The Mac mini isn’t dead yet, says Tim Cook.

[Sauron]

3 minutes ago, mrchow19910319 said:

mac mini 2018  starts from $499

*(with 5400 rpm HDD)

550€ in the EU sadly. But frankly you'd have to pay me to use it with those specs. My media center and my storage server are probably snappier than that thing considering they have an ssd. In my house it woud be about as useful as the pentium 4 tower that's been sitting in a corner for a couple of years - in fact, at least that one has some historic value.

[mrchow19910319]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

 

chill.......

[Commodus]

32 minutes ago, Sauron said:

550€ in the EU sadly. But frankly you'd have to pay me to use it with those specs. My media center and my storage server are probably snappier than that thing considering they have an ssd. In my house it woud be about as useful as the pentium 4 tower that's been sitting in a corner for a couple of years - in fact, at least that one has some historic value.

Can't help but think Apple will be tackling this to some degree whenever the mini gets an update.  Quad core at the entry level is now realistic (even if Apple uses a mobile chip for the starter model), as is 8GB of RAM and decent capacity hard drive.  My main hope is that Apple uses faster storage, even if it's just 7,200RPM hard drives.  I know it needs to use laptop-sized hard drives if it's going to have a compact system, but 5,400RPM is a bottleneck.  Ideally there'd be a Fusion Drive, but I'm not counting on it.

[79wjd]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

Buy a better mac or make a hackintosh. Buy a refurbished imac, it's only slightly more expensive but more than twice as good, plus it has a screen.

I'd buy a Mac Mini for my mom as it would make things so much easier for several reasons. So hackintosh is out as consistency and stability are of the utmost importance. And not everyone likes buying used things. 

1 hour ago, mrchow19910319 said:

good point. diff product for diff people. 

if I have only $300 then the $350 product is for me. Even though price/performance ratio wise the $500 product make sense. 

i used to not believe this and thought: "why people cant just wait and save a bit more money?" then when I am buying stuff I realised that no one wants to wait... 

There are also some people who wouldn't benefit at all from anything more powerful, so there ends up being no benefit to spending more money. 

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

I would argue most people won't notice a difference in using windows or mac os for basic use anyway.

.....

I would say any average user will have a better time with a fast and responsive windows system than with a sluggish mac.

I would disagree with that. I find that I have far fewer issues with Mac OS than I do with Windows and I also find that I have to fix my dad's Mac far less often than I have to fix my mom's Windows laptop. It's basically a weekly event that I have to reconnect the printer to her computer. 

 

With all that said, for $500 it should really have a 128gb SSD, 8gb RAM, and a 2.5ghz+ i3 (even 2c/4t would be fine) rather than a 1.4ghz i5.

[vanished]

4 hours ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

Ah yes, obviously Apple is dumb enough to price it the same as a MBP 13 non-TB...

MacBooks and MacBook Pros start at $1300 with a worse CPU than I suggested (well at least in the case of the non-pro)

Compared to the laptop, of course they'll save a bit not having to include a battery, screen, trackpad, keyboard, etc. but imagine how small this thing will be.  I should do a render but I'm picturing a slab of aluminium roughly 10 - 15 cm by the same, with macbook thickness at the edges and just bulging slightly in the middle.  Whatever they save in hardware costs they will sink into other hardware and being able to tell people it's worth it because, well, just look at it.

[jwillis84]

A Cheese grater Mac Mini, that looks more like an Aluminum Faraday cube and levitates on brushed Aluminium feet would go over well. It basically shares all the components of a Macbook anyway.. just stud it with ports like the Deathstar so people can accessorize to their hearts content.

 

Marque DeSade liked his toys too.. Apple would never abandon the Mac mini.. too much potential for their personal entertainment, watching the masses obssess over it.

 

And I plead the 5th.. I still own a MM2007 and MM2010..

 

On second thought, maybe it should look like an AstroDroid... R2D2 or BB8

[Ryujin2003]

Ohh Apple...

 

Never really saw that thing as being relevant. It's a very niche product from what I've ever seen. Mostly a home educator type thing. And if course there nice old people that were confused when they purchased this thing.