New 2014 Mac Mini Has Soldered RAM, Not User Replaceable

[AppleScruff1]

If people stop buying the Mini, maybe Apple would get the message. But people won't, so it will only get worse.

 

[MellowFuzz]

"Good design is environmentally friendly" says Dieter Rams. There's nothing more environmentally friendly (not existing, aside) than keeping a product more useful, for longer.

Apple doesn't put good design first anymore, it puts profits, which means it is the new Microsoft. Jobs' legacy betrayed.

 

[MyopicPaideia]

Soldered RAM is confirmed. A friend has GSX access and has gone through the service guide. You can open the bottom but the only easily accessible part is the PCIe flash storage. You can also replace the SATA HDD but it is a little harder to get to. I'm not sure if the machine supports a PCIe + SATA drive. It does support it physically but since you can't buy both together it would require parts that may not be available to average consumers yet. Any more questions?

Not promising!

 

[Cole Slaw]

99% of mac mini customers don't change anything. Making it more expensive for customers because a few cheapskates can't buy the pc they really want is madness! It saves money and is passed onto us, soldered ram is great and the article is so one sided it's designed to be link bait and you fell for it.

It's cheaper better and a great upgrade.

That you, Tim?

 

[tbobmccoy]

Starting bids on my 2011 mac mini now.
2.7 Ghz intel i7
Radeon HD 6630m
4gb Ram (FULLY REPLACABLE)
Only $900 (seriously about what I paid)

Not serious, will never sell!

But seriously why? I wonder if the dual hard drive option is still available, I installed an SSD into that mac mini with little expertise, just the right tools and guidance. Everything was impressively engineered into a beautifully tight package yet entirely repairable (I was very impressed). It just doesn't make sense why backward steps are being taken.

I sense this is a certain trend Apple intends to follow since it now has confidence that users enjoy OS X and IOS too much to fight it. Sad future, but not unrealistic.

This is about how I feel, too. I was thinking maybe this year I'd upgrade my Mac mini but, nope. It works too well for me to sell it. Plus, these "upgrades" are hardly that. I'll pick up a high capacity SSD instead and get way more speed.

 

[fa8362]

99% of mac mini customers don't change anything. Making it more expensive for customers because a few cheapskates can't buy the pc they really want is madness! It saves money and is passed onto us, soldered ram is great and the article is so one sided it's designed to be link bait and you fell for it.

It's cheaper better and a great upgrade.

I hope this is sarcasm.

 

[mjoshi123]

If you dont like the design apple made for Mac mini please send feedback to apple. Flooding this forum is not going to serve your cause. Apple needs to know about design decision's being made and its implications on its user base.

 

[AppleScruff1]

With some of the responses here defending Apple, is it any wonder why Apple does what they do? Business owners dream about having customers like this.

 

[John.B]

I stopped by my local Apple Store this morning and picked up one if their last 2012 i7 quad-core 2.3 GHz "server" boxes. $899 with dual 1TB HDDs and 4GB RAM.

She couldn't say how many of these they had in stock, just that they were low, and had more of the $699 models with one 1TB HDD available.

Usually MacMall, etc. have sale prices on the previous models, but I wouldn't expect that to be the case with the 2012 Mac minis. I doubt they will last very long.

 

[groovyd]

$100 saving? how about the 29$ dvi adapter that apple took away?

shareholders benefit when the consumer also benefits, it is the simple circle of economics and it has proven itself to work for them and their customers.

----------

There's a difference between paying more for quality, and paying more just to pay more. It's not simply about what just works or not, it's also about the value of what you're getting. A topped out Mac Mini isn't worth the price you're paying for it, even when you consider its resale value.

Plus, plenty of people mess around with the Mini. I'd almost say it was a more popular item for the geeky tinkerers than it was your average consumer, who'd more likely buy an MBA or 21" iMac if they were going with a Mac. Taking away the ability to scale it to your needs removes its biggest selling point to that crowd.

actually it is worth the price. i get a great machine i never have to futz with that just works, has an incredible ecosystem that comes for free with it and when i go to resell it after 3 years it is still worth most of what i paid for it.

