Apple.ca: Refurbished Mac Mini - $499 & $549

[Yankees 1903]

This is probably warm at best but Apple has dropped the price on the refurb Mac mini's. I believe they have dropped by $40 for the 1.8GHz and $169 for the 2.0GHz. Not the greatest specs but if you were in the market for a refurb anyways, these at least come with a 1 year warranty. Prices on craigslist and ebay are also way over priced for used mini's with comparable specs and no warranty.

[themanfromvlad]

Any drops with the current tanking of the Canadian dollar are more than welcome.

[AndrewRFD]

Hrm, interesting, thanks. Here's a link if you want to support RedFlagDeals.com: http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-749547-10481138. Click on Mac Mini on the left.

[Neil]

I'm sure the internet has answers, but looking from some input from RFD readers that could outline the pro's and con's of these. What OS level do they come with and what's the best they can run? What apps come with? Can they still be overclocked and add ram? Any other mandatory purchases required such as Apple keyboard/mouse/display? Would this be a suitable low-cost Mac equivalent or are they more for HTPC/email usage.

[vv12]

The new mac mini is announced which said to be 5x faster. My coworker has one of the latest model of the last generation and says it is laggy playing 1080p video.

[Yankees 1903]

@ Neil

The mini's come with Leopard, Apple's latest OS. It will be able to run Snow Leopard which is the next Apple OS also called 10.6. They don't come with any keyboard our mouse but I do believe they come with a mini dvi and mini vga adapter along with a Apple remote. Web surfing, email, Microsoft office, iLife 09, some older games, and most tasks the average user needs will run. Dont expect to play COD5 or run Photoshop at blazing speeds, Apple let the mini sit their without an update for over a year. Should play 720p quicktime trailers and 720p .mkv files but will struggle with 1080p because of the intel gma 950.

[rav4baby]

I have a older Core Duo mini and can confirm it plays 720p fine. Never tried 1080p, but I don't really need it to either because I find 720p is already good enough.

Thanks OP!

[CodeMan]

@ Neil

The mini's come with Leopard, Apple's latest OS. It will be able to run Snow Leopard which is the next Apple OS also called 10.6. They don't come with any keyboard our mouse but I do believe they come with a mini dvi and mini vga adapter along with a Apple remote. Web surfing, email, Microsoft office, iLife 09, some older games, and most tasks the average user needs will run. Dont expect to play COD5 or run Photoshop at blazing speeds, Apple let the mini sit their without an update for over a year. Should play 720p quicktime trailers and 720p .mkv files but will struggle with 1080p because of the intel gma 950.

not true. playing 264 mkv files has little to do with video card cuz with 1.8g d2d, it is good enough to drive 1080p

[zenzen]

My 1.83 C2D GMA950 2GB had no problem displaying the Dark Knight trailer at 1080p. Then again I wasn't running much in the background.

[4got10]

Apple announced new mac mini's today so they are probably trying to get rid of any old stock.

Apple today announced a number of new products including a new Mac Mini which starts at U.S. $599 or $729 Canadian.

Available in two models, the base model Mac mini features a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, 120GB hard drive, 8x Super drive, Gigabit Ethernet, 5 USB 2.0 ports and NVIDIA GeForce 9400 integrated graphics.

[sjpeters79]

Looks like the 2 ghz mac mini refurbs are gone as the site no lists them.
http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/hom...s/mac/mac_mini

[hempopotamus]

Looks like the 2 ghz mac mini refurbs are gone as the site no lists them.
http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/hom...s/mac/mac_mini

As with all refurb products they come and go. Check back daily, perhaps first thing in the morning.

[ItsAPong]

The new mac mini is announced which said to be 5x faster. My coworker has one of the latest model of the last generation and says it is laggy playing 1080p video.

I own an older 1.6 C2D (512MB) and I can play 1080p mkv files well with only a slight lag once in a while. The key is to use Plex instead of Quicktime or VLC to play 1080p files. The difference in performance is like night and day. I think these minis make great HTPCs, they're small and very quiet.

[Brrr]

I own an older 1.6 C2D (512MB) and I can play 1080p mkv files well with only a slight lag once in a while. The key is to use Plex instead of Quicktime or VLC to play 1080p files. The difference in performance is like night and day. I think these minis make great HTPCs, they're small and very quiet.

+1 for Plex and the mini. I noticed the performance difference right away. Many mkv's that play poorly in VLC or MPlayer play smoothly in Plex.

$549 for the previous top-end refurb is a great deal. Sucks that I just bought it for $710 3 1/2 weeks ago! Apple.ca only price protects to 14 days.

[Neil]

The rest are gone also. I was on the line with it in the cart just seeing how to apply an epp discount when it stopped working. The person at the Apple store said the last one sold while we were talking. She said they aren't expecting any more due to the model changeover.