Why is the Mac mini so expensive?

[cocacolakid]

http://lowendmac.com/musings/09mm/2009-mac-mini-value.html

Scroll down to the section, "Is The Mac Mini Overpriced?"

The answer is a resounding no.

comparing pc to mac is just impossible.one run windows, the other mac os - the reason why people pay more for the mac.I bought refurb mac mini 2009 with the 2.53 cpu and 4gigs of ram for a total of about 600$ + tax.With that money you'll probably manage to build some AMD build with midrange gpu and windows 7 which will be still slower in most tasks.Ohh and the other reason - the mini is dead silent.I don't know about other people but i rly hate the noise which comes from most pcs.

And the mini sips electricity, 85 watts at full power in the 2010 mini. You save on electric bills every month.

No, it probably isnt, just be warned for anything more than messing about (Serious Mac App Coding for a Commercial Business, get a Mac, just to save any possible headaches and to get support from Apple).

Exactly. I built a Hackintosh to screw around and try out OS X. I loved it, but once I used it as my main computer I realized there were many things a Hackintosh could not do that a real Mac could. I just bit the bullet and bought a 2010 mini.

 

[matt3839]

Exactly. I built a Hackintosh to screw around and try out OS X. I loved it, but once I used it as my main computer I realized there were many things a Hackintosh could not do that a real Mac could. I just bit the bullet and bought a 2010 mini.

What are those things though? Not being facetious, I'd like to know what I'd be missing out on, since I don't use anything Mac-exclusive like FireWire.

And the mini sips electricity, 85 watts at full power in the 2010 mini. You save on electric bills every month.

The power that my more powerful computers use up every month is relatively minuscule.

 

[chrismacguy]

What are those things though? Not being facetious, I'd like to know what I'd be missing out on, since I don't use anything Mac-exclusive like FireWire.

The biggest thing I noticed when I used a friends hack was every little thing was a little bit slower than on a Mac. Even on a Quad Core occasionally things would stutter a bit - Im guess because the hardware wasnt apple shipping, so it was having driver issues - 1 update for instance stopped his graphics working, another stopped Final Cut launching completely, and various other little things give out. (A Hackintosh is kindve like a basic car - it gets you from A to B, but its noisy and bits might fall off or break from time to time, and a Apple manufactured Mac is kindve like a Ferrari - Its perfect, unless its Apples equivalent to the 458 Italia, in which case it leaks coolant everywhere and burns itself out once in a while)

 

[matt3839]

The biggest thing I noticed when I used a friends hack was every little thing was a little bit slower than on a Mac. Even on a Quad Core occasionally things would stutter a bit - Im guess because the hardware wasnt apple shipping, so it was having driver issues - 1 update for instance stopped his graphics working, another stopped Final Cut launching completely, and various other little things give out. (A Hackintosh is kindve like a basic car - it gets you from A to B, but its noisy and bits might fall off or break from time to time, and a Apple manufactured Mac is kindve like a Ferrari - Its perfect, unless its Apples equivalent to the 458 Italia, in which case it leaks coolant everywhere and burns itself out once in a while)

Macs are like Ferraris in the sense that they're beautifully designed and wonderful to use, but for the price you're paying, they're awful under the hood. But even if a hackintosh saves me money, using it with a half-baked disc image is even worse.
Yeah, I'm guessing it's the drivers; community-made ones are usually terrible even if everything else is great. Even as an open-source fan I find it to be torture not to use official drivers on Linux for my hardware.

 

[shadowarachh]

I bought a 2010 mini because I was tired of the cosmos sitting under my desk. it's my first macOS machine and apart from the slight change in how to do some things I couldn't be happier. quite frankly after spending $4k on my last custom windows rig $700 doesn't really seem too bad for a computer that is so small and silent you forget it's there.

my only gripe is that I had to buy an expensive adapter to use it with my 30" dell monitor. the dual link dvi adapter works but the blacks are very grainy.

 

[chrismacguy]

Yeah, I'm guessing it's the drivers; community-made ones are usually terrible even if everything else is great. Even as an open-source fan I find it to be torture not to use official drivers on Linux for my hardware.

