Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple is Now Selling a Refurbished Mac Mini for Just $319 (!)

MacRumors said:


A few days ago, we reported that Apple's refurbished Mac mini pricing had a problem, and it appears that Apple has taken note.

m2-pro-mac-mini.jpg

Apple was offering a refurbished Mac mini with the M2 chip, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage for $559, which was $50 more than a refurbished Mac mini with the M4 chip, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. All other key specifications were equal.

That's no longer the case.

As noted by Tech God on X, Apple has since revised its refurbished Mac mini pricing, and the latest prices are quite impressive. In the U.S., you can now get a refurbished Mac mini with the M2 chip, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage for just $319. And the model that previously cost $559 is now priced at $459.

Problem solved.

Article Link: Apple is Now Selling a Refurbished Mac Mini for Just $319 (!)
Click to expand...
Even if just the M2 this is awesome for most people.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Morod, StoneJack and Sikh
gpat said:
Pfffft. Not even close.
Base memory cuts on iPhone (8GB until 2014, 16GB until 2016) were way more crippling. Together with
- 1GB RAM on iPhone 6
- 2GB RAM on basic Macbook Air for way too long (until 2012)
- 64GB SSD on basic Macbook Air until 2013
- 256MB RAM on 2010 iPad.

2010s Apple had an unprecedented level of arrogance towards the customer.
Also 2020s Apple looks friendlier than ever to me.
Click to expand...
pffft not even close to close

My centris 610 only had 4 MB of ram. As a designer, I was moving to Pagemaker 5 Vs Quark 3 -- and I couldnt even run it. had a 5MB minimum. Cost $300 more for an additional 4 MB. 80 MB drive was limiting. $1800 and BYOKM. And apple II keyboards were $150.... even more egregious was 6 months after I got it, it was replaced by a Quadra 610, with double the ram and storage -- 8 MB and 160 MB plus a 5 MHz faster procesor with a FPU AND ethernet -- for $400 LESS$%^&*U!! so ssshhhhhhhhh on the pfft =)
 
  • Like
Reactions: bgillander, stx66, StoneJack and 1 other person
badgerbadgerx2 said:
pffft not even close to close

My centris 610 only had 4 MB of ram. As a designer, I was moving to Pagemaker 5 Vs Quark 3 -- and I couldnt even run it. had a 5MB minimum. Cost $300 more for an additional 4 MB. 80 MB drive was limiting. $1800 and BYOKM. And apple II keyboards were $150.... even more egregious was 6 months after I got it, it was replaced by a Quadra 610, with double the ram and storage -- 8 MB and 160 MB plus a 5 MHz faster procesor with a FPU AND ethernet -- for $400 LESS$%^&*U!! so ssshhhhhhhhh on the pfft =)
Click to expand...

Oh it was tough to be an Apple fan in the Spindler era.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Eriamjh1138@DAN
dannyyankou said:
It’s $319 though. If a parent is looking for a computer to get their kid to do schoolwork on, this would be a suitable choice.
Click to expand...
It is if the parent already has a monitor, keyboard mouse and all the wiring. If that's not the case, then an M1 iMac for $699 might be a better choice.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sikh
I have an M2 Air with 8/512, so close to this spec. It feels quite fast in normal home usage. I think people who pay $319 for this will understand that it’s not a top-spec Mac and will be very happy with it. my parents both have M1 macs with 8 GB of RAM and would be quite startled to learn that their machines are unusable (according to many on this forum).
 
  • Like
Reactions: DunedinD, Jumpthesnark, StoneJack and 2 others
victorvictoria said:
It is if the parent already has a monitor, keyboard mouse and all the wiring. If that's not the case, then an M1 iMac for $699 might be a better choice.
Click to expand...
Monitors are fairly cheap, I think you can get an HD monitor, keyboard, and mouse for under $150 easily.

On the other hand, the iMac has a good built in display. But if they’re just doing school work, a 4k display probably isn’t necessary.
 
  • Like
Reactions: victorvictoria
ls1dreams said:
I'm leaning on the 'cheap' qualifier for when these drop in price to maybe $300 used in a couple years.
Click to expand...
They likely won't be sold for $300 on the refurb store. What Apple generally does is just remove them from the store completely at a certain point.

Anyhow at this point, that price difference is minimal. Even if the price did drop (but it likely won't), if you needed a Mac soon, $319 now seems to make much more sense than waiting until 2026 to get it for $299.

But it's too late, since it's sold out now. It might come back in a few weeks though, who knows.
 
QCassidy352 said:
I have an M2 Air with 8/512, so close to this spec. It feels quite fast in normal home usage. I think people who pay $319 for this will understand that it’s not a top-spec Mac and will be very happy with it. my parents both have M1 macs with 8 GB of RAM and would be quite startled to learn that their machines are unusable (according to many on this forum).
Click to expand...
I have M1 Mac mini 8/512. It is flying for most tasks. I actually never could slow it down. It may not be a latest m4 but it insanely capable for most tasks which is astonishing. Never felt any need to upgrade it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: QCassidy352, mikeschr and EugW
I’ve been using an M2 iPad Air for the last couple of months, and granted, it’s not a Mac by any stretch of the imagination. I couldn’t really slow it down outside of some extreme instances where I was throwing something heavy at it. (Like running a complicated Stable Diffusion prompt while trying to follow some Apple Music karaoke.)
 
At slightly more than $300, it should make it a very good computer and will be a very good purchase. Also good to see that the price has been corrected for the 16GB model.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mganu
johnsawyercjs said:
Odd, I used my iPhone 4s (which I still have on a shelf), running the last version of iOS (9.3.6), and I didn't have nearly the kinds of awfulness that this video describes, though it wasn't totally immune.
Click to expand...

How dare you use facts and the evidence of your personal experience! At this rate, you'll never be a clickbait youtube influencer wannabe! /s
 
  • Like
Reactions: johnsawyercjs
EugW said:
My wife and daughter both have 8 GB Macs. The bottleneck is definitely not the RAM. It's their CPUs, old Intel models.

Even their 256 GB SSDs are fine. Actually both Macs shipped with 128 GB, but I ended up upgrading them to 256 within the first year, with inexpensive used OEM Apple/Samsung drives. For my wife it was her iMessage taking up 40 GB and some system files that put her over 100 GB total, greatly slowing that machine down. However, even today, she only uses 120 GB. My daughter only uses about 60 GB though, since most of her school assignments are done in the cloud.

I gave my 2017 27" iMac to my son. It's well-spec'd with 1 TB SSD and 24 GB RAM, but it's way, way overkill for him. He has similar computing needs as my daughter, so his 1 TB SSD has about 950 GB free. :D


Used. Not really a good price comparison.
Click to expand...
I have a 2020 Mini with 32GB memory. The cpu is not bottlenecking anything, except gaming in bootcamp. But 8GB would definitely bottleneck anything more than light browsing with under 10 tabs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: turbineseaplane
Corefile said:
The 319$ M2 Mini only has 8GB of RAM which is half the amount of new Macs. So it's something that will probably be limited to Sequoia and even that causes compressed memory just upon booting the thing.
Click to expand...
Some of us are old enough to remember getting 4 macOS versions for our powerpc g5 towers and then only 4 macOS versions for our intel macpro towers. My M2 mini is on the third macOS version so your close. :rolleyes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back