. I run it near-perfect with 1 GB or RAM, and I'm sure it's very usable with 512MB.

 

[flopticalcube]

Yes, we have discussed the issue of a Mac Pro mini or a mini tower at length here. Considering that most people don't touch their computers after purchase, I personally don't see the point of "upgradability". While I'm at it, what is it with the hang up about USB hubs? Most people with "ordinary" PCs would probably expand their USB ports via a hub than a card.

I agree with psycoswimmer about RAM in a mini. 1GB is plenty to run most things in OSX smoothly.

 

[ReanimationLP]

You know what would be smart of Apple, is to make them have an accessible DVI or even HDMI input on the iMacs, so that you can use it, not only as a monitor when your iMac becomes outdated or dead, but also to take a HDMI to DVI adapter, and look your Xbox 360 Elite or PlayStation 3 into the back of that nice, beautiful, HD screen.

The very first iMac gens monitor can actually be disconnected and used aside from the computer.

 

[zap2]

I think your to hard on the Mac Mini. Thinking everyone needs 2Gb for basic task is foolish. 2Gb to run Safari, Pages, Mail, iPhoto and iTunes? Come on, with a dual core chip?

I can run Windows on my Mac Mini with 1,25Gbs of RAM, I do iMovie on it, I do iTunes, iPhoto, Safari and Pages(Non-Universal) all at the same time.


The harddrive is a not great the laptop drive is enough for most people. We've reached at point at were computer can do tons of things...everything the Mac Mini should be able to do, it can do flawlessly.

 

[janey]

My mac mini needs more than 2gb

2gb really depends on what you do. Right now I barely have 30mb free physical memory.

Also, Windows uses and manages memory differently from MacOSX.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

oh I think it be talk about quite a bit before. That price hole is the exact reason why I will never own a mac desktop. For me to get a desktop that has everything I want in it I have to pay well over 2 grand on for a mac compared to the 1-1.3k on for a PC and that really is a huge price difference to get all the things I want in a computer.

Now is that 1.3k computer as powerful as the 2+grand Mac no. It a weaker computer but I have to pay that huge amount of extra cost to get the few features I want on a desktop. That being minor room to add more hard drives, PCI cards and I a way to choose my graphic card or even get as nice of a one I want. Until apple fixes this price hole I will not buy an apple desktop.

 

[yetanotherdave]

I think you're off. Tiger will run on 512Mb RAM, it will run well on 1gig, it will fly on 2gig.
5400 rpm disks, if they were 4200's i'd agree with you, they're slow, the 5400's aren't too bad.
With the iMac, if the computer dies, personally I'd be inclined to whip out the internal and either stick something like a PS2 in there or get the cables and make it into a monitor. Although admittedly that's not for most people!
I think the iMac meets most people's needs, if there was a demand for mid range towers apple would full it.

 

[zap2]

My mac mini needs more than 2gb

2gb really depends on what you do. Right now I barely have 30mb free physical memory.
.

Yes, but the OP

2 GB, in my opinion, is a minimum requirement to run OS X

Minimim?! Come on, 256Mbs(Apples required amount) might be low, but 2Gbs?! Thats a lot of RAM for Pages and Safari!

 

[janey]

I think you're off. Tiger will run on 512Mb RAM, it will run well on 1gig, it will fly on 2gig.

Minimim?! Come on, 256Mbs(Apples required amount) might be low, but 2Gbs?! Thats a lot of RAM for Pages and Safari!

I think the minimum is a bit too..minimum. Also keep in mind that whatever Apple does recommend for the OS is not taking into account anything like what your individual apps will use on their own.

So to say that the minimum 256mb required for Tiger would be enough to multitask between a few tabs in Safari, iChat and maybe Microsoft Word is completely irrational. If you plan on using the iLife apps like iMovie/iDVD and iPhoto, 256mb is way too little.

And you haven't seen "flying" until you're on a Mac Pro with insane amounts of RAM. But I guess Tiger itself and nothing else will fly on 2gb ram, only because it's only Tiger. Start actually using apps and not just the OS, like you know, those things you do on a computer, and maybe we'll get somewhere with the "2gb actually isn't as much as you think it is" argument.

 

[geese]

Speed is a totally perceptive thing in computers and cannot be quantified easily. But i'll add this: I managed to get Tiger working nicely on a G3 with 512mb. It wasnt a speed demon, but good enough to run Fireworks and Flash MX.

 

[yetanotherdave]

I think the minimum is a bit too..minimum. Also keep in mind that whatever Apple does recommend for the OS is not taking into account anything like what your individual apps will use on their own.

So to say that the minimum 256mb required for Tiger would be enough to multitask between a few tabs in Safari, iChat and maybe Microsoft Word is completely irrational. If you plan on using the iLife apps like iMovie/iDVD and iPhoto, 256mb is way too little.

And you haven't seen "flying" until you're on a Mac Pro with insane amounts of RAM. But I guess Tiger itself and nothing else will fly on 2gb ram, only because it's only Tiger. Start actually using apps and not just the OS, like you know, those things you do on a computer, and maybe we'll get somewhere with the "2gb actually isn't as much as you think it is" argument.

The mac pro also has 4 or 8 cores. Higher clock speed etc.
On a macbook, with 2 gigs of ram, I can run pages, safari, itunes, parallels with winxp and a bunch of other stuff, all at once, and it's nice and responsive, as far as I'm concerned, that's flying. Yes a macpro would get faster performance and more applications open, but that is a very expensive PRO machine.
512 Mb ram was enough on ymy g4 mini to have two users logged in, running itunes, mail, firefox, safairi, itunes again and some other stuff. It wasn't brilliant, but it wasn't awful either.

 

[ReanimationLP]

My mac mini needs more than 2gb

2gb really depends on what you do. Right now I barely have 30mb free physical memory.

Also, Windows uses and manages memory differently from MacOSX.

Upgrade your machine with a Intel Core2 processor, then get a 2GB SO-DIMM, that should bump it up to 3GB.