 

[RedBanana]

If you dont like the design apple made for Mac mini please send feedback to apple. Flooding this forum is not going to serve your cause. Apple needs to know about design decision's being made and its implications on its user base.

I'm sure they have people monitoring websites like MacRumors for reactions like this.

Or they'll wonder why Gigabyte BRIX sales are outperforming mini's.

Only dual core i5/i7? Really?

 

[Thermonuclear]

That's vastly less powerful, 16GB storage, 2GB RAM, no upgrade options. There's always been cheaper boxes available. If you are prepared to centralize all your data with Google and use what's basically a terminal, then that may be ok. That's post PC for ya, a mainframe and a terminal. /s

If you like to get a Mac and prefer that platform then it's not really an option though is it.

That is not the point. Also, not true; I know for a fact that the RAM in the LG Chromebase is upgradable.

The point is: why should a typical user pay THREE times the price of a Chromebox to get a Mini which does nothing extra that's needed?

Oh, and there are apps which run under Chrome just fine in off line mode.

As for drawbacks of centralizing data with Google, how can these be any different from drawbacks associated with centralizing data with Apple's iCloud?

By the way, the Chrome machines all have USB ports and can use thumb drives for local storage.

 

[DaveN]

Waiting for the teardown and performance test results

At first I also thought 'WTF! No quad core! No user-upgradable RAM! How can I get my hands on a quad core 2012?' Then I stepped back a bit. Wait for the tear downs to see if the ram is upgradable. Wait for the speed tests. Maybe it is a faster box than the previous version. It isn't like I have to wait a long time for definitive information as they ship next week.

I wanted a mini as a media server. That doesn't take a lot of horsepower but I also want it for transcoding (is that the right term) videos for later use. That does take more horsepower.

I use my current iMac (Early 2009 iMac) for photo processing. It has the max 8 GB and more would be better. A Mini would be a step up from my current setup but time is money. Really for the price of a high end DSLR ($2600) I can get a refurbished basic model Mac Pro. I could live with a Mini for that too really.

Yes I'm not happy that the upgrade didn't include a quad core, 32 GB capable, 2 internal drive, clearly RAM upgradable Mini wasn't announced. Is it the end of the world? No. Does this mean Hackintosh for me? I dunno. I'll wait for the teardown and speed test results.

 

[myca]

Classic Apple really.

I got the quad core i7 mac mini in February this year, with a 16GB kit from Crucial it cost me under £900. It would cost me more now to get a less powerful machine, £959 for the dual core i7 with 16GB of (soldered) ram.

Pretty ridiculous really, and such a shame as it's a wonderful little machine, and ideal it you need a decent amount of horsepower but don't need an all in one or don't need/don't have the money for the uber powerful/expensive Mac Pro.

 

[jimmyfox231]

I don't get it. Apple is really messing up here. They say that the Mac mini is many people and new customers first Mac but all I read is that people like the Mac mini cuz we get to upgrade and customize it. Most of us, if it is our first Mac buy it so we can do that. Now with this update they underpowered it and made it non user upgradable. This I believe will cost them money. I know that I planned on buy a Mac mini and ipad selling my laptop. Now I'm not buyin either and just keeping my laptop because of this move... They lost out on me of 1500 and I've heard others moving to media pc's cuz of this move. Bad move Apple.

 

[groovyd]

Not going to "be happy about it" when it costs the end user $250 more to up grade from 4 to 16GB of ram. Because that's what the price difference was 2 years ago. I'm sure 16gb of ram isn't more expensive now. Also, what if they don't want to upgrade now?

then they buy a dell and it retains no resale value when they want to resell it next year.

----------

Saved 100$ in ram connectors? the lower powered CPU has nothing to do with the price.

But dont worry what apple get out of their upgrade is no purchase.

But when I build a hackintosh and use their operating system, its all good value.

lol, yeah great value i am sure...

 

[subsonix]

As for drawbacks of centralizing data with Google, how can these be any different from drawbacks associated with centralizing data with Apple's iCloud?

