New iMacs/Minis Tomorrow?

I'm sorry but it is a rip off.

Cheapest base spec 1.8Ghz MB138BA mac mini yesterday was £417. It could be had for £378 from authorized Apple outlets.
Most expensive base spec mac mini was was 2.0Ghz MB139BA for £488. It could be had for £469 from authorized Apple outlets.

At the moment the cheapest Mac Mini available is £499.00. Next one up is £649.00. As much as previous Mac Mini was actually pretty good value for money for a micro machine the new Mac Mini, for a C2D laptop without a screen (and that's what Mac Mini is) that's a crazy, crazy, crazy price.We are talking - Dell's XPS gaming machines territory rather than a small box that's just about good enough to play HD content (most of the time). And the weakest, slowest point in all Mac Minis - the 5400RPM drive - is still there - unrevised. But now at £120 premium.

And that trend continues all the way to Mac Pros - the previous dual CPU, 8 core MA970BA was £1711, could be had for £1556 from Apple outlets. Quad core single Xeon version was £1379. It was tremendous value for money - yes 2Gb and 320Gb drives were poverty spec but neither Dell, IBM nor HP could materialize the bang for buck 8 core workstation for that kind of money.

The current 8 core costs £2,499, Single CPU quad core costs £1,899. I don't care that memory is now 3Gb instead of 2Gb and bus is faster and this is I7 architecture. There is no way, on earth that single 2.66GHz nahalem is faster than dual cpu, 8 core 2.8Ghz harpertown. Not in final cut, not in aperture, not in Crysis. Not even in "while true ; do echo "Mucho Bogomips" ; sleep 0.1 ; done" grotesque. And asking £350 quid extra for it being slower is taking a cat's wee, with nvidia (huh uhuh) 120 contraption or without.
 
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Skipping this entire generation of Macbooks and iMacs cause you would have to be mentally unstable to buy a Core2Duo based system at these prices. The price premium for this ancient CPU technology is insane and I work for Apple! I can't afford/justify the cost of the Mac Pro in this economic climate and I fear a lot of people who were considering a Core i7 Mac Pro and nice LED screen not too long ago are going to keep those pennies in the bank for a Core i7 mobile Macbook.

Core i7 mobile after SnowLeopard has had it's first major update to iron out launch bugs...now that I will gladly pay a price premium for. Shoud leave any Core2Duo based system dead in the water and with recession biting hard should have a fairly long life.
 
Combat squirrel said:
Thats a well rounded spec, why not the extra £80 for 8gb ram ? and does the 8gb ram limit bother u ?
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As posted above, I rarely use above 4 atm (Lightroom uses 3Gb if I push it...) and I want the tri-channel performance.

8Gb ram... doesn't bother me. 4Gb sticks will eventually come along allowing me to have 12Gb in Tri-channel.

But tbh when the day arrives that I need more than 6Gb, I will probably be upgrading the whole system.

Im having a internal debate about reducing to the 2.66ghz version from the 2.93, performance is 10% at best for 17% more money.

This machine will last for at least two years I'd imagine (I HOPE!!! - Powermac G4 MDD lasted 5 years before I got my MBP...)

Its just SUCH a difference this time round, the £300 more for my MBP was justified, this isn't so much.

Anyone know if I can plonk a i7 in there instead with non ECC and non registered ram?

I read somewhere the mobo supports it. If it was the case I'd be buying the 2.66 and 3gb and selling it to get the 2.93 and 6gb for the same money :p
 
Well ... I've just been out and bought a Mini.

I've been toying with replacing my now 3 year old MacBook Pro for the current model but couldn't stomach the outlay. So I'm keeping it purely as a laptop and got a new Mac Mini.

Went for the base model as the upgrade premium for the top spec is unreasonable to say the least. 4GB of RAM and a 320GB HDD can be had for £100 elsewhere.

First impressions - pleasantly quick and responsive certainly feels snappier than my MBP (1.83GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD). 1GB of RAM doesn't appear to be a burden at the moment however I suspect a 4GB upgrade will be ordered shortly. I've got enough existing Firewire storage for the 120GB OS drive not to be an issue.

It's small, it's quiet, uses not a lot of electricity and it's a proper Mac. I'm happy whatever the detractors say.
 
Ok i would just like to ask you this, how much have you spent on computers (not apple)?

How much have you got back when selling old hardware in return to just buy a new machine or upgrade?

What i am getting at is when you buy a apple product its built to last with a good resale value.

I am 20 and i now see this after spending around a grand on each of the 3 machines i have had in the last 3 years.

Now if i think back to my first build if only i have waited a little longer and brought a mac pro, hmmmm i would have far more money left in my pocket.

So if you moan about prices, just shhhh and save!
 
I just think this generation of Macbook and iMac hardware is miles out of date for the prices been asked. The base Core 2 Duo technology has been around since 2006...in CPU technology terms that is old! If they were belting along at 4Ghz then ya fair enough thats a raw increase that can be linked to the price.

