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Comment by fastaguy88 | Hacker News Reader

They should have said: "Just get a used Mac Mini". You can literally get them from macsales.com for less than $100. The intel machines have not gotten much faster, but their prices have dropped dramatically.

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When I was commisioning El Camino Hospital in Mtn View, CA - we had a bunch of digital art that we paid ~$1,000,000 for for the campus... but the digital signage solution was still behind in delivery...

So I went an bout a bunch of mac minis with remote desktop and just looped the digital signage videos via VLC.

I had to do this in some of the salesforce offices I built - like 50 Fremont, Chicago, NYC...

Mac minis were great for the 'bandaid' -- but even then were over priced and a pain to manage...

But I personally do not think Ill be buying another mac object due to appl fking me when my machine was under recall for catching fire, and my machine..... caught fire....

And appl held the machine for two month while 'investigating' and refused to honor the recall because it took them two months to find a moisture sensor that had been set off at some point.

The machine caught fire in my bed while I was watching netflix.

Appls solution was "well you can buy a new machine to replace it at full price" (this was LITERALLY what they said to me in the Union Sq, SF flagship store.

In the past i've done the hackintosh thing with NUCs over mac minis. They are generally cheaper, faster and you can actually replace the ram/storage. With the advent of M1/2 though that will no longer be an option.

Looking there, what do you do with a 10yo Intel Mac Mini when Apple drops support for them (serious question)? If the answer is "load linux", then there are probably better intel based options.

You can use Open Core Legacy Patcher [0] to gain modern support for "unsupported" Macs.

[0] https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/

Until they drop Intel support, presumedly. But looks interesting. Hopefully less painful than a Hackintosh.

You can't.

There is only 1 Mac Mini available with M1 CPU and it only has 8GB RAM - that's for $499 and if you add shipping to Europe and tax, probably it will work out closer to $1000 than $499.

You can't.

There is only 1 Mac Mini available with M1 CPU

He stated specifically Intel machines. The M1 isn't an Intel processor.

Ain't no way shipping and taxes equal 100% of the product's price

So once upon a time my parents in the states sent me, a newly minted ex-pat living in the EU, a package for my birthday. It was mostly cheap plastic kitchen things, a couple of oven mitts and stuff like that. It went to customs. Not only did I have to haul my ass out to the airport, I was charged 120Euro for a box who's entire cost couldn't have been more than 30USD (and I'm being generous). I was informed that if i refused the package, my parents would be charged the full amount. So yes, it's easy to imagine that by the time you get the package in your hands, it costs more than 100% the products price.

That seems an expensive lesson in filling in the customs declaration. Gifts are exempt from customs duties and VAT if they're worth €45 or less, and exempt from duties but not VAT up to €150.

If you ignore a parcel or reject it, it should be returned to the sender.

So you're telling me you've never shipped things internationally before? It happens way more than you, especially, would think

I have, countless times. I've shipped everything from small boxes to containers. If you're paying $500 on taxes on top of your $500 product, you're doing something wrong

Two years ago, I paid around €300 for a pair of original Haori from Japan. The shipping costs where around €60, which was expected, but the taxes and import fees added another €170 to the total expenditure. That's not 100% of the product's price, but it's damn close.

Customs duty on men's/boy's clothes is 12%, VAT is e.g. 24% in Finland.

  €360 * 1.12 * 1.24 = €500

Add on some sort of handling fee for the parcel company, e.g. €10, so it could easily be €150.

Why? Shipping, VAT and all the customs fees will easily double the price of the product by the time it reaches your door.

I recently ordered a keyboard from Taiwan. I got charged the 21% VAT plus a few euro administration costs by the shipper. Mind you, I would have paid the same 21% VAT if I had purchased a similarly priced product in The Netherlands. So, you are down to shipping cost, many companies have different options. Sure, if you want something on your doorstep in 2-3 days, they are going to charge 80-90 USD/Euro shipping, that's simply what it costs.

VAT is 15-20%, customs 5-10%, shipping ~50€, fees for custom handling 10-20€.

It's pricy, but it's not going to double the price.

Even better - some countries have 0% import tax on computers (just VAT). I am not sure if this is an EU-wide regulation (I would expect so, because it is a single market), but in The Netherlands it's 0%.

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