“Apple is getting rid of its old G4 powered Mac Mini computers at Costco, the store where America buys its cat food and pallets of toilet paper at steep discounts,” Silicon Valley Sleuth reports. “The $699 price tag gets consumers a 512Mb Mac Mini with a 80Gb hard drive, as well as a wireless keyboard and mouse, which originally weren’t included with the Mac Mini. It also comes with a three year warranty, where the Apple stores only offers 90 days.”
“The offering allows Apple to get rid of excess inventory, but selling Apple computers at Costco isn’t without risk. The store isn’t exactly known for its attention in its in store displays. Especially this caged presentation (see picture in full article), makes the Mac Mini look far less impressive than in an [Apple] store,” SVS reports.
Full article here.
Advertisements:
• Apple’s brand new iPod Hi-Fi speaker system. Home stereo. Reinvented. Available now for $349 with free shipping.
• Apple’s new Mac mini. Intel Core, up to 4 times faster. Starting at just $599. Free shipping.
• MacBook Pro. The first Mac notebook built upon Intel Core Duo with iLife ’06, Front Row and built-in iSight. Starting at $1999. Free shipping.
• iMac. Twice as amazing — Intel Core Duo, iLife ’06, Front Row media experience, Apple Remote, built-in iSight. Starting at $1299. Free shipping.
• iPod Radio Remote. Listen to FM radio on your iPod and control everything with a convenient wired remote. Just $49.
• iPod. 15,000 songs. 25,000 photos. 150 hours of video. The new iPod. 30GB and 60GB models start at just $299. Free shipping.
• Connect iPod to your television set with the iPod AV Cable. Just $19.
Free the Mac. It’s a downright shame to lock ’em up behind bars.
the austin costco had the 20” G5 imacs w/isight & applecare for something like $1300. Almost bought one on principal. Would be perfect for someone who just needs a decent computer for surfing, email and what not.
but the mini doesn’t seem quite the same deal. Perhaps at 100 bucks less.
They are also selling 2gb nanos. Methinks they are for updating too.
The Superior, CO store had a bunch of iMacs and Minis a few weeks ago. (I think March 26) Swung by on Wed. no more Minis and only display model left on iMac
Actually Tiger is faster than Panther, all you have to do is disable dashboard and spotlight and it will run better. Search the Mac forums or Macupdate.com for a disabler.
Andrew, do you have a link or URL? I couldn’t find anything there. Would be most useful for the Quicksilver I use at work, which is a bit sluggish since I went to Tiger, especially in Photoshop.
@neomonkey
Here’s a cool little utility for diabling Spotlight it’s only $10.00:
Spotless – Fixamac software
Hope that helps………
@neomonkey
Found a very cool free utility for disabling the dashboard. What’s funny about it is that it’s a WIDGET! Click it and dashboard is diabled, the dock quits, restarts, and viola – no dashboard. If for some reason you want the dashboard to come back you can hit f12 and it will restart.
StopDashboard Widget
Hope that helps as well…….
I _just_ got a 1.25GHz Mac Mini PPC from the Apple refurb store.
It is to replace my aging 550MHz TiBook (which still runs Tiger fine).
I removed the threeresistors to get 1.5GHz at the CPU, and added 1GB of PC3200 DDR RAM. It is just fine for 10.4.6, even with Spotlight and Dashboard on.
1.5GHz on the G4 is still roughly the same performance as 3GHz Celeron in AV, streaming, apps, etc.
I expected the old mini to be dated, but am relaly surprised at how snappy it is. The unscientific seat-of-the-pants feel is very similar to being about 25% slower than my friend’s 1.8 G5.
Not bad at all for $379.
oooooold news!
I for one am glad to see this. I get tired of walking past all of the Windows units on display. I want to see Macs at my Costco and I want to see them selling cheap.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> I would like to see this continue on to future sales at Costco too. Keep up the good work.