Yeah, I think they must be getting better by now (As more people try it, realise stuff is broken, and repair it), but I think the reason community drivers tend to be terrible is because nobody has the time or resources necessary to release drivers which are the same as ATi/nVidia/Intel etc. (And at least with a Mac when something goes wrong, there is some accountability, and Apple is very good at this - unlike with community stuff where if it breaks something, its your fault)

 

[matt3839]

Yeah, I think they must be getting better by now (As more people try it, realise stuff is broken, and repair it), but I think the reason community drivers tend to be terrible is because nobody has the time or resources necessary to release drivers which are the same as ATi/nVidia/Intel etc. (And at least with a Mac when something goes wrong, there is some accountability, and Apple is very good at this - unlike with community stuff where if it breaks something, its your fault)

And such is the curse of having a lot of options for customization: there's a much higher chance something might go wrong on the software end.
Macs, for the most part, all use the same small range of components, so drivers aren't going to be a problem if you use one.
Apple created a major hurdle for the Hackintosh community and they probably weren't even trying. lol.

 

[DeeEss]

The market dictates the price. If people are buying it in droves at that price, which they are, why wouldn't they price it accordingly? The price is a balance of design, materials and spec for what it's target market wants and needs and that fits into the companies ethos and profile.

Apple's prices reflect their status in the market which is a luxury to semi-luxury item. They're not catering to cheap, because they are not that. Their products are unique, well designed and made from quality materials. Look at any sector of any market and find the same in everything. When technology and manufacturing allows them to provide more accessible products, they do. Look at the ipod and iphone for this.

Something that sits on my desk and occupies a large part of my life I don't want a cheap looking plastic uninspiring box. It's the price I choose to pay.

 

[matt3839]

The market dictates the price. If people are buying it in droves at that price, which they are, why wouldn't they price it accordingly? The price is a balance of design, materials and spec for what it's target market wants and needs and that fits into the companies ethos and profile.

Apple's prices reflect their status in the market which is a luxury to semi-luxury item. They're not catering to cheap, because they are not that. Their products are unique, well designed and made from quality materials. Look at any sector of any market and find the same in everything. When technology and manufacturing allows them to provide more accessible products, they do. Look at the ipod and iphone for this.

Something that sits on my desk and occupies a large part of my life I don't want a cheap looking plastic uninspiring box. It's the price I choose to pay.

Apple's products are mostly marketing though; their parts are made by Foxconn, which also makes components for companies like Dell, HP and Sony (and no, Apple does not get special treatment). Only companies that produce their own components, like ASUS, have real quality assurance. Paying more for it does not make it better. As a tech type of person I care far more about what it's like on the inside, not the outside.

On a side note, Apple is one of the few computer manufacturers with cases that aren't cheap plastic junk or some 14-year-old kid's new gaming toy; Lian Li and other companies make some seriously stylish cases.

 

[cocacolakid]

What are those things though? Not being facetious, I'd like to know what I'd be missing out on, since I don't use anything Mac-exclusive like FireWire.

Some of the things I can remember that did not work either at all, or properly, on my Hackintosh:

Time Machine. No backups. I could use Carbon Copy Cloner, however.

Bootcamp or Parallels, no running Windows because neither would recognize the Intel Core 2 Duo CPU as what it was, an Intel C2D.

Power problems. In order to get the Hackintosh to turn on, I have to unplug it from the wall, plug it back in, and turn the power supply switch off and on before the power button will actually start the computer. Everytime.

Updates. This is the biggest kicker. Every update runs the risk of killing the Mac or making something not compatible. If you like to tinker constantly and never have a computer you can just turn on and use from day to day, then it's not a problem. But if you're like the other 99.999999% of computer users, you go nuts with this crap.

Some Hackintoshers have had better luck. It took me at least 8 tries to get the OS properly installed, and I'm using the most compatible Hackintosh motherboard and very compatible video card and cpu to limit problems.

For me, dealing with all the issues that kept the Hackintosh from the full Mac experience just stopped being worth it. It did work well enough for me to see that Windows was a giant suckhole that I had wasted 20 years on. When I broke down and bought a real Mac, my 2010 unibody Mini, it's been mind blowingly fantastic. And if I added up all the money I spent building that Hackintosh, it was a very good chunk of the cost of the Mini.

One main thing people forget when believing the cost of the Mini is so much more than Windows PC's is that the value of OS X is impossible to nail down. It's not $30, what the retail update disc costs, or $100, the cost of a full retail installation disc.

Ask yourself this: What value do you place on having a computer that just works? No blue screens of death. No constant nagging about security. No constant updates of program after program, with fixes you have to Google just to figure out what the error messages mean and how to actually fix it. With a Hackintosh you're close to having freedom from all of that, but you're still limited. Just bite the bullet and buy a real Mac, even if you can only afford a used one, you will never regret it.

