Are all new minis shipping from China, or just CTOs?

[Makosuke]

I ask because I'm wondering exactly how annoyed I should be. I ordered one of the new minis yesterday, and added a remote to the CTO page. It then sat at the "preparing" stage until this evening, at which point it shipped... direct from Shenzhen.

Now, maybe they're all shipping from the factory at this point, in which case no complaints. But since the same model is showing "ships in 24 hours" if I DON'T add a remote, and 1-3 days if I do, I'll be rather miffed if they've just delayed my order by about four days to drop a remote in the box. A remote, further, that I could have just ordered separately for exactly the same price had I noticed the difference in ship times.

And yes, I know a couple days doesn't make any difference in the grand scheme of things, but I'm a Mac-lover, and besides, it's more fuel efficient to stick the thing on a ship, so if there's already a pile of stock "in town" I'd prefer one of those.

Anybody else order one without any modifications?

 

[Mac_Max]

I'd be surprised if adding a remote is what caused the computer to be shipped from China directly. The remotes themselves aren't new and I doubt the packaging is changed to fit the remote.

 

[alexlovesmacs]

You should've just bought the remote at an Apple Store, Ebay, or Craigslist.

 

[striatedglutes]

You should've just bought the remote at an Apple Store, Ebay, or Craigslist.

Just looked....they are DIRT cheap there. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Makosuke]

I'd be surprised if adding a remote is what caused the computer to be shipped from China directly. The remotes themselves aren't new and I doubt the packaging is changed to fit the remote.

Yeah, this is what I hope, but since the remote definitely trips the "CTO" flag in their system (as in, the model number shows as the generic CTO one instead of a default config), you never know when their backend makes some boneheaded assumption about the order. Which is why I'm curious if anyone else ordered a complete stock config and had it shipped direct from the factory.

(Actually, come to think of it, do they pre-pair the remote for you? If so, that would mean it's not just "drop it in the box," right? The only system I ever bought with a remote was back when they were always included.)

Also, yes, I probably should have gotten the remote used or local (though I have no actual Apple store within 300 miles), but I was just configuring for convenience. Oh well. In Hong Kong now, although that's not exactly much of a trip from Shenzhen.

 

[DewGuy1999]

I may be wrong here, but I don't think that Apple opens cartons and drops items in. Another way to avoid the "CTO" would have been to put the stock mini in your shopping cart and then added a remote to the shopping cart. All would be on the same order but not "CTO".