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I call BS on them being not good market fit, Apple does totally fine with mac mini. also these are just laptops w/o screen and battery. IMO the real reason may
by DesiLurker 3y ago
I call BS on them being not good market fit, Apple does totally fine with mac mini. also these are just laptops w/o screen and battery. IMO the real reason may be worries around minipcs finally getting good enough that they may cannibalize higher margin PC market. BTW there are other vendors like Beelink that make semi decent tiny computers and I have one of those as my teenage kids pc,works just fine.
- squokko 3y agoThe Mac Mini is a totally different market: it 1) runs macOS 2) has Apple Silicon 3) has no competitors for running macOS 4) is the cheapest entry point into iOS development which is a high paying job
- user_named 3y agoSo you listed macOS three times, and then your last point is sort of not relevant
- anthk 3y agoIn the US, maybe. Android rules the rest of the world and Europe, Japan and China.
- sgjohnson 3y ago> Europe definitely not
- anthk 3y agoSpaniard here. Definitively yes. I know about France, Germany, Italy... and it's truly behind the Android market.
- jtwaleson 3y agoDefinitely does not rule so absolutely that you can ignore iOS development. In Western Europe my anecdata is that iPhone is winning with high frequency users.
- anthk 3y agoOFC it's the second one over Android smartphones. Which is the alternative? Still, in Spain, France, Italy, Germany... the iPhone it's seen for poshy people and Android covers the 90% of the needs of the average guy at a much cheaper price.
- squokko 3y agoAlmost any app that's available on both iOS and Android will do more than 50% of its revenues from iOS even in markets that are 75% Android. Those "poshy" people are quick to click on in-app purchases.
- anthk 3y agoNot always, as most iPhone users here are CEOs and mid-range managers. They love cutting costs down.
- selectodude 3y agoiPhone has 68 percent of the Japanese mobile phone market.
- FullyFunctional 3y agoI'm not sure what your point is, but my Mac Mini M1 runs Linux. Asahi Linux.
- scarface_74 3y agoUnless you’re not aware, most Mac users aren’t running Linux
- diffeomorphism 3y agoIs that supposed to be positive or negative? Because the only thing I'm reading is "I can think of nothing positive to say, but if you absolutely have to use macos, it totally runs that.".
- squokko 3y agoWell, if you want to run macOS, you have one choice, if you want to run Windows or Linux, you have 1000 choices. This will drive profit margins among the 1000 choices to roughly zero
- hiatus 3y ago> Apple does totally fine with mac mini How do you know this? I personally decided against a mini when I specced one out and a MBP wound up cheaper. The pricing strategy certainly made me _feel_ like they were pushing me away from the mini.
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y agoHuh? A QHD display for 200, a hand-me-down keyboard and mouse, and I have a better machine with a mini. Besides, I'd use an external display anyways, not working at caffées.
- DesiLurker 3y agoTBH I dont own a mini but I have used it and it seems fine. online reviews are also decent if you go above baseline 8Gb. but thats targeted towards mac users which are already in higher price bracket so not too bad. plus its better if power consumption and noise level. overall I feel that there is enough integration density in processors that the laptop form factors will be good enough for most common (& semi advanced) uses. so this seems like an odd decision to move out of that market (technically) but if you factor in business then it starts to makes sense.
- LegitShady 3y agoIntel nucs are fine too. The question isn’t if they’re fine, the question is if they make good business sense. Also, apple’s crazy profitability means they may offer something like the mini that doesn’t sell as well as their laptop, while intel is ruthlessly cutting out things that aren’t part of their core business because of their monetary issues. If Intel can’t compete with cheaper manufacturers and its not hitting their internal required rate of return then it may no longer justify having that business unit at all.
- zalyh 3y agoAs much as I love using MacOS, the Intel NUCs offer upgradability for SSD and RAM which makes it harder to go with the Mac Mini if you need larger storage or memory.
- stevezsa8 3y agoHow is the beelink? I'm really tempted by the price and what you get. But I've never bought anything that wasn't a well known brand like Dell.
- DesiLurker 3y agothe one I have for my daughter is okay. gets the job done but wont use for gaming etc. I do however want to get the Beelink GTR7 [1]. that seems amply powered and decent build quality/noise level. 1. https://www.bee-link.com/beelink-gaming-pc-gtr6900hx-19943849-clone-1-47342842 https://www.bee-link.com/beelink-gaming-pc-gtr6900hx-1994384...
- adrian_b 3y agoBased on specifications, GTR7 and GTR7 Pro are the best computers with a volume less than 1 L. The only worries are the quality of the cooling and the noise. According to this review: https://www.servethehome.com/beelink-gtr7-changes-the-mini-pc-game-with-amd-ryzen-7-7840hs/ https://www.servethehome.com/beelink-gtr7-changes-the-mini-p... it seems that from the point of view of the cooling and noise they are significantly improved over earlier Beelink models, so any of the two variants seems like a good choice. An alternative is Minisforum UM790, which is configured for a lower CPU power and which has slightly less peripheral interfaces.
