Marked-up Mac Minis Flood Ebay Amid Shortages Driven By Ai

Overpriced Mac minis are flooding eBay amid shortages of nan sold-out machines, which person go a favored instrumentality for moving on-device AI models for illustration OpenClaw.

This week, reports indicated that nan $599 M4 Mac mini guidelines exemplary pinch 16GB RAM and 256GB of retention is sold retired connected Apple’s unit website, pinch nary options for transportation aliases in-store pickup. The shortages person since extended to different configurations of nan guidelines model, sloppy of nan magnitude of representation selected. This is nan first clip nan guidelines exemplary has been sold out, immoderate outlets noted. Meanwhile, models pinch higher retention (512GB and up) are only disposable to vessel starting successful June.

As a result, eBay has go a secondary marketplace for these much-in-demand computers. On nan site, various configurations of nan M4 Mac mini are disposable for waste astatine higher prices than if buying nonstop from Apple, which is nary longer an option.

Apple’s power-efficient Mac minis person go celebrated devices for testing and moving at-home, on-device AI models, opening pinch nan OpenClaw craze, but now extending to OpenClaw alternatives for illustration ZeroClaw, different AI devices from Anthropic and OpenAI, Perplexity Computer, aliases different specialized section models. Unlike immoderate PCs, Mac minis besides tally softly and thin to beryllium much reliable for 24/7 use, compared pinch laptop computers.

The shortage of nan devices besides comes alongside an industry-wide representation crunch and plans for a Mac mini refresh, according to Bloomberg. However, refreshes of merchandise lines haven’t led to shortages before.

Apple did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

This cleanable large wind of proviso concatenation accent and accrued request for AI-friendly machines has inflated nan prices of utilized user electronics.

As of Friday morning, M4 guidelines models pinch nan 16B RAM/256GB SSD configuration were trading astatine mark-ups for illustration $715-$795 for a new, “open box” model, and arsenic precocious arsenic $979 for an “excellent” refurbished version. Some “lightly used, pre-owned” Mac minis pinch this configuration were trading for astir $700 — more than $100 much than nan value of a caller guidelines model.

Image Credits:eBay screenshot

There was besides a azygous listing for a $925 brand-new M4 Mac mini pinch nan aforesaid 16GB RAM and 256GB storage; nan listing warned successful agleam reddish text: “Last one.”

Image Credits:eBay screenshot

While you still whitethorn beryllium capable to people a reasonably priced refurb if you support a adjacent oculus retired (or if you triumph an eBay auction wherever nan bid has started astatine a little value point), it seems that nan request for nan instrumentality is going to support prices up until Apple’s proviso concatenation refreshes.

And now that nan Mac mini is unavailable, Apple has begun to spot accrued request for nan Mac Studio, too. That machine is also now sold out crossed respective configurations.

As Ars Technica pointed out, you tin still get a MacBook Pro pinch 128GB RAM and larger SSDs wrong a fewer weeks, and moreover nan caller and celebrated MacBook Neo is still shipping wrong 2-3 weeks. This suggests nan existent rumor is user request for nan Mac mini itself.