The TidBits folk: “headless Dell pricier than Mac mini”
Glenn of Tidbits considers the Mac mini: “The Mac mini has a number of similarities with the doomed G4 Cube.. I’ve posted a table with a head-to-head comparison of specs, and they’re eerily alike. [But] The Cube failed in promising a kind of perfection in design that the manufacturing process was often unable to meet, and in having a premium price over the simultaneously introduced Power Mac models that offered more performance, expandability, and familiarity. The Mac mini suffers from none of these defects.
The Mac mini essentially cuts the lungs out of the PC world’s (and many columnists’) argument about Macs costing too much… I went to Dell’s site and configured their cheapest Dimension 3000 with no monitor and the closest set of minimum specifications: they lack built-in speakers, so I added the cheapest set ($20), but they include a keyboard and mouse, which offsets about $50 of cost on the Mac side for the same quality of input devices.
The Dell Dimension 3000? $627 including a $50 rebate versus $499 for the Mac mini.”
It’s going to be very interesting to hear what the order numbers are like. Trouble is, price alone isn’t the whole story. You still need to move your life over from a PC to a Mac to “Switch”. I’m slightly surprised Apple didn’t try to bundle Move2Mac with it. When I asked one of their people why not, he gave me one of those looks which either means “Hell! I knew there was still something on the To-do list!” or “How stupid is this person?” Trouble is, the answer he gave - noncommittal - didn’t indicate which was in his mind.
(Via ExtraBITS.)
- These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
- At LAST! Dell gets its own rumours site (4 February 2005; score: 76.15%)
- Dell explains why it killed customer forums (sort of); and that Shuttle delay in full (14 July 2005; score: 58.54%)
- Dell shuts customer support forums.. because they're full of criticism (13 July 2005; score: 53.46%)
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January 13th, 2005 at 2:37 pm
Does the Mac mini have built-in speakers? Crikey, never noticed that.
Dell has been advertising a PC/LCD deal over here on tv for £379, which would kinda beat out the mini on price.
January 13th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
“£379, which would kinda beat out the mini on price”
I thought the UK price was £339? It should be £277.
January 13th, 2005 at 3:39 pm
Dave
Why should it be £277? Are you noting pre-VAT or post-VAT. I don’t think Apple can avoid that. It’s pre-VAT price is £289, which is not wildly far off the US dollar pricing.
Ian
January 13th, 2005 at 6:35 pm
Sorry, it is, but the Dell comes with a 17″ TFT monitor (plus a keyboard and mouse). Which I imagine costs more than £40.
January 13th, 2005 at 8:16 pm
Hi,
I don’t actually think the finer points of the low price (at least within a hundred quid or so) will be relevant. Because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Mac so specifically targeted as ths one. As Apple themselves spelt out, it’s for Windows users who drop by the Apple store to buy an ipod - see a Mac Mini, do the sums and conclude that it’s cheap *enough* to add as a *second* computer. Sure, there’re bound to be extra reasons to buy it (I can think of a few!) but Apple’s play seems to be pretty straightforward - a trojan horse for the Windows curious.
Steve
January 13th, 2005 at 8:39 pm
You can’t give them ideas Charles without signing a disclaimer promising you won’t sue when they use your idea without crediting and/or paying you for it… the poor chap probably thought ‘How am I going to get out of this? I’ll have to pretend I didn’t hear him’…
http://www.apple.com/legal/policies/ideas.html
January 14th, 2005 at 3:09 am
He probably thought you were breaking your NDA. Did he get your name?