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Rant about the new Mac Mini.

theluggage said:
256GB is getting too small for anything beyond “personal productivity“ - and I’m not sure that’s the market for a Mac Mini (base MacBook Air maybe).
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That is the exact market for base mac mini. My father in law has a base M2 mac mini I bought him and he is maybe using 80gb of hard drive space because all he does with it is read emails, buy stuff from Amazon, and watch conspiracy youtube videos. Has 8GB of memory and when I ask him if its fast enough he raves about it.

The base mini is the entry level desktop mac for every day use and its priced as such.

My wife has the base M1 and has no problem either, she uses it to pay bills and read news before she goes to bed.

The problem is the actual demographic for a base mac mini isn't going to a Mac forum to talk about macs, and the 10 people here who are in that demographic are the ones who are like "Still using my 2018 i3 and it works great!"
 
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eltoslightfoot said:
This. Haha. I am going to get this exact model and it is still a good deal. :)
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16 inch MBP for me starts around 4-4.5K after I max out on RAM and Processor. Why is any one surprised, Apple has been selling whole devices with certain configurations. If you need certain configuration, it’s gonna cost lot more than base model.
 
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TechnoMonk said:
16 inch MBP for me starts around 4-4.5K after I max out on RAM and Processor. Why is any one surprised, Apple has been selling whole devices with certain configurations. If you need certain configuration, it’s gonna cost lot more than base model.
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Well, that's kind of the point with this mini. Thanks to the base 16GB Memory, it isn't a horrible deal. When I compare the Mini 16/512 to a M3 15" Macbook Air 16/512, for instance, it is literally half the price.
 
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if using macOS saves just 3-4 hours of effing around with windows over the lifetime of the device, it sounds like it a net win to me. time = money. it’s better than the mini starting at $699 which is likely the alternative. at least some people without the means for the upgrade can still get into the mac ecosystem
 
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In this case I’ll give Apple a free pass on the upgrade costs. Why? The base M4 model is such unbelievably good value that the majority of users will never need to bother. An external drive for Time Machine coupled with iCloud is all the majority of users will ever need. I’d consider myself a 1% top end user yet without gaming or video to chew up space 256gb is more than enough. AutoCAD files aren’t very big and Fusion saves right to its own cloud space.

The £599 model is by far the best value Mac Apple have ever produced.
 
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Macs have always been premium products, so you’re going to have to pay premium prices for equivalent specs, that’s just how it is. They’re actually much more reasonable than they used to be.

My base macbook air in 2012 cost $1200, which is almost $1600 in 2024 dollars, and for it’s time was nowhere near as capable as anything apple has released in the apple silicon era. Macs are a better value than ever
 
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henkie said:
While, that post has a point though: for the upgrade price to from 256GB to 2TB on the mini (920 euro), I can buy:
*a PS5 Pro, which has a faster 2TB ssd: 750 euro
*and a 2TB SSD that is faster than the mini's from a reputable brand (Lexar, Samsung, etc): 130 euro.
And have money to spare to buy a PS5 game.
So yes, the upgrade prizes from Apple are outrageous.
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There's only one PS5 game to choose from, so this is perfect
 
sleeptodream said:
Macs have always been premium products, so you’re going to have to pay premium prices for equivalent specs, that’s just how it is. They’re actually much more reasonable than they used to be.

My base macbook air in 2012 cost $1200, which is almost $1600 in 2024 dollars, and for it’s time was nowhere near as capable as anything apple has released in the apple silicon era. Macs are a better value than ever
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I know and yes, you are right, some of their devices are now somewhat reasonably priced.

Hell, as I said, the base Mini would be one hell of a deal if the storage was 512 GB.

But I believe that they can continue being premium and also offer more, in the way of cheaper upgrades.

At one point, they should think (IMHO) that pursuing more market share is a beneficial move, money wise.
throAU said:
High end CPU in baseline form factor.
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Correct.

And I will edit my original post, its not a shame, since the SE/30 was way more expensive.

Buuuuuuut at the same time, the price of technology has come down a lot in the last 30 years, so somewhere in the middle is also ok to be expected by consumers.
 
neomorpheus said:
I know and yes, you are right, some of their devices are now somewhat reasonably priced.

Hell, as I said, the base Mini would be one hell of a deal if the storage was 512 GB.

But I believe that they can continue being premium and also offer more, in the way of cheaper upgrades.

At one point, they should think (IMHO) that pursuing more market share is a beneficial move, money wise.

Correct.

And I will edit my original post, its not a shame, since the SE/30 was way more expensive.

