I bought a Beelink S12 Pro last year for $189, quad-core Alder Lake with 16GB, and it's been great as a Windows PC to supplement my Macs. Low-power and smaller than a current Mac Mini (and probably about the size of the soon-to-be released new Mac Mini). Compact, silent, and solid build.
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This Mini PC pricing blows my mind
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Corruption/lose of data should not be a problem as you should have an external backup anyways, don't you?.
I never had corruption of data due to RAM in all my life. In fact, the only time when I had a problem with RAM was after buying my very first Mac, a maxed out iMac 2008. After two days of use, memory died and modules had to be replaced
These are actually quality devices. I replaced my M1 Mini (8gb RAM) with one of these and am running Ubuntu without issues. Fan noise is occasionally annoying, but build quality is perfectly fine and I could dual boot into Windows if ever it was needed.
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I picked up an HP Slice (discontinued) with an Intel I7 off of eBay for about $75 last year, upgraded the memory and SSD in it, and it's been flawless. I run SQL Server and use it as a .NET development environment. Mounted under my desk, sometimes I forget it's there. It's the only windows machine I still run, mostly for maintenance coding for some longstanding clients.
It's quite simple actually. All of the many PC makers are extremely competitive with each other, resulting in small margins. That means much of what you are paying for such a PC is actually paying for the product itself instead of being redirected away to vault #126 at Apple HQ.
On the other hand, Apple is an island, the LONE maker of Apple stuff with no competitors making any kind of Apple product clones. As such, Apple's margin is nearing 50%, growing there from the long-term (sky high) goal of 38%-40% throughout this inflation/covid/supply chain period.
At 50%, half of every dollar you give them is not buying the product or all of the stuff related to making the product, marketing the product, etc. Instead, almost a full half of each dollar paid flows off to the vaults... much like the "30% right off the top" with apps in the Apple App Store aren't paying the developer or making the app.
PC maker margins are thin, so most of every dollar you spend on their products are actually paying for stuff in the product, making the product, marketing the product. As a result, you can get a tremendous amount of hardware value by buying a PC... which will also run far more software apps than available on Mac. PC basically rules the tech world while Mac is only a niche player.
Fans will beat it all down and let on like it's junk, etc, but I bought a little PC when Silicon basically ended "full Windows support" in the former Bootcamp and that PC has been performing just fine all this time. I didn't buy this cheap but opted to spend an Apple-like budget on it. I spent less than Apple charges for only the 8TB SSD upgrade in a Mac (not including the Mac itself) and got a fairly loaded gaming PC with 32GB of RAM and 10TB of fast SSD. That's VALUE!
If you want good value for your money, buy a PC. If you want Apple, you have to pay a hefty premium and be satisfied with whatever the one seller chooses to provide.
Personally (and objectively), I don't see one as significantly better than the other- just different. I lean Mac but certainly enjoy many benefits of that PC not available on Mac. I miss when key parts of Mac like SSD and RAM could be purchased at PC-driven competitive rates instead of from the lone company store at 3X-5X market rates. We gained some nice "brains" with Silicon but lost the whole competitive-driven pricing for 'the rest' at the same time.
But hey, Apple is now richest in the world and for many of us, that's seemingly all that matters.
That's really not how profits work...
Beginning with operating margins: Apple's are about 25%, not 50%.
And those profits aren't going to into an Apple vault, they're going to the owners of Apple: most of their income is going to dividends and stock buybacks.
Beelink doesn't have an R&D budget to speak of. They aren't making processors, investing in IC fabrication partners, writing operating systems, or anything else. They don't have any serious support, or retail outlets. They're taking a board, one they most likely didn't design, and putting it into a thin plastic shell.
In this case they're selling it at a discount of $100 so this is likely even below cost to clear inventory. The regular price is $489. A low end Mac Mini is $599. Some of that is profit margin to Apple, sure, but some of it is build quality and materials. A lot of it is reputation.
I notice Windows and Microsoft aren't mentioned anywhere, the OS is referred to only as "W11" which I find a bit shady-- along with the statement that you should boot it up without a connection to a network or WiFi.