There's no need to do that, iCloud is basically a syncing mechanism. The base configuration has a 500GB hard drive.

 

[groovyd]

In the case of this Mini it starts to make a little sense. If you spent more though - not so much.

the mini is meant to be their plug and play simplest and cheapest entry into the apple ecosystem. and that is exactly what it is.

 

[Ploki]

so... it uses low-power RAM, generates less heat, is consequently more quiet, spends less electricity. Does the job Mac Mini was designed for better?

You could whine if they soldered standard ram, but they did use low-power RAM that only comes in soldered flavour...

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

Actually people do dealership upgrades or got for a higher model so they can get that rolled into their auto loan or the dealer uses a few thing to sweeten the deal instead of cutting the price (putting all-weather mats in that cost the dealer 60-70$ and putting them down as a line item at 250 is cheaper than giving the customer $250 off the retail price)... I used to install dealership options as my high school night job, so I know.

RAM is not so expensive that you need to roll it into the initial purpose. Apple is just ripping off their customers by charging $200-300 for 16GB of RAM. If the just put 16 GB in all minis for $75 more, no one would argue. Also many RAM makers warranty their wares too.

Being able to roll it into your loan is one of the reasons but not the only one. People do that with their Apple loans too. People buy a computer as a whole rather than piecing it together part-by-part often for this reason. Can you build a better machine for less if you go to New Egg and buy a motherboard, case, RAM, processor, hard drives, etc? Yes. Do most people want to deal with the hassle? Nope.

RAM makers warranty their product but have fun proving you have defective RAM and not another issue. People would much rather have things warranties from Apple and have everything covered than have to pull their machine apart and send it back. Imagine if you had to remove your cars engine and send them in rather than just taking it to the dealership and having them deal with it.

 

[groovyd]

There it is...lol.

Post #48, took longer than I expected.

The optimized by Apple argument.

agree, common sense should have presented itself much earlier.

 

[Stella]

99% of mac mini customers don't change anything. Making it more expensive for customers because a few cheapskates can't buy the pc they really want is madness! It saves money and is passed onto us, soldered ram is great and the article is so one sided it's designed to be link bait and you fell for it.

It's cheaper better and a great upgrade.

If anything is bait, its your post!

If people stop buying the Mini, maybe Apple would get the message. But people won't, so it will only get worse.

If people stopping buying it, Apple will discontinue it.

 

[576316]

Wow, that is really crappy. I guess y'all have to pay for Apple's extortionately marked up RAM.

 

[RedCroissant]

Makes sense to me

I think this is a pretty good move but I would also prefer that since Apple is soldering the RAM, that they should make all models come with 16GB.

The Mac mini is basically the desktop version of the MBA anyway, so why wouldn't they use the same techniques used in the MBA to save space?

I also think that Apple should get rid of the numerous ports and just include adapters for the standard stiff and allow the customer to add another adapter of their choice upon checkout.

They could have 6 TB 2 ports and save even more space inside the machine and just rely on those adapters. I would buy one of those.

 

[groovyd]

I agree that spinning drives should have been obsoleted years ago. Perhaps it's business or politics, but several years ago, I could buy a computer with 500GB or 1TB, why am I being offered the same stuff today? I would expect a spinning hard drive to be at least 10TB for $200 by now. The speed at which they make new improvements has been slow for the last few years. Maybe they reached a technical limit and can't do it anymore?

Again, I am surprise Apple, or any computer makers, still have computers with spinning disks now, SSD should already be in the 4-8TB but at the current price point of a 512GB to 1TB SSD.

Remember the iPod 160GB? That was the last spinning disk iPod, back in 2007. Ever since, spinning disks hard drive improvements has slowed down. By now, if it were to be a viable product, it would need to be at least a 4TB iPod for $200. I know it seems silly to have a 4TB iPod, but if we were to have the same rate of improvements, storage space and technology should have been much much better as of right now. Improvements have been flat-lined.

Image

You should try your hand at trading rice in china, lol.