 

[torbjoern]

So, I'm a young man accustomed to Windows and Linux, and was considering delving into the world of OS X and real Unix, but I only wanted the machine since I already have my own peripherals and monitor, so I took a look at their cheapest model, the Mac mini...

What on Earth? Seven hundred dollars for a Core 2 Duo processor?!! And a 320GB hard drive?? I know Apple is known for overpricing but that is simply outrageous! And don't tell me Apple's hardware is superior or anything, even if it was there's absolutely no reason to charge so much for laptop graphics and an outdated processor (yay, TF2 on low). I find this especially sad since their higher-end computers have a much better price-to-performance ratio!

If it was cheaper than this I could more than justify the purchase, but for the price of a Mac mini I can make a Hackintosh computer that will blow the mini's specs out of the water. I would love to have a Mac PC, but for these prices, it seems like you're just paying for the brand. Why Apple hasn't released a budget computer is beyond me. :/

You will likely get the extra premium back when you sell the computer 3 years later. Yes - it actually does have sale value 3 years later. Not bad, eh?

 

[matt3839]

You will likely get the extra premium back when you sell the computer 3 years later. Yes - it actually does have sale value 3 years later. Not bad, eh?

Thing is though, I don't sell my old equipment; I either give it away to charity/family/friends or find a new use for it.
At my current purchasing rate, my Beowulf super-cluster should be complete by 2023.

Some of the things I can remember that did not work either at all, or properly, on my Hackintosh:

Time Machine. No backups. I could use Carbon Copy Cloner, however.

Bootcamp or Parallels, no running Windows because neither would recognize the Intel Core 2 Duo CPU as what it was, an Intel C2D.

Power problems. In order to get the Hackintosh to turn on, I have to unplug it from the wall, plug it back in, and turn the power supply switch off and on before the power button will actually start the computer. Everytime.

Updates. This is the biggest kicker. Every update runs the risk of killing the Mac or making something not compatible. If you like to tinker constantly and never have a computer you can just turn on and use from day to day, then it's not a problem. But if you're like the other 99.999999% of computer users, you go nuts with this crap.

Some Hackintoshers have had better luck. It took me at least 8 tries to get the OS properly installed, and I'm using the most compatible Hackintosh motherboard and very compatible video card and cpu to limit problems.

For me, dealing with all the issues that kept the Hackintosh from the full Mac experience just stopped being worth it. It did work well enough for me to see that Windows was a giant suckhole that I had wasted 20 years on. When I broke down and bought a real Mac, my 2010 unibody Mini, it's been mind blowingly fantastic. And if I added up all the money I spent building that Hackintosh, it was a very good chunk of the cost of the Mini.

One main thing people forget when believing the cost of the Mini is so much more than Windows PC's is that the value of OS X is impossible to nail down. It's not $30, what the retail update disc costs, or $100, the cost of a full retail installation disc.

Ask yourself this: What value do you place on having a computer that just works? No blue screens of death. No constant nagging about security. No constant updates of program after program, with fixes you have to Google just to figure out what the error messages mean and how to actually fix it. With a Hackintosh you're close to having freedom from all of that, but you're still limited. Just bite the bullet and buy a real Mac, even if you can only afford a used one, you will never regret it.

Most of those won't be a problem. The system lagging in updates might bother me though, but I can deal with it.

I'm still deciding on whether I want to hackintosh, but if I don't I won't bother getting a Mac at all. I personally don't put any value on a computer that "just works", but a computer that doesn't work at all is useless to me.

 

[mdgm]

Thing is though, I don't sell my old equipment; I either give it away to charity/family/friends or find a new use for it.

I understand that. I tend not to sell my old computers either. Macs do tend to last well and I've found them to be great machines.

 

[Irishman]

So, I'm a young man accustomed to Windows and Linux, and was considering delving into the world of OS X and real Unix, but I only wanted the machine since I already have my own peripherals and monitor, so I took a look at their cheapest model, the Mac mini...

What on Earth? Seven hundred dollars for a Core 2 Duo processor?!! And a 320GB hard drive?? I know Apple is known for overpricing but that is simply outrageous! And don't tell me Apple's hardware is superior or anything, even if it was there's absolutely no reason to charge so much for laptop graphics and an outdated processor (yay, TF2 on low). I find this especially sad since their higher-end computers have a much better price-to-performance ratio!