From the Amazon reviews:
If it isn't for anything mission critical, or if you're focused on RAM size above all else, I'm sure this is a perfectly serviceable computer, but it's not a Mac Mini by a long stretch. It's about half the performance of an M2, for a start. Drawing comparisons to Apple and their profit margins is, well, thoroughly disingenuous.
$100 cheaper than a Mac Mini? Is it really that mind blowing?
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I don't pay premium prices to provide income to company shareholders. Shareholders, etc get their money when the capital they provided creates additional value in the market.
They have a small R&D budget but it is obviously Apple's is multiple multiple orders of magntiude greater.
Those are Apple decisions. I chose Apple for the OS so I am prepared to pay a premium for that. However, it is not my job to subsidsize Apple if they can't get the economies of scale to compete.
Agree, implicit with an Apple purchase is a much greater level of support than this.
it is a sale just like Apple has. In either case I doubt they're selling below marginal cost.
The Mac Mini at $599 retail is a good deal for the package (OS, quality, support, etc).
That's a little strange though others have reported no issue with the MS license they got with this company.
That's not the comparison. A Mac Mini with 32GB of RAM and 1 TB of SSD is $1900. Multiple times this. Its Apple's pricing on RAM and SSD upgrades -- especially the Mac Mini -- that drives people crazy. $25/GB for RAM when others charge $5/GB (or I guess in this case $2.5/GB) makes people feel like they are being cheated. And of course that is now a buy-time only decision so people have to guess what they will need for the life of the computer now and pay a premium for it now with no 3rd party recourse.
Basically Apple is employing what economists call price discimination. They're using extra RAM or builtin internal storage seperate the hobbyist from the serious (revenue generating) use cases and then charging extra to capture a greater portion of the value from the latter. In the case of the Mac Mini I suspect they ~ breakeven on the base model. They could put 16 or 32GB of RAM in there standard for maybe $50-$100 more but they would lose far more than that in the upgrade pricing they get.
The thing is whether it is airline seats or memory pricing, people hate price discrimination.
The value provided to the market is measured by the price premium the product can support. So yes, you pay premium prices to provide income to share holders— you just pay lower premiums for products of less value.
Those are Apple’s decisions, and they’re what has kept the iPhone and now the Mac in their current market positions. Apple has clearly gotten their economies of scale solved— they sell more processors than Intel does. And it’s why the Mac Mini runs circles around this box.
Yep, so compare list to list, or sale to sale. Post one is talking about a sale price which is a temporary event, in this case likely at the end of that product’s life.
If you don’t think they’re selling below marginal cost then Beelink is running at something like 30% gross margin. I find that unlikely given that they don’t have the R&D, support, and other overheads of Apple. This looks like a clearance sale.
Maybe— but that’s part of the price difference. The risk is that the weirdness comes back to bite you.
That is the comparison. How well does the system perform. It’s not what the sand cost to make it all, it’s the performance and reliability of the system doing the job you need it to do. Literally nothing else matters.
I doubt the base model is sold near cost. The one thing Apple doesn’t compromise is their margins. But yes, this is what Apple does— they base model are technically the best deal because you get all the Mac parts for their lowest price. Adding RAM and SSD don’t add to Apple’s cost, but allows them to charge more for their Mac parts.
People may not like it, but the alternative would be a much more expensive base model. Of course everyone would like things to be cheaper, but that doesn’t stop they buying what they need or want. If I had any business dependent on it, there’s no way I’d rely on that Beelink to do the job.
So how mind blowing is that SER5? I don’t think it’s mind blowing at all when you actually think about what you’re buying for just about $100 less than an M2 Mac Mini. I suspect it will be even less mind blowing when we can compare to the M4s soon. That’s my point.
Unfortunately you'll have people who'll buy these based solely on price because that's what they can afford. Then proceed to lose everything because they also couldn't afford a backup.
Like buying a too-cheap used car because that's what one can afford. Then discovering why the previous owner got rid of it....
(This isn't a sneer at anyone with tight finances, believe me I've been there. Point is cheap isn't always cheaper, and can become a lot more expensive when you least need it.)