- Patrick-STH 3y agoI am not going ot post our own links, but last week we did the UM790 and we have the GTR7 Pro review coming as well.
- kiawe_fire 3y agoI bought one with an AMD 4800U in early 2022 to be used as a cheap, dedicated Linux device for work (mostly Remote Desktop plus some local docker development environments) and it’s been rock solid for me. Your mileage may vary, but I’ve been happy enough with mine for the price that I had already decided I would be choosing Beelink for my next mini PC over a NUC. That said, I have seen some mixed reports of some issues around thermal throttling and eGPU support for some of the newer gaming focused ones, but I think if you have realistic expectations given the form factor (and especially if you’re not going for gaming) then they are fairly reliable and sturdy little devices. * Also note, I bought mine barebones and added my own ram and SSD. I can’t speak to the quality of what they ship with, but I also haven’t heard any complaints from others with that regard.
- rsynnott 3y ago> Apple does totally fine with mac mini. Is there data on how well they actually sell? I always vaguely assumed it was a pretty low-volume product that they couldn't actually get rid of due to niche customer applications. They've historically often been very slow to _update_ it; they definitely don't treat it as one of their more important products.
- alwillis 3y ago> Is there data on how well they actually sell? I always vaguely assumed it was a pretty low-volume product that they couldn't actually get rid of due to niche customer applications. They've historically often been very slow to _update_ it; they definitely don't treat it as one of their more important products. The Mac mini has always been Apple's low-cost trojan horse product for existing PC users who already have a keyboard, mouse and display. The issues with keeping it updated in the past had more to do with the Intel processors available to Apple. In the short Apple Silicon era, the Mac mini has been upgraded multiple times. It's remains an important product.
- dangus 3y agoI don’t think a lot of people still buy desktops outside of the gaming segment. I would make a bet that the MacBook Air outsells both the iMac and Mac mini by a ratio of 10 to 1.
- Turskarama 3y agoMaybe they should though. A lot of people buy a laptop just to only ever use it on their desk and never actually take it anywhere. A desktop computer with equivalent performance will generally be several hundred dollars cheaper and run quieter as well.
- dangus 3y agoHave you actually looked at the price of pre-built desktops lately? Check out all the big computer manufacturers like Dell and HP. Go to their “cheap desktops” section (e.g., Dell Inspiron). Focusing on Dell, the cheapest one I see is $499 and the specs are a 13th gen i5, Intel UHD 730, 8GB of RAM, 512GB SSD. Bring your own monitor! For laptops, the Inspiron 15 for $430 gets you 12GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 11th gen core i5, Iris Xe graphics. Why am I buying that desktop instead of the laptop? What is my motivation? Look at Apple and the Mac mini will save you $400 over a MacBook Air but you’ll need a keyboard, mouse, monitor, and webcam/microphone. In the case of Apple, the desktop is literally louder because the only Apple system with a fanless design is the MacBook Air, and you get a minimal performance advantage for having a desktop because all Apple’s chips are based on the processor inside your iPhone. Desktops just don’t have a price advantage because nobody wants them, so there’s no economy of scale.
- answiftydev 3y agoI would bet the majority of Mac minis sold are used as ci/cd servers for iOS and Mac development. I would also bet the Mac mini is the third lowest selling Mac with the Mac ultra and Mac Pro being the least.
- willcipriano 3y agoI'd take that bet
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sgjohnson 3y agoanecdotal evidence: that’s the exact purpose of all of our mac minis at where I work. It’s also the exact purpose of my home mac mini
- solardev 3y agoThe Mac Minis are a great value compared to the rest of Apple's lineups. The NUC is overpriced, like why would I get that instead of a generic laptop? It was just a poor value for what it offered.
- adrian_b 3y agoA generic laptop has much less peripheral ports and also slower peripheral ports and a much slower CPU. There are a lot of users who need many other peripherals besides keyboard and mouse and who prefer to not use a ton of dongles. Sometimes no dongle can help with a laptop, because the aggregate throughput of all its USB ports is just too small. A NUC is much faster than a generic laptop which uses the same CPU, because it has much better cooling. In all recent 0.5 L NUCs the CPU can dissipate 35 W forever without overheating. No generic laptop can do that. There are plenty of gaming laptops or mobile workstations that can match or exceed the speed of a NUC, but those cost between two and eight times more than a NUC, so a NUC or a similar SFF computer is a much better value than such a laptop and even together with a portable monitor and a compact keyboard it is easier to carry in a backpack than a big and heavy laptop. I have done this for years.
- MisterTea 3y agoThey're overpriced for what you are buying. I'm not interested in paying $400 for a bare bones i5 with no ram or disk which adds another $150-200. I bought a quad i5 nuc on sale off Newegg for $300. I also ordered parts to build a little AMD 6 core APU itx setup for 50 bucks more. If the Nuc wasn't on sale I would not have bothered to even look at it. And for 50 bucks more got waaaaay more compute power. The only reason I even bought the Nuc and not another itx was simply the very small size. The hardkernel odroid h3 with a quad Celeron, dual 2.5 GbE and m.2 M key costs $130 without the case/PSU. Intel can do better on pricing.
