M4 Mac mini in front of AirPods Max — image credit: Apple
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The new M4 Mac mini is an exceptional value, but its firm stance on pricing is an outlier for a company that's accustomed to charging $700 The Mac Pro sits atop the exorbitant prices for RAM and SSDs.
The new Mac mini starts at $599, which is a full $500 cheaper than the next-most expensive Mac, the M2 MacBook Air. That's about as low as Apple's price, but you'll need accessories to use the Mac mini.
A display, keyboard, and mouse or trackpad are all essential, and together they can be competitive. Buying Apple's cheapest options will cost you $178 for a keyboard and mouse, plus $1,599 for a Studio Display.
You can buy cheaper and sometimes better deals, especially some of the best Mac displays. And then there are the extra accessories for your Mac mini, or any Mac. There are extra accessories that mean you can choose between them or buying another M4 Mac mini.
Apple's Most Notorious Costly Extras
Though they're only for one type of Mac, Apple's Mac Pro Wheels are the flagship of accessories that are so expensive you'll think they're a joke. If you don't order the wheels with your Mac Pro, buying them later will set you back $699.
The Mac Pro wheels (top) cost $499, but the feet (bottom) are a steal at $299— image courtesy of Apple
This is the same as the base Mac mini, upgraded to 10 Gigabit Ethernet.
Or there’s the Apple Pro Display XDR, which starts at $5,000 and raises the question of what an accessory is. Unless you plan to prop it up against a convenient wall, you’ll have to get one of the optional accessory stands.
Also infamously known as the Mac Pro wheels, there’s the $1,000 Pro Stand. That’s the price of an M4 Mac mini upgraded to 1TB of SSD storage or 32GB of RAM.
Apple also sells a VESA mount for the Studio Display. And frankly, it’s only $200.
But then the Pro Display XDR plus that VESA mount is the equivalent of eight Mac minis.
Third-party accessories sold by Apple
Apple Stores, including the online store, sell a lot of products that aren't made by Apple. Of those designed for Macs and iPhones, there's the Apogee Duet 3 preamp, which costs $650.
For that kind of money, you could buy a basic M4 Mac mini plus a $45 flash drive like the 128GB SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive Luxe.
Or, for $50, Apple sells the AmpliFi Alien router and MeshPoint range extender. This will help you network all the Macs you could buy.
The Apple Watch Hermes Satine Grand H costs $999, Apple Watch not included — image courtesy of Apple
But Apple accessories aren't just for Macs. For example, if you have an Apple Watch, you can buy an Apple Watch Hermes Satine Grand H band for $1,000.
That's the cost of a base M4 Mac mini, upgraded to 24GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.
Left to Their Own Devices
By sticking to just the M4 Mac mini price or lower, Apple is apparently selling the iPhone SE for $429. But it's also still selling the 2022 iPhone 14.
In its base 128GB version, the iPhone 14 costs the same as a Mac mini.
But then that price range also includes another Apple accessory whose price made people wince. Unlike all those other accessories, however, this device had the potential for major upgrades — and it only had one minor upgrade.
Nearly four years later, the AirPods Max still cost $549. Keep checking AppleInsider’s Mac mini price guide, and even the new M4 version will eventually fall below the price of the AirPods Max.
But if you take the base M4 Mac mini, upgrade it to 24GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, and you could buy a second Mac mini.
Someone, or rather some team, at Apple puts a lot of work into pricing. There’s going to be an element of what’s called “cost-plus,” where you start with how much it actually costs Apple to make something, and that’s complicated enough.
But there also has to be a calculation involved in figuring out the exact price at which no one will buy it — and then subtract a dollar from that.
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