Fair game. The fact the price has nearly doubled since its introduction is a bit... sickening.
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New Mac Mini Announced! [MERGED]
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Sorry, your maths is wrong.
£649 less 17.5% VAT = £552.34 (just to prove it £552.34 * 1.175 = £649) so the VAT charge is actually £96.66 not £117. You can't do 17.5% of the VAT inclusive price to calculate what the VAT is as you end up calculating what VAT would be on £649 rather than what should be taken off. Again, just to prove it:
£649 * 0.175 = £113.58
£649 - £113.58 = £535.42
£535.42 x 1.175 = £629.12
You've lost £20 somewhere along the line doing it that way.
So taking the VAT excluded price of £552.34 as a starting point:
£552.34 in dollars = $814.35
US Price = $699
So we're paying $115.35 more, not $72. Which is 16.5% more than the US price. Common figure for doing business in the UK compared to the US is 7% increase on the base price (i.e. before VAT) so we're getting charged about 10% more than would normally be conisdered reasonable.
My three year old MacBook Pro with 2.4GHz C2D and Nvidia 8600M GT with 256MB performs twice the frame rate, or more, than my new MBP 13 inch with 320M.
Meanwhile, the new GPUs in the new Macs are several times faster than my 8600M GT.
320M half the speed of 8600M GT, 330M 3-4 times faster than the 8600M GT.
Yup, there is a massive difference when it comes to gaming.
Server same price
MacMini Server still same price in OZ. $1399. Low end is $150 more. Buy the server and forego the optical disc and you have your new Apple TV [of course that is where they were always heading with it - there will just be an Apple TV module inside OS X Server soon] and a built in Time Machine!
MacMini Server still same price in OZ. $1399. Low end is $150 more. Buy the server and forego the optical disc and you have your new Apple TV [of course that is where they were always heading with it - there will just be an Apple TV module inside OS X Server soon] and a built in Time Machine!
Exchange rate risk. Lower volumes make for higher shipping costs from the Far East and higher distribution costs within Europe. Multiple markets, each with own tax regime, and languages make admin and supply chain more expensive. Multiple languages make support costs higher too.
the new mini is £78.50/$115.50 more expensive once VAT is taken off the UK price of £649.
It looks like a nice update but as I said earlier, it's bloody expensive.
What's with the crazy pricing?
Apple basically killed the Mac mini with it's new pricing. $599 was already too expensive for it's spec. Now it's $699? Really? Come on really???? First Mac mini was $499 and it was meant to lure Windows users to try out their first Mac and then up sell them to an iMac later. This target audience doesn't care that it's machined out of a aluminum brick. This market segment is highly price sensitive and now this new Mac mini is targeting entirely different market who are more design conscious and willing to pay premium for it.
I have a parent with an aging two year old Mac mini and this $699 price point basically slammed the door on any upgrade path.
Apple basically killed the Mac mini with it's new pricing. $599 was already too expensive for it's spec. Now it's $699? Really? Come on really???? First Mac mini was $499 and it was meant to lure Windows users to try out their first Mac and then up sell them to an iMac later. This target audience doesn't care that it's machined out of a aluminum brick. This market segment is highly price sensitive and now this new Mac mini is targeting entirely different market who are more design conscious and willing to pay premium for it.
I have a parent with an aging two year old Mac mini and this $699 price point basically slammed the door on any upgrade path.
Very, very nice looking. I like the removeable panel on the bottom, excellent design. The server version looks even slicker without the optical drive. The rear SD card reader is a little pointless, it should have been on one of the sides towards the front.
Unfortunately, the price is completely over the top. With taxes considered it's 90 quid more than it should be, and even then £560 for an entry level machine is pushing it.
Oh well, at least the Mini has an awesome new case. It's definitely sticking around.
I think the new A4 based
TV will be of a very similar unibody design but incredibly thin and with a smaller footprint too, maybe.
Unfortunately, the price is completely over the top. With taxes considered it's 90 quid more than it should be, and even then £560 for an entry level machine is pushing it.
Oh well, at least the Mini has an awesome new case. It's definitely sticking around.
I think the new A4 based
TV will be of a very similar unibody design but incredibly thin and with a smaller footprint too, maybe. Entirely uninformed ********. The very most part is Apple's profits!
Hardly any other electronics brand has these huge price differences between the US and Europe.
It's one thing for apple to charge a bit more for the design excellence. i am willing to pay that. The new mini is very nice.
But I think apple has gone past design premiums and just entering into downright greedy territory.
This will come back and bite apple on the ass.
It's a company, but it needs also to have an eye to the future.
But I think apple has gone past design premiums and just entering into downright greedy territory.
This will come back and bite apple on the ass.
It's a company, but it needs also to have an eye to the future.
Okay, this is not a laptop. I know the reason that we don't have Corei's in the 13" is because of space. I repeat, this is not a laptop. Make it 100 in^3 instead of 83 in^3 and make it come in at 3.5 lbs instead of 3 lbs and give us what is in the 15" MBP.