- tinus_hn 3y agoMy guess would be they can’t compete with the hundreds of cheap AliExpress/Amazon clones, they are good enough for a lower price.
- toast0 3y agoDo we need Intel to release these, or can they just sell the chips to integrators like they do with other desktops and laptops?
- fatfingerd 3y agoI wish they had stayed out. People are talking about how they started this great market segment but mini-ITX was a real standard motherboard size started by VIA and thin mini-ITX would be more popular if Intel didn't just make whatever they wanted and set a precedent of consumer trash instead of components for this size class.
- toast0 3y agoMini-ITX is still alive, but it's a lot larger. Nano-ITX is more comparable, but I don't think there were very many systems based of it?
- synergy20 3y agomini-itx, esp the low profile format, really should be way more popular, as you can manually upgrade it so easily yet it remains to be small in size, small but not smaller.
- gowld 3y agoIntel did it because, for 10 years now, integrators refused to.
- toast0 3y agoI've got several small desktops based on Intel laptop cpus from the past ten years, none of which were put together by Intel. Lots of products here: https://liliputing.com/tag/mini-pc/ https://liliputing.com/tag/mini-pc/
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago> BTW there are other vendors like Beelink that make semi decent tiny computers and I have one of those as my teenage kids pc,works just fine. The issue is, Intel's aiming more upmarket (based on their pricing) for something that doesn't offer a lot more. Intel's done interesting/fun things, such as building the entire motherboard into a single slot sized unit, but going out and buying a Beelink is a better proposition for most people. If anything, I think Intel can exit this market because they succeeded. They lead the way, they begat a new form factor, and it's won. But the market has grown much more competitive, and it's hard to see what Intel would do to remain relevant & important in this market. Their current efforts are interesting, and even good, but not really enough to clearly differentiate, not enough to command a huge lead in this market, and certainly not at the somewhat above average prices Intel has been asking. This follows a lot of other Intel examples. Intel left DRAM market in 1985. Intel left SSDs in 2020, in a similar situation to NUCs here: they basically created the mass consumer market, by pioneering NVMe & creating amazingly high-value products that used to be ultra-expensive proprietary botique items. This seems like a classic Innovator's Dilemna situation, of Intel having a strong hand creating mass-market products that define the industry, but then being chased out by down-market competition, once the offerings really become a true everyday commodity. I'm not sure if there even is another way Intel ought to behave here.
- biomcgary 3y agoI completely agree with your analysis. I'm writing this on a Beelink (running aftermarket Linux) and couldn't be happier about the value proposition. I started my shopping looking for a NUC, but they were all too pricey for what I wanted/needed.
- akira2501 3y ago> If anything, I think Intel can exit this market because they succeeded. They lead the creation of a market but failed to maintain any competitive edge in it. That's a story of initial success that ultimately ran through their fingers, like so many other examples you've presented. Calling this fully "a success" seems very generous. > If anything, I think Intel can exit this market because they succeeded. You could spin the entire unit off so it could compete on it's own terms. There's plenty of success stories to be found this way, and Intel's habit of doing this time after time means that I have very little confidence in any new product they bring to market outside of CPU cores and view them mostly as a consumer electronics company now.
- throw0101a 3y ago> BTW there are other vendors like Beelink that make semi decent tiny computers and I have one of those as my teenage kids pc,works just fine. Serve the Home has an entire series on small systems: * https://www.servethehome.com/tag/tinyminimicro/ https://www.servethehome.com/tag/tinyminimicro/
- Patrick-STH 3y agoYes. I think that is a solid NUC alternative with one exception: the lack of USB4/ Thunderbolt as standard. Intel was very good about including TB on its NUC line and also did a better job upgrading to 2.5GbE.
- tracker1 3y agoI don't think it's the form factor, I think it's more about competing with their own customers. There are similar offerings (including AMD based) from several other vendors. I've been far more interested in the AMD based ones the past few gen... currently using a MiniForum model with a 5900HX for home server duties.
- glimshe 3y agoThere are some great Chinese mini PCs on Amazon, many of them using Intel processors. Some of these are very compelling against ARM mini PCs such as the Raspberry Pi 400.
- tracker1 3y agoAbsolutely... the RPi scalping over the pandemic is what turned me on to these things... There are some Intel options around $200, that include case, power and many have memory and storage. When the 8gb RPi was close to that bare board, was definitely worth switching to something materially faster.
- synergy20 3y agoBuilding systems(phone,pc,laptop) is Apple's core business, it's not Intel's.
- halicarnassus 3y agoI always liked NUCs because of their usage of mobile CPUs with low power consumption in a small case. No need to consume 50W idling for nothing. I only need iGPUs for a zippy UI, because I don't game on my work devices, and don't want to have any added noise because of a dGPU. This might be the right move for Intel, but not for users. NUCs are awesome, cost-effective devices.
- jzb 3y agoI’ve got two AMD based Beelink boxen. They’re fantastic and at the right price. I hope Intel exiting this market doesn’t mean others will.
- heresie-dabord 3y agoRecent Beelink models also offer dual Ethernet.