I hear you, but in Europe it's around 700€, which also buys a pretty solid windows or linux laptop. If you're not locked in to mac, a comparably priced laptop with intel 12 gen CPU, 16GB RAM and a RTX 3050, which is arguably a lot more versatile machine.
I think I would like Mac's more if they weren't so absurdly overpriced (approx. 25%+ over US prices) here in Europe.
Here in Austria we have 20% VAT, and US prices are typically without tax. So the 25% price difference is really just a 5% price difference, which is still shitty, but not as horrendous as you make it seem.
Also, the Mac mini is very special:
- tiny footprint without external power brick
- very high reliability
- completely inaudible for typical developer usage
- extremely low power usage (the 6 core Intel Mac mini was an exception)
It's the perfect home (or office) server. You can put it into a bookshelf or in a cabinet, it won't run hot, it won't disturb you with noise in the living room.... I just don't know of anything else that fits the bill.
The only shitty thing is that they are charging ridiculous prices for storage, and attaching external storage sucks because it ruins the tiny form factor, and also because the USB-C cables that come with SSD drives tend to easily disconnect in my experience.
Yes, but that difference isn't Apple's fault, only the 5% they add on top. Every product you buy in Europe is more expensive because of the higher VAT.
Apple silicon macbooks have one property that no windows or linux laptop will ever be able to give me. I use my MacBook to take notes in class, work on my CS homework, etc, so I spent most of my time in Firefox or VS Code. I charge my laptop once a week.