I buy tons of these types of machines for digital signage at work. Rarely have issues with them. Granted I am not pushing them by any stretch of the imagination. I used to buy Mac minis, but these are so much cheaper and are as reliable and last as long. I install LTSC builds of Windows on them.
Oh please, enough spreading of FUD in this thread.
The Beelink is a good value for basic computing, nothing fancy but doesn't need to be. It isn't so cheap that it'll fall apart on your desk, on the contrary the build quality and connections feel pretty solid. Generic RAM and storage aside, you still get the Intel chipset inside. Mine's been working flawlessly for over a year with basic duties and the occasional Windows-specific photo/video editing project.
I wouldn't get the Beelink as my sole computer but that's due to the desire for more performance rather than any concerns about quality or reliability. My Beelink has been a great companion to my M3 Max MBP. I can easily afford a higher-end PC but a Mini PC was just what I was looking for at a reasonable price. I used to run Windows VMs on my Apple Silicon Macs but it's just easier having the Beelink so I don't have to sacrifice RAM or dedicate storage space to the VM -- once you close the VM you regain your RAM but not your storage. I may upgrade my M1 Mac Mini to an M4 Mac Mini (whenever Apple gets around to announcing it), but the Beelink will still have its spot on my desk.
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It's just an apple
range use-case scenario (for me).Never really vibed with Containers.
I basically picked Prox as my foundation, and have been building upon that 🤷♂️
Homebridge/pi-hole/etc. is absolutely effortless on this n305 unit.
I have had absolutely zero issue with linux/bsd/etc. support on this "Intel" Unit.
Never tried win64, but it's supposed to work. CWWK seems to be OS-Agnostic.
Hold a preference for Void, in general, but--since it's x86--there are no major tears shed.
Trying to use a Pi4b in Production has been (IMO) a Sisyphean Task when working with virtual Systems. I enjoy the idea/education/task, but it's just slooooow.
It's subjective, of course: my daily-driver is a '23 Studio Max with 64G/2TB
In the End, it's all basically For Fun
Couldn't agree more. Had a Beelink since 2021 (so coming up to 3 years). Used most days, zero issues (it just works). Got it for just over £100 with an SSD and 8gig of RAM.Oh please, enough spreading of FUD in this thread.
The Beelink is a good value for basic computing, nothing fancy but doesn't need to be. It isn't so cheap that it'll fall apart on your desk, on the contrary the build quality and connections feel pretty solid. Generic RAM and storage aside, you still get the Intel chipset inside. Mine's been working flawlessly for over a year with basic duties and the occasional Windows-specific photo/video editing project.
I wouldn't get the Beelink as my sole computer but that's due to the desire for more performance rather than any concerns about quality or reliability. My Beelink has been a great companion to my M3 Max MBP. I can easily afford a higher-end PC but a Mini PC was just what I was looking for at a reasonable price. I used to run Windows VMs on my Apple Silicon Macs but it's just easier having the Beelink so I don't have to sacrifice RAM or dedicate storage space to the VM -- once you close the VM you regain your RAM but not your storage. I may upgrade my M1 Mac Mini to an M4 Mac Mini (whenever Apple gets around to announcing it), but the Beelink will still have its spot on my desk.
I'm not going to say what company/devices, but there is hospital equipment running on these little Beelink computers. Not as desktop workstations, but actual FDA-approved medical equipment on wheels. Not sure what OS they run as the company's proprietary interface is overlaid.
I've never heard anything bad about them, or good. They are just there in the background, running 24/7 for weeks or months on end.
I've never heard anything bad about them, or good. They are just there in the background, running 24/7 for weeks or months on end.
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We have a bunch of these mini PCs running at work, for various purposes. I don't believe any are Beelink, but they are a mix of other brands. Generally they all run great with little to no issues. Very cost effective.
You can currently get 32gb of DDR4 for $50 and an NVME with 1TB of storage for $65.
Beelink quality vary from model to model, they are cheap and made mostly of plastic (for the cheap models at least, pricier ones have metal cases) - it's the classic compromise tho, it's cheap so you can't complain about quality, but if the quality was higher, so would the price. That said, Beelink models are a solid choice and have not had (so far) reports of having spyware/fishy stuff embedded in them (looking at you Acemagic, stay away from that brand).
