Minimal

stressed for motivation and achievement

2005-01-13

Low-cost Apple hardware? Really?

Apple Mac mini gets warm welcome [BBC News]
The idea of a low-cost, basic Mac appeals to me somewhat. At £339, the new Mac mini sounds like it fits the bill. However, the second half of that BBC article raises some interesting points, not least of which is that the price doesn’t include a monitor. Or keyboard, or mouse. Even so, it still sounds pretty cheap, so I thought I’d look into what Apple charge for the rest of the package:

£699 for their smallest monitor (20”) — ouch!
£19 for a basic keyboard
£19 for a basic mouse

That now makes a grand total of £1076, which is a bit disappointing. Surely the alternative of a Windows PC could beat that price (and possibly the spec too)? A quick search confirms my suspicions. Dell do a pretty decent PC for much less. It might have 3” less on the monitor, but at £459 all-in, it looks a far better deal.

BTW, I didn’t mean to write an Apple-bashing post when I set out on this. I genuinely had no idea of the different offerings’ prices. I’m actually staggered it’s that bad. Please let me know if I’ve missed something.

Update: here’s an idea! Buy the Mac mini (without peripherals) and that Dell PC and a KVM switch and you’ll have 2 machines giving the best of both worlds for much less than the price of the Apple-only package. God, I’m a genius. ;)

posted by Mal # Thursday, January 13, 2005

Comments:

You can plug any display and any USB keyboard/mouse into the mini. Of course that uses both your USB ports, no need to buy Apple. (unless you get a keyboard with a usb hub I guess). Plus of course, you get OS X, iLife etc. I don't really want to sound like an Apple fanboi, just pointing it out. You can get very good displays for less that 700quid :) Don't you have a display already?

The non-user installable RAM is another matter entirely....(grr)

Kev.

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:08 pm

Tis very true - I could use my existing peripherals (though I'm sick of chunky CRT monitors). I just wanted to see whether Apple themselves could offer a full, low-cost solution.

# posted by

Mal : 12:01 pm

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