The $600 Mac Mini is a Steal—Until It’s a Scam

The base-model Mac Mini is the best $600 computer you can buy—until the *second* you try to upgrade it.

In this video, we break down the shocking truth about the *Mac mini M4* and its pricing structure. The *base-model Mac Mini* is an incredible deal at just $600, beating every similarly-priced *PC* in performance and efficiency; however, Apple’s *upgrade pricing* turns the Mac mini into an *Apple scam*, making it nearly impossible to get a good value once you start adding more RAM or storage. Watch as we compare the *Mac mini* to *PC builds* and uncover why the *Mac Mini deal* falls apart when you try to upgrade it.

0:00 - M4 Mac mini is worth $0
1:00 - For $600 you can't get a better computer. Period.
1:30 - Trying to build a Mac mini PC Killer
5:03 - $600 PC vs $600 Mac
6:38 - Upgrade pricing is a SCAM!
9:07 - Apple's components aren't special
10:59 - Apple's base-config hurts customers

[bobclarke]

40 watts under max load? How am I supposed to stay warm all winter?!

[druxpack]

Apple is acting like a drug dealer...want a hit, it's a cheap $599...need more? empty that wallet....

[feederbrian]

Just don’t worry about the RAM. You can always download more.

[dansanger]

Soldering on RAM for more performance is almost excusable. Socketing the storage, but with a proprietary connector and no upgrade path, is inexcusable. It's like they're mocking us.

[neilweinstock]

This is all correct. There is a difference between "expensive upgrades" and "oh my god this is insane". Unchanged SSD pricing since 2012? Madness.

[TheRealJonsMind]

Think hell would freeze over before Apple ever gave us better pricing on upgrades.

[CPX]

And those prices are even crazier outside the US.

[DanielGyimesi]

Marketing in a nutshell: create a product that is genuinely incredible not only in performance but also in value at $600. Emphasize your marketing on how good it is for $600. Create variants that people actually want to buy (if they want to future proof themselves at least) for at least twice as much, if not more, at which point the value is no longer the same and thus you get incredible profit margin, whilst the user enjoys a computer that is remarkable at $600 for the price of $1200.

[rogerwilco]

I remember them selling a base model Mac Pro with only 3GB of RAM. My boss bought one and hated it. I got it 2 years later. Upgraded with some second hand Dell 32GB, a PCIe SSD card, second Xeon for 12-cores and a MacVidCards 1080 and it still is a great computer 14 years later.
3GB of RAM on a 6-core Xeon!!!

[playerguy]

"Because as consumers, we won't tolerate this for much longer"

I wish... But I don't think so.

[DarkRendition]

You’re wrong about one thing… Apple consumers WILL tolerate it.

[dosdude]

I guess I'm probably the only one who looks at this situation as a fun challenge...

[Ronald-guft]

Nice to see someone review this product correctly.

[podunkis]

The M4 Mini is $499 at my local MicroCenter. It's even less since I do have the store credit card -- $475. That's a pretty impressive value.

[rawkfist-ihnk]

It's pretty simple... Apple is offering the best deal in computing in hopes that at the time of purchase they get even a percentage of people to upgrade the RAM or storage for much higher prices than necessary. If they offered reasonable prices then they will then raise the base price to compensate.

[ardencassie]

I’ve needed a new Mac for the past 4 years or so. Every time I go to pull the trigger their obscene prices on reasonable upgrades push me away.

[markdaga]

The only silver lining is that you can now move your apps and your home folder to an external drive, so if you've got a 256 base mac mini, just get an external drive and just literally don't use your internal drive for anything but the OS.

[theshadowman]

On a 2018 Mac mini a memory upgrade from 8 to 32 GB had cost me around 100 USD because I was able to upgrade it myself. Now I don’t have that option because apple solders the RAM to the board.

[Chuck_vs._The_Comment_Section]

Well, the SSD problem is not that bad. It can easily be solved with external storage. The non-upgradeable 16GB RAM is much more annoying.

[wayner]

I just purchased an M4 Mac mini base model. I slapped on a 1TB external thunderbolt 4 SSD (which I built myself) for less than $200CAD. I configured it to be my home drive and man, this thing is smokin'!! I can at last download ALL of my photos, files, music and movies off the iCloud storage and have nearly instant access to all my stuff, for than than the 1TB Mac mini configuration.