The latest generation of the Apple Mac Mini not only impresses with its extremely compact and high-quality design. Despite its small dimensions, the mini PC also offers quite strong performance – even in the basic configuration. However, Apple’s pricing policy must also be questioned with this product. After all, the tech company demands high additional costs for more RAM or SSD storage. The community is not enthusiastic about this.
The most important facts in brief
- Apple charges high surcharges for RAM and SSD upgrades.
- The entry-level price is relatively low, but the costs for upgrades increase significantly.
- Users criticize Apple’s approach on social media.
The technology of the new Mac Mini
A few days ago, Apple presented the latest generation of its Mac family. In addition to the MacBook Pro M4 (€ 2,399.00) and iMac M4 (€ 1,749.00), the Mac Mini was also included. With an entry-level price of € 699.00, this is the most affordable entry into the world of Apple PCs. Despite the significantly lower price, the latest M4 chip is also used here – even in the basic configuration.
This is more than sufficient and almost overpowering for the average Mac Mini user. The rest of the hardware should also be more than sufficient for the masses. The basic version comes with 16 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD. However, if you need more performance and memory for more complex tasks, you will have to dig deep into your pockets for the memory expansions.
Apple’s surcharges for memory expansions
Many buyers criticize the memory prices. An upgrade from 16 GB to 24 GB RAM costs a hefty 230 euros. If you want 32 GB RAM, you even have to pay an extra 460 euros. The SSD options are also drastically more expensive: An additional 230 euros are also charged for 512 GB of SSD storage and a whole 460 euros for 1 TB. The 2 TB SSD even comes with a surcharge of 920 euros. These surcharges are disproportionate to the actual hardware costs, which annoys many users. In social networks, Apple’s pricing policy is therefore often referred to as a “rip-off”, as reported by our colleagues at golem.de, among others.
Conclusion
The Mac Mini impresses with its performance and flexibility, but the high surcharges for memory expansions dampen the enthusiasm of many customers. However, anyone who accepts these surcharges for more storage space has only themselves to blame. After all, the market offers many different external SSDs that can be used to expand the Mini PC’s memory at a much lower cost.