If it was cheaper than this I could more than justify the purchase, but for the price of a Mac mini I can make a Hackintosh computer that will blow the mini's specs out of the water. I would love to have a Mac PC, but for these prices, it seems like you're just paying for the brand. Why Apple hasn't released a budget computer is beyond me. :/

Well, at least you've been honest about your background. Don't forget the newest Mac Mini adds HDMI to make connecting it to your HT as a media server much easier.

How much recent experience do you have using a Mac as your main computer day-to-day?

How long have you been keeping up with Mac specs and prices?

Macs have always commanded a premium. Some are clearly better deals compared to Windows machines (27" iMac, anyone?) than others in terms of comparing specs. If your shopping attitude is all about price/specs ratio, then you should avoid Macs at all cost.

They aren't for you.

....what
The specifications are what WILL affect my experience. I'm going for price because I want the OS and features like FireWire and EFI, and not additional features like peripherals and a monitor, if I had a ton of cash to burn I would just but the Mac Pro. And I have more than enough room for a big case; honestly, the gaudy brushed metal design is what I dislike about most Macs anyway.
I suppose what everybody said is true though. Thanks everyone .

If you want to get into OSX for the cheapest price, like it or not, that's the Mini. Either buy it or don't.

And while specs will effect your experience, they do not dictate it.

 

[Uofmtiger]

How much is your time worth? No one figures in the cost of how much time is expended trying to build a Hackintosh, researching and hunting down the stuff that is needed, and dealing with the many different issues that would come up.

The premium that someone puts on having a computer that just works varies from person to person, but I think everyone should agree that their time has some value.

 

[matt3839]

Well, at least you've been honest about your background. Don't forget the newest Mac Mini adds HDMI to make connecting it to your HT as a media server much easier.

How much recent experience do you have using a Mac as your main computer day-to-day?

How long have you been keeping up with Mac specs and prices?

Macs have always commanded a premium. Some are clearly better deals compared to Windows machines (27" iMac, anyone?) than others in terms of comparing specs. If your shopping attitude is all about price/specs ratio, then you should avoid Macs at all cost.

They aren't for you.

I'm not all about price/performance. I don't mind paying extra for something that's qualitative rather than quantitative, but if I'm going to pay a premium price, I'd better get a premium product. And while the Mac mini and iMac have some great hardware features, I really have no particular use for them.

As silly as this sounds, I've been thinking about picking up the latest Apple TV for $99: it can run XBMC (a media center that I love like a brother) and play 720p video smoothly, which are what I very much want. I won't be getting OS X out of it, but for features like those I'm very tempted.

If you want to get into OSX for the cheapest price, like it or not, that's the Mini. Either buy it or don't.

And while specs will effect your experience, they do not dictate it.

I know specs won't entirely dictate my experience, but they will dictate the price for the most part.

How much is your time worth? No one figures in the cost of how much time is expended trying to build a Hackintosh, researching and hunting down the stuff that is needed, and dealing with the many different issues that would come up.

The premium that someone puts on having a computer that just works varies from person to person, but I think everyone should agree that their time has some value.

Computers for me are a hobby. If I'm not going to make a hackintosh, then I'll be spending my time messing with some other machine. Yes my time has much value, but any time I would put into making the build would be plenty of fun (and it's not like I can't just spend an hour a day on it or something if I need to, it's not a race).

 

[Uofmtiger]

Computers for me are a hobby. If I'm not going to make a hackintosh, then I'll be spending my time messing with some other machine. Yes my time has much value, but any time I would put into making the build would be plenty of fun (and it's not like I can't just spend an hour a day on it or something if I need to, it's not a race).

To get back to your original question, the mini costs what it does because most people don't want to spend their time that way. The hour a day for numerous days would be time away from making money, time spent with family, or time away from their other interests. If you build computers as a hobby, you could probably spend the same amount of time to build a computer to sell for a profit and spend the profit on a real Mac.

Once again, there is a cost of time and/or money to building it yourself. I would still figure in your hourly wage times the number of hours spent into the cost of the Hackintosh to get some perspective of it's real cost. You may find that it actually costs more to build yourself.

 

[Thermonuclear]

Short answer: Macs are expensive because many people are willing to pay the higher prices.

Long answer: For many users, Mac OS/X does not have any competition. For many other users, the only competition is from Linux and that's usually Ubuntu Linux. The tens of thousands of Linux contributors continue to close the gap, but for the next several years Mac OS/X has the advantage seen both by casual users and also by serious application developers.

Ask the question again at the end of the decade. By then, Macs will be much more reasonably priced -- or they won't be around at all.

