https://www.amazon.com/BOSGAME-5700U-Displays-Computers-Emul... https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-SER5-Desktop-Computer-Graphic...
The concept of the Raspberry Pi is great, but the price point was never where it needed to be. Even when you could get one for around MSRP, doing anything with it was so much added cost. Yeah $35 for a little computer is great, but you needed a power supply, case, microSD card, and whatever hats (the hats have always been overpriced IMO).
I know a couple of iOS developers who recently switched to a M4 MacBook pro and they swear that in some frequent workloads it feels sluggish and slower than the old Intel MacBook pros. Being RAM-starved might have something to do with it though.
> but there's loads of mini PCs with decent CPUs, 32GB RAM and a 1TB of SSD storage for under $600.
I also add that, unlike Apple hardware, these miniPCs are built with extensibility in mind. For example, most NUCs from the likes of minisforum and Beelink ship with a single SSD but support multiple SSDs, with their cases also having room for SATA drives. They even go as far as selling barebones versions of their NUCs, where customers can then pick and choose which RAM and SSDs to add.
The M4 Macbook Pro will be released next week, what did you mean instead ?
> they swear that in some frequent workloads it feels sluggish and slower than the old Intel MacBook pros
I don't think I've seen a single other piece of user feedback online that corroborates this.
> I also add that, unlike Apple hardware, these miniPCs are built with extensibility in mind
Mac Mini gets its extensibility through Thunderbolt.
You'll be able to sell your M4 mac mini in 5 years for $150 for an instant-cash offer from backmarket or any other reseller, while you'd be lucky to get $30 for the equivalent Beelink or BOSGAME after 6 months on ebay.
My macbook pro 15 inch, mid 2017 is valued at $195 by apple trade in. Bought for 2k iirc.
I owned a 2014 MBP (~$1200?) for a long time and as late as 2019 it was resellable for $500.
Your hypothetical scenario is so absurd you didn't even noticed your catastrophical scenario falls well within any warranty period.
In the meantime, I own cheap miniPCs that I used as daily drivers, and they soldier on for years.
I mean, do you really believe that NUCs from Intel and AMD will simply fall apart if they don't have an Apple sticker on them?
Macs do generally hold their resell value better than PCs, but that doesn’t necessarily have any correlation to usefulness.
I have bought several ThinkCenter small form factor PCs used for about $200 each, and they’ve each been about 5-7 years old. They’re perfectly fine and I can even get new parts from Lenovo, depending on the part and machine. Fantastic deal. They run loads of services in my home.
These are the dollar numbers claimed in the above post.
If you want to put in a bit of elbow grease, you can get a much better deal. M1 Mac Minis in my area are regularly selling for $350+ on FB Marketplace right now.
This reads like the epitome of Apple's reality distortion field. I mean, you're trying to convince yourself that a product is not overpriced when compared to equivalent products and subjecting customers to price gauging by asserting that you might be able to sell it later. That's quite the logical leap.
https://www.cio.com/article/236396/ibm-says-macs-save-up-to-...
Why exactly?
What are a "lot of people" storing on their computers these days? Photos are in the cloud or on our phones. Videos and music are streaming. Documents take up no space. Programs are in the cloud (for the most part).
Nice size. The Beelink has better reviews. Any name brands?
It's a nice little low wattage machine for running some docker containers.
Ryzen one I got 2 years ago for my dad outperforms my M1 pro.
There are many other manufacturers. I am biased towards fanless builds, like those two.
NUCs are also a great option, especially if you replace the case with a fanless Akasa one.
It starts €599,00 for 2(!) core Celeron. Seems absurd when you can get a Mini for an extra €100 (you can run Linux/Windows in a VM and still get a magnitude or few better perf). Or even an used old NUC or something, you'd need to go back very far to get a crappier CPU...
So the actual starting price seems to be €900-1000 (i.e. if you want an i5..)
The Celeron G6900 has a 46W TDP and seems to be around ~20% (multicore) slower than the <10W N100. Seems absurd that they are pushing garbage like that at such prices (even if its the base config)
I am not endorsing any particular brand, but Cirrus7 is not that expensive within the fanless market and the quality of the entire build is very high. They also somtimes offer nice discounts for students and SMEs. There are quite a few comparable brands and also DIY options with cases from Streacom or Akasa. If you want something cheaper, Minix is pretty inexpensive, especially when you take into consideration they offer a decent fanless enclosure.
I still find it weird/confusing why would a reasonably high-end brand be selling configs with such horrible CPUs (especially perf/watt considering the whole fanless thing).
But I suppose they hardly have any options if they want a socketed MB. Laptop chips would probably be a lot better value (both cost and heat wise) but then it's no longer modular and e.g. Lunar Lake doesn't(?) even support non soldered-memory...
Mac Minis, and in general most Apple products, tend to offer great value in the lowest configuration. But upgrades are expensive. It is a bit of the opposite situation. I have not used Macs for very long, and I prefer Linux, yet the cheapest Mini looks quite appealing. When Intel Core 2 CPUs entered the laptop market, it was a similar situation. The cheapest MacBooks offered really great value compared to competition.
I got a BRIX, which gave me nothing but trouble. Its UEFI is very picky with SSD brands, wasted money on a couple now being used as external drives, and in the end not even with Windows.
It is now collecting dust waiting for the city hall disposal round.
Install your favorite flavor of Linux then. Beelink devices have a good reputation for being quite happy with a new OS. It's more compatible that the latest Apple devices, that's for certain.
The old Intel machines made excellent Linux boxes, excepting the TouchBar era because the TouchBar sucked (it was possible to install Linux, it would display the fake function keys, they worked, but not a good experience). I've converted two non-TouchBar Mac laptops into Linux machines, with zero complaints, one of them is in current use (not the laptop I'm typing on this instant however).
Now there's Asahi, which as a sibling comment points out, will surely be supported for M4 eventually. This is a great time to buy the M2 Minis and put Linux on them, if that's what you're into. Or you can wait around for the M4 port, whatever suits your needs.
Apple try to avoid being too heavy handed in the lockdown because they know the outrage it would cause from their legacy customers. Boil the frog slowly.
But they most definitely are trying to make the Mac more like an iPhone and they would rather not you install any other OS on it.
The bootloader not being completely locked is more for legacy reasons and multi-macOS support (dev/debug) but if you have any problem with it, you will need (surprise-surprise), another Mac for a DFU restore, just like an iPhone.