Buuuuuuut at the same time, the price of technology has come down a lot in the last 30 years, so somewhere in the middle is also ok to be expected by consumers.
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The problem with this is it doesn't necessarily mean they will get a greater market share and could very well mean that they cannibalize sales for higher end products.

If you get 512GB on a $599 base mini, someone looking at a $1599 Macbook Pro night be inclined to spend almost a third of that for a mini with the same specs. Does increasing the SSD for the cheapest Mac people move away from more expensive Macs?

Or do they up the specs on every model, so then all the Macbook Pros have 1TB drives as the base? A lot of pro users pay for those upgrades on the higher end, and cutting $200 for in profit for every Mac adds up on the bottom line.

I am sure the Apple Marketing Department knows better than you or I what the people who use each product line are willing to accept as the base specs at each price point, and where consumers spend extra to upgrade, and also whether they could increase sales or market share by increasing the specs on an individual Mac line.
 
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mode11 said:
No one's forcing you to buy a Mac. The PC market exists, and delivers exactly what you're asking for. And the difference between Windows and macOS these days is really not that dramatic (at least in the EU - the US versions seem to have TikTok and other nonsense bundled). The telemetry stuff can be disabled by toggling everything off in the Privacy & Security settings (or just use a tool like O&O ShutUp10++ on default settings).

Hardware goes in cycles. When Macs used PPC, they got off to a good start but were swiftly overtaken by x86. Then Apple moved to Intel and (most) Mac users rejoiced. PPC ended up slow and power inefficient; the jump to Core 2 was like the jump to Apple Silicon today (perhaps even more so). x86 is currently lagging AS in terms of ST CPU performance (and certainly energy efficiency), but leads in GPU performance, and PC RAM / storage costs are obviously miles lower. Personally, I find Apple's laptops more compelling than their desktops.
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I don’t understand how any of this is a reply to my post other than your first sentence????
 
neomorpheus said:
I know and yes, you are right, some of their devices are now somewhat reasonably priced.

Hell, as I said, the base Mini would be one hell of a deal if the storage was 512 GB.

But I believe that they can continue being premium and also offer more, in the way of cheaper upgrades.

At one point, they should think (IMHO) that pursuing more market share is a beneficial move, money wise.

Correct.

And I will edit my original post, its not a shame, since the SE/30 was way more expensive.

Buuuuuuut at the same time, the price of technology has come down a lot in the last 30 years, so somewhere in the middle is also ok to be expected by consumers.
Click to expand...
chrono1081 said:
Everyone seems to forget that Apple's hardware prices fund all the other stuff you get in the ecosystem for free. You're obviously going to be paying more for the hardware.
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Apple used to charge for Mac OS upgrades, now upgrades are free. These upgrades subsidize the OS updates and base models.
 
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JPack said:
No, it should not start at 512GB. Many people are fine with 256GB.

The real problem is the cost of the upgrade. $200 for an additional 256GB is too expensive. Apple literally charged that same amount a decade ago in 2014 for 512GB.

Ditto for RAM upgrades before 16GB became standard. Plenty people fine with 8GB. The upgrade should have been $80 or $100 at most.
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Right and many people are fine with 8GB of RAM. I'm in that group.
 
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I get the frustration. The Mini's pricing is hard to justify, especially those storage upgrade costs. The proprietary SSDs feel particularly anti-consumer when standard NVMe drives would work fine.

That said, the M-series chips are impressive and macOS remains the most polished desktop OS. Like you, I'm stuck between appreciating the hardware/software integration while disliking Apple's pricing strategy. A base Mini isn't ideal, but it makes sense if you need macOS in your setup.

The SE/30 comparison is spot-on - both machines were/are capable workstations, just overpriced for their target market.
 
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Agree with everything I quickly skimmed and also wish that the upgrades were cheaper. Like Jason Snell said recently on his show… I tinker with something in the store, justify it, then start upgrading the ram and storage, then shake my head and click exit.

and like an addict, yet here I am on these forums 21 years with a mbp plugged into a screen that cost the price of 3 Mac minis.

I hate the prices myself. Could really "use" a laptop with 2tb internal storage that would make my life "easier." but until I can do that I just have to do some of my work in my office hooked up to a raid.

but as much as it frustrates me and many others, why do we keep coming back? for me… I just refreshed my Hebrew Qal Verb paradigm in the screen and studied. then I took my iPad Pro off the keyboard and sat on my couch away from my desk and notes, then used the pencil and pro to complete my Hebrew exam. I saved it in the files app, then walked three steps back across my office to my desktop, and the file was already updated and ready for me to upload to my professor. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

that's why I keep coming back.
 
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