I'm impressed about how small and light, but I'd say it needs to be on par with the entry level 15" MBP to justify the hike in price. No monitor... okay, that's understandable for the price. No keyboard & no mouse... um, what if I don't have a mac already? Just sayin'. Hmm....+$98 = $797 for the baseline... I think that's a little high.
The design in freaking sweet though and the HDMI has just killed the ATV.
I'm impressed about how small and light, but I'd say it needs to be on par with the entry level 15" MBP to justify the hike in price. No monitor... okay, that's understandable for the price. No keyboard & no mouse... um, what if I don't have a mac already? Just sayin'. Hmm....+$98 = $797 for the baseline... I think that's a little high.
The design in freaking sweet though and the HDMI has just killed the ATV.
Damn Apple. Damn them. Damn them!
They are, literally, the only company that can release a product so jaw-droppingly elegant and beautiful that I want it simply for that fact alone.
I have absolutely no use for a Mac mini other than as an expensive desk ornament, but I still want one.
They are, literally, the only company that can release a product so jaw-droppingly elegant and beautiful that I want it simply for that fact alone.
I have absolutely no use for a Mac mini other than as an expensive desk ornament, but I still want one.
hey hey, I grabbed the wrong values from the older models. So in the UK you pay $90 more. Well, you know people say things are more expensive in the UK, so that explains to tallyho's (above) response why e.g. coffee prices should be different. It's not about the currency exchange but rather the commodity prices. Like an exact same cup of coffee you buy at Starbucks around the world will not cost the same. You can ignore the significance of tax on the coffee for this argument's sake.
And remember Apple is a US company. They count their profits in USD. Now obviously just like everyone else foreign exchange will eat in a little. Of course being one of the world's biggest companies you don't want that to happen. So that extra bit gets passed onto the consumers.
at the end of the day, yes, the mac mini is way too expensive for its specs; regardless of where you purchase it from.
No I'm saying they don't advertise prices with tax in the US because tax is dependent on each state. And having what was discussed above, people in the US in the end will pay about $90 less than the people in the UK.
It could also be that new-fangled iPhone thing. I think something or another is going on with that today
There is no reasonable graphics chip that would fit in that
enclosure for i3/i5 since Intel barred Nvida from making chipsets for i3/i5/i7.
There are only a few devices that have these at all. All the USB
3.0 implementations are secondary chipsets and it would be overkill
for a Mac mini.
Bluetooth 3 is just silly (simply use WiFi which it needs anyway...).
I agree for a device with native HDMI out this is a real problem. But
the reason is:
sjobs said:
I suspect that in order to support Blu-ray you have to let the Blu-ray association know a lot more that Steve want's them to, and I suspect the Blu-ray association is happy to limit Apple's access to try and keep them from building the empire Apple has with Music in Video content.
Not buying either £649 for a C2D with 2gb ram is plainly ridiculous. You can buy an as new iMac refurb with double the ram, better processor, more hard drive and a gorgeous 21.5" display for £150 more.
Why the silly hypebole?
Are you really comparing a Mini to a LAPTOP to make your point? Jeez. Cognitive dissonance at its best.
Edit: Let me point out that a MBP consists of 50% battery, which more than makes up for the internal PSU.
But even if I pick up that nonsense:
Maybe you should take a look at the internals of a 15" MBP, which isn't any bigger in size than a Mini. There's the GPU! See!
In a more realistic approach, I could argue that no one, including you, would have cared even the slightest amount of shred if the case were 0.3" higher for a better cooling system and the power consumption 10-15W higher under GPU load. You'd be raving how good the Mini is as a gaming machine now. And that it would all make perfect sense with Steam on the Mac and all...
Oh, you think the new Mac Mini has more room in it than before? I clearly gave you an example of a device people (including you) complained about for not having a Core-i and dGPU and asked you were this dGPU and fan could possibly go. Or perhaps you don't realize it yet but iFixit hasn't exactly down a teardown on the new Mac Mini at this point. They are fast, but not that fast.
I didn't even get into the additional issue of the larger power supply likely needed for the Mac Mini if you are going to go that route which would likely affect the space and heat even more.
The bottom line is that Apple strives to make thin machines and if you don't like that then it's not a product for you, but bitching and moaning that they didn't make it bigger (because you would have) despite it going against their design and engineering philosophy is asinine. It's one thing to wish a product suited your needs in a certain way, it's quite another to claim that they skimped on the engineering because it doesn't.
From £649!
That's bloody expensive.
For 2GBs of RAM as well. What the hell?! Shame the specs aren't as impressive as the design (which I love btw).
100€ more on the base model and 150€ more on the server in portugal. Lol someone just shot himself on the foot. Unless it's to drive people away from these supposed "entry level" machines, specifically iphone developers.
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/10145079/
Taking into account the maths smiddlehurst did correctly, how is 16.5% (an extra $115) difference justified? Last time I checked, the UK speaks English. Hey, so does the US. Tax is something they've handled for year after year without issue.
For those of us outside of the US, we're resigned to the fact that Apple will charge a relatively higher price because of cost of operation. But while this normally lies around 7% (as agreed by a number of posters in this thread), Apple have magically added an extra 10% out of nowhere. That's the problem, alongside the standard overpriced one.