Pick your battles and make these things work for you in specific use cases - I use a different model as a Plex and game server - the case is all plastic and likely won't last 10+ years, but it was $300 and has the right hardware decoding/transcoding, I/O and customization for my needs.
Would I replace a Mac with a mini PC? Never. But I do have and need PCs for some things, and mini PCs are great for a whole bunch of things.
Pick your battles and make these things work for you in specific use cases - I use a different model as a Plex and game server - the case is all plastic and likely won't last 10+ years, but it was $300 and has the right hardware decoding/transcoding, I/O and customization for my needs.
Would I replace a Mac with a mini PC? Never. But I do have and need PCs for some things, and mini PCs are great for a whole bunch of things.
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I missed the opportunity to make some pun about headless operation and headaches. Oh well.
My server is headless, as I don’t own a monitor. The Pi wore a hat for an SSD, as Jellyfin needs cache space. Simply changing boot order and moving everything from the board to the hat took way more time using Terminal through SSH, than using a mini PC with actual storage space and Remote Desktop.
If you’re using a monitor instead of PiOS lite I imagine it’s not as tedious. However, I’m not a CLI wizard. Overall, the mini PC has better performance anyway. I was all-in on making a Pi work until I realized how limited it can be for such applications.
Waiting to see what the M4 mini can do as beelink recently released the SER9 -
www.bee-link.com
Beelink SER9 AMD Ryzen™ AI 9 HX 370 Processor 12C/24T AI PC Turbo Frequency 5.1GHz
About this item 🏆【Powerful AMD Ryzen™ AI 9 HX 370 CPU and AMD Radeon™ 890M GPU bring the Future to your Fingertips】---12 Zen5 CPU cores, combined with a new RadeonTM 890M iGPU, a new generation XDNA 2 NPU and 80 AI TOPS, the RyzenTM AI 9 HX370 processor’s fully upgraded architecture...
However, when you look at the total product a lot of people find value at the price. If they don't they can always get a Linux box or a Windows PC. Consumers get to decide what the find a good value/price combo and vote with tehir wallet.
Would I love for pple to cut prices while increasing specs? Sure, but as long as sales meet targets it isn't happening.
These systems review very well on YouTube. They're quite popular with the retro emulation folks.
Dude you're replying to spends his comments here trashing Apple... as if he could actually do anything remotely like developing, delivering and supporting products worldwide.
The truth about these small computers is that they often use the same parts and designs as others, they are mostly variations on a theme. Hundreds if not thousands of variations on a theme. Of course they work because the basic ideas have worked for years and the parts bins are full of discount parts.
And software support is limited to the BIOS (or equivalent) and perhaps one distro of Linux if using a non-Intel architecture.
If you're into small computers as a hobby then dive into different architectures such as R5 and try various Linux distros. One can slap together a working computer for a couple of hundred dollars.
Exactly, I'm not obligated to pay more to the shareholders. But if they back a product that provides superior value relative to their investment then they should get a return. The directionality here is important.
For an appliance yes for a computer no. I don't care at all what microprocessor is in my dryer (if anything the less the better). Even if we were talking about web browsing devices (chromebooks, iPads, etc), I'd say sure whatever gets me a given level of browsing performance is good.
For a computer, I am not buying something to do "the job". I am buying a device to run a wide variety of software I know about along with the option to run software not yet written. Or even in the case of a single task, if I know "the job" requires 25 GB of working memory then I know I need at least a 32GB system. A system with 8GB of RAM just isn't going to handle it efficiently if at all. No matter how brilliant Apple's engineers are.
And then there's the unknown future needs. Apple Intelligence is a clear example of even Apple's engineers not foreseeing the additional hardware requirements to keep up with the market.
Again, for someone who needs 32GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage, you're not buying something for $100 less than a Mac Mini. You're buying something that < 1/4th the comparable configured Apple device.
Of course if you don't actually need 32GB and/or 1 TB storage then it goes to waste. But then it's not really a useful discussion to compare things that aren't what people need anyway.