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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Mac mini, meet the competition

Ever since Apple's controversial Mac mini was released last week, there's been a lot of discussion online about whether the "BYODKM" (Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, and Mouse) machine offers viable competition to the Wintel options. Invariably, these discussions have been split down partisan lines. Mac fanatics, largely, argue that the Mac mini does, indeed, offer a price-conscious alternative to PCs, and they struggle to justify that claim with machine-to-machine comparisons that do little more than prove that the mini compete well with just one of the many PC makes out there. Mac detractors, meanwhile, say that the Mac mini is just more of the same, and that it doesn't offer enough expandability or a low-enough cost to justify the purchase. Wintel-based machines, they say, are just cheaper.

Well, enough talk. Let's compare the Mac mini to actually-shipping PC configurations that are available this very week. To perform this comparison, I'm using last Sunday's Best Buy circular, and not just a single PC make from a single PC vendor. All of the systems I'm going to compare are $500 or less, the same price as a bare-bones, low-end Mac mini. And once the comparison is done, I'd like to discuss the ramifications of the competition and clarify where I stand on the Mac mini debate.

First, let's clarify what a Mac mini is. The Mac mini is an incredibly small Macintosh computer that costs $500. Essentially an iBook G4 notebook computer sans screen, keyboard, and mouse, it comes with a 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4 processor, 256 MB of RAM, an ATI Radeon 9200 graphics chip with 32 MB of RAM, a 40 GB notebook-style hard drive, and a slot-loading, notebook-style combo drive. There is no internal expansion per se: You can upgrade to a more acceptable 512 MB of RAM for $75 (recommended, if not required) and to a DVD burner for $100 (also recommended), but you must do this when you purchase the machine, or bring it to an Apple Store later; you can't really do it yourself. Also, an 80 GB hard drive upgrade is $50 (again, recommended). For $600, you can get a 1.42 GHz version that already includes the 80 GB hard drive upgrade, so the processor upgrade is essentially $50. For this reason, many have decried the real price of the Mac mini to be $775, unless you need wireless capabilities, which can make the price closer to $850. Suddenly, we're not in bargain basement territory any more.

No matter. Let's assume a base Mac mini with the necessary 512 MB of RAM upgrade is the least anyone would really want. Such a machine costs $575. This machine features laptop-type components, and not the more powerful desktop-type components that PCs use. It has no display, keyboard, or mouse. It is only minimally expandable. So. What does the PC world look like?

Exhibit number one: Compaq $509
For $509, or almost the exact cost of a bare bones Mac mini, Best Buy will sell you an easily expandable Compaq tower PC with a 2.1 GHz AMD Sempron processor, 512 MB of RAM, an 80 GB hard drive, a multi-format DVD writer, an integrated 9-in-1 media reader, a 17-inch CRT monitor, and a printer. It's a complete computing solution. For $100 more, or the price of a SuperDrive upgrade on your Mac mini, you get a faster processor, a 200 GB hard drive, and a double-layer multi-format DVD writer (!) ... astonishing. For $50 more, you can get an HP PSC1350 printer/scanner/copier. Unbelievable. Here it is:

Now, it should be noted that the $509 price tag is after $300 in mail-in-rebates, so the out-of-pocket price is $809 at the time of purchase. However, the actual price of the system--and it's a full system, not just a box--is, at $509, simply amazing.

Exhibit number two: eMachines $329
If that Compaq is too expensive, consider the $329 eMachines bundle that Best Buy is also selling. This little wonder features a decent-size tower case, a 2.66 GHz Intel Celeron processor, 256 MB of RAM, a 60 GB hard drive, a CD-RW drive, a 17-inch CRT display, and a printer. Yikes. For $130, you can upgrade to a 15-inch LCD display. For $140 (a total cost of $460), you can upgrade to a 2.93 GHz Celeron processor, 512 MB of RAM, an 80 hard drive, a double layer multi-format DVD writer (!), and an 8-in-1 media reader, an incredible bargain. For $50, you can upgrade the printer to a Lexmark X5270 printer/scanner/copier. Sweet. Here it is:

Like the Compaq, the eMachines bundle requires mail-in-rebates, this time to the tune of $330. But like the Compaq, the eMachines is also a complete system, with PC, display, keyboard, mouse, speakers, and printer. It's components are easily upgraded. It comes in an expandable tower case. And so on.

Conclusions
So, what do these deals show us? First, you can get a lot of PC--indeed, a whole PC system including a large CRT screen and a printer--for the same price, or less, than the Mac mini. Second, these PC systems are far more expandable than the Mac mini, thanks to their comparatively voluminous tower cases, with readily available RAM slots, room for more hard drives and optical drives, and various add-in cards: You can even get integrated 9-in-1 (or 8-in-1) media readers, which is a huge plus.

Third, and perhaps most important, none of this matters. Put simply, the people who buy $300 to $500 PC systems at Best Buy are never, ever going to be Apple customers. The people who will be attracted to the Mac mini are people who already have expensive PCs but are looking for a second machine. They are into digital media and are perhaps taken with the style of the iPod. They can afford a $500 second machine, just like they can afford an iPod. And they number in the millions. They will not be buying either of the PCs shown above, not ever.

When it comes to this kind of purchase, the $500 price tag of the Mac mini means just one thing. Like the iPod, the Mac mini is an affordable luxury and it will, in my opinion, open up Mac OS X to a much wider audience. The Mac mini, however, does not compete feature-for-feature or price-for-price with the PC. And you know what? Neither does the iPod, when compared to its competition. Just look what happened there. People aren't buying these things based on features. There's something intangible happening here.

My prediction is that the Mac mini will reverse Apple's market share slide. And one year from now, if not sooner, all of us--even the detractors, begrudgingly--will credit this product with turning around the Macs fortunes. Comparing apples to oranges, or in this case, Apples to eMachines, just doesn't make sense.

[ Posted at 1:47 PM | Permalink ]