Not the claim… anyone was making … and you’re misrepresenting the argument. I’ve never said the $599 Mac mini should offer 16/512 and compete with low margin Dells, my position is that rather than lowering the price they should have kept the price the same and bumped up the storage and memory. Which should have been doable given that the off the shelf prices for memory and storage would suggest that Apple could offer more memory and storage at somewhere between $699-799 without hurting margins…
But that wasn’t the original ask, the original claim was that no one sold 16/512 in base level configurations, sure Inspiron is the cheap line, but the 512 GB storage looks like it would be reasonably fast if not from a reputable manufacturer…
So you think it’s possible to sell a $999 product for $799 and keep the margins the same?
If you're going to compare literally any system you find, no matter if it's actually any good or not, then you'll obviously be able to come up with something. I thought it might be common sense to at least try to make the comparison somewhat fair, otherwise, you could probably find a chunky gaming laptop from 2016 that'll beat the Macbook Pro on price-per-meaningless-stat or something the size of small fridge that hums like an air conditioner to take on the Mac Mini. But to what end? Surely you can see how comparing systems that are clearly not even in the same ballpark isn't helping your argument.
How fast is it? One of the complaints has been that it’s “criminal” that Apple isn’t transparent about their SSD speeds, so I presume Dell must be and I’m just looking in the wrong place…
Not the same as the $999 product but at a better margin than they are on the $599 Mac mini. This is because we can see from retail prices on memory and storage that Apple is pocketing (by my estimate) $300 of that $400 price increase in increased margin.
You and others again ignored my point - someone claimed that you couldn’t buy a system from dell at the mini’s price point with anywhere close to 16/512. That is what I was disputing.
I don’t really care, I am not one of those whining about the base storage speeds and am perfectly fine with 2.8 GB/s.
You voted "like" on the posts that did, so I assumed that meant you agreed with that view point...
Lemme guess... You're embarrassed to ask but you were on your way to finishing a wedding video for your dying grandmother and all you need is another 3GB and 17MB to get there...
Do you mean this post?
Because if so, that Dell certainly is not an ultra-compact mini-PC, nor does it come with a CPU comparable to the M1. It's just a cheap computer that can be configured with 16 GB of (likely much slower) ram and 512GB of SSD storage.
Not wrong, lacking in specificity, they wouldn’t hurt margins on their base model.
They made points about capacity as well and the general reduction in value of the base model.
You’re right.
I don’t think the PC makers see much value in designing custom small form factor motherboards. It’s one reason I don’t have a gaming PC, I don’t want something large - my needs aren’t high for gaming (I use boot camp on my 2019 MBP right now) but I would like to give up the MBP and have something dedicated to the task, NUCs while the right size, are underpowered.
There’s an HP machine that gets close. It’s like 1900 USD.
I got this right many posts ago. The reason that config is $999 is because its a bto, and bto margins are higher on purpose. The reason Apple agrees to sell the base model at a lower margin is because it has a shorter useful lifespan. It will become cramped sooner and owners will come back for a replacement sooner rather than later. This is Apple’s business model, to make you buy stuff more often than what’s reasonable.
You sound like someone who trusts the gov more than your own family my friend…
It’s pretty clear based on off the shelf prices that Apple charges between 60-80% margin on SSD and Memory. Since I doubt they sell the base mini at a loss it means they are most definitely keeping it with such a paltry specs to encourage people to pay for their ridiculously overpriced BTO options.
You're going to have to flesh out the math on this for me, because it sounds like a conspiracy theory driven by a hundred year old lightbulb pact. Work through the product line and explain why this is more sane than the textbook product marketing approach I've been describing.
If that was the goal, then why all the added friction of the Build to Order approach?
BTO is hardly friction. These days so much is ordered online and when you click buy on any Mac you don’t have to go through any extra steps you’re just brought straight to the configuration page.