 

[matt3839]

To get back to your original question, the mini costs what it does because most people don't want to spend their time that way. The hour a day for numerous days would be time away from making money, time spent with family, or time away from their other interests. If you build computers as a hobby, you could probably spend the same amount of time to build a computer to sell for a profit and spend the profit on a real Mac.

Once again, there is a cost of time and/or money to building it yourself. I would still figure in your hourly wage times the number of hours spent into the cost of the Hackintosh to get some perspective of it's real cost. You may find that it actually costs more to build yourself.

That's a pretty good point; I was probably thinking too much into technical points.
Also, I spend almost all of my free time building computers, I'm a very introverted type and my few friends are into technology as well. Time isn't an issue in the slightest.

Short answer: Macs are expensive because many people are willing to pay the higher prices.

Long answer: For many users, Mac OS/X does not have any competition. For many other users, the only competition is from Linux and that's usually Ubuntu Linux. The tens of thousands of Linux contributors continue to close the gap, but for the next several years Mac OS/X has the advantage seen both by casual users and also by serious application developers.

Ask the question again at the end of the decade. By then, Macs will be much more reasonably priced -- or they won't be around at all.

Coming from an avid Linux user, I'll be shocked if Linux takes up that much market share.
I do see your point though.

 

[Uofmtiger]

That's a pretty good point; I was probably thinking too much into technical points.
Also, I spend almost all of my free time building computers, I'm a very introverted type and my few friends are into technology as well. Time isn't an issue in the slightest.

My main point is that it takes time and labor to do it properly. If I were to hire you to build or fix computers for me, I doubt you would do it for free. If you are doing it for free, put an add in the paper and I am sure your hobby will keep you busy for a long, long time.

 

[matt3839]

My main point is that it takes time and labor to do it properly. If I were to hire you to build or fix computers for me, I doubt you would do it for free. If you are doing it for free, put an add in the paper and I am sure your hobby will keep you busy for a long, long time.

Are you implying that I'm unemployed or something? I have a nice job and am in college; my degree isn't even centered around computers, actually.

 

[Uofmtiger]

Are you implying that I'm unemployed or something? I have a nice job and am in college; my degree isn't even centered around computers, actually.

Not at all. I am implying that even though it is a hobby, your time is worth money. Even if you were unemployed, that could be time spent looking for another oppurtunity, so that was not my point at all. The point is that you are not charging yourself for it, but you would probably charge for it as a service to a stranger.

In other words, a side by side comparison of something that "just works" and something that takes hours to piece together is not a fair comparison unless you include your labor and research costs. Also, rarely does the pieced together machine work as smoothly as the real thing in the long run. Therefore, the cost in time continues to build during the ownership phase.

What I am mainly referring to is the hidden opportunity costs that is there when you compare something that requires no time to produce and something that costs hours to produce. The exact dollar amount is difficult to calculate, but for some people, the hours spent building and maintaining a machine would be at a higher cost than just buying the mini from Apple.

 

[matt3839]

Not at all. I am implying that even though it is a hobby, your time is worth money. Even if you were unemployed, that could be time spent looking for another oppurtunity, so that was not my point at all. The point is that you are not charging yourself for it, but you would probably charge for it as a service to a stranger.

In other words, a side by side comparison of something that "just works" and something that takes hours to piece together is not a fair comparison unless you include your labor and research costs. Also, rarely does the pieced together machine work as smoothly as the real thing in the long run. Therefore, the cost in time continues to build during the ownership phase.

What I am mainly referring to is the hidden opportunity costs that is there when you compare something that requires no time to produce and something that costs hours to produce. The exact dollar amount is difficult to calculate, but for some people, the hours spent building and maintaining a machine would be at a higher cost than just buying the mini from Apple.

That's why I'm probably not going to hackintosh. I couldn't care less how much time and money it takes, but if there's still a relatively high probability that it's not going to work even if I follow the steps perfectly, then I don't want to bother. I've put together many computers for many different purposes, both for myself and for family/friends, and I know how perfectly how to assemble an attractive, well-balanced machine and have never had any trouble with Windows, I very much love 7. Windows and Linux are made to run on just about any computer, store bought or self built. If it's probably not going to run, then it's too much of a risk and I'm not going to sink money into it. Hackintosh software might be stable in the future but right now, I don't like the chances.

 

[huffboy]

Just buy some apple shares together with your mac mini. at the rate its going, it will pay off for your mini quickly.

 

[matt3839]

just buy some apple shares together with your mac mini. At the rate its going, it will pay off for your mini quickly.

Brilliant!