The Mac Pro did need updating but the Macbooks and iMacs are really just token updates. I reckon Apple would have been better off telling their customers there would be no updates until the next gen CPU rather than bothering to release token updates with increased prices at the start of a recession??? Mystic Ape predicts terrible sales for these new Macs!!!

I know some serious Mac heads and every single one of them are sitting tight with there current Mac for the Core i7 Macbooks and iMac's.
 
You're likely missing that point that aside from the sort of techy users on this forums, 90% of mac users don't give a damn whether it's core2 or i7.

Hell, I work in IT and I couldn't care less - is it quick, does it run aperture and photoshop nicely, have a nice design? Excellent, I'll take one!

If I cared about performance I'd be buying a mac pro, if you actually need performance rather than being obsessed with benchmarking that's your only option. A current mini/macbook (pro) isn't performance and neither will an i7 one be.
 
bigredshark said:
You're likely missing that point that aside from the sort of techy users on this forums, 90% of mac users don't give a damn whether it's core2 or i7.

Hell, I work in IT and I couldn't care less - is it quick, does it run aperture and photoshop nicely, have a nice design? Excellent, I'll take one!
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I wholeheartedly agree.

People buy Mac's because they just work. They don't care about 3dMark scores or the processor architecture. They just want it to run the software they want to use at a good enough speed.

I'd very much like a small mini-tower style Mac with expansion, but Apple ain't going to make it. :-(
 
MagicBoy said:
I wholeheartedly agree.

People buy Mac's because they just work. They don't care about 3dMark scores or the processor architecture. They just want it to run the software they want to use at a good enough speed.

I'd very much like a small mini-tower style Mac with expansion, but Apple ain't going to make it. :-(
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Indeed, there's nobody here who wouldn't like a tower mac with a quad core consumer processor at low end iMac pricing I'd wager. But there's nobody sane who actually believes apple are going to release that.

In terms of the users you mentioned though, the new mini (price aside) is a nice upgrade, it runs everything faster and now has some pretense of running games (at low res given).

I did read a interesting article a while ago which posed the question 'what if apple never updated the iMac?' but the question applies to all their desktops to an extent. The laptops make up a huge chunk of sales and for most people a macbook with the 24" cinema display is just as good as an iMac (arguable better, the option to just pick up your imac and chuck it in your bag when you're off out isn't one that exists). Chances are if they discontinued the iMac then they'd loose very few sales as everybody would buy a laptop, laptop and external display or another mac desktop.

I don't suspect they'll do it anytime soon but apple are always among the first to drop legacy features so being the first manufacturer to kill the consumer desktop wouldn't amaze me. A interesting one to consider anyway
 
bigredshark said:
In terms of the users you mentioned though, the new mini (price aside) is a nice upgrade, it runs everything faster and now has some pretense of running games (at low res given).
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Not tried games on mine yet. I was basically after something quiet and power efficient to run as a download box and for web browsing. Price is a problem, compared to the original G4 Mini, then again it's only likely to go up in the current climate. Given the spec, it's effectively a headless MacBook for half the price.

I don't suspect they'll do it anytime soon but apple are always among the first to drop legacy features so being the first manufacturer to kill the consumer desktop wouldn't amaze me. A interesting one to consider anyway
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Going off the display in the Apple Store last night it's heading that way. One Mini (old type), two iMacs, a Mac Pro and at least three of each model of laptop.
 
MagicBoy said:
Not tried games on mine yet. I was basically after something quiet and power efficient to run as a download box and for web browsing. Price is a problem, compared to the original G4 Mini, then again it's only likely to go up in the current climate. Given the spec, it's effectively a headless MacBook for half the price.

Going off the display in the Apple Store last night it's heading that way. One Mini (old type), two iMacs, a Mac Pro and at least three of each model of laptop.
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For your requirement, it's expensive I'll give you. Mainly because I don't think that was ever the market apple were targeting, if apple didn't exist you'd likely be looking at an atom based machine for a low power download box and the mini isn't designed to compete with that. I expect COD4 to run as well as it does on my Macbook Pro (an original core duo 2.16Ghz model) in terms of games.

Apple's sales massively favour laptops after all, so I guess it's inevitable the displays reflect this (also, the various shiny notebooks are much more visually interesting than the iMac or Mac Pro). One day I think the desktop will die though.

One last point to remember, one reason why apple updated the mini was probably the promise to a few hosting companies who put the things in high density racks that they'd continue to make them. Those sales alone (I gather that they're a big % of mini sales) were probably enough to justify the upgrade...
 
I've had a 1.83GHz Core Duo MBP for three years now, and the new Mini feels a little bit quicker from using it last night. The 2GB RAM limitation on the MBP was becoming a bit of a problem, so the new Mini gives me what I need at around a quarter of the price of a new MBP.

I spose it comes down to the fact that I don't want an iMac, already owning a perfectly good monitor...
 
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