Europeans: I’m not gonna pay a lot for this mini.

It sickens me!! that's all I can say. Before VAT on the apple site it still costs more then the US store has it listed. Add the VAT and it comes up even higher. Totally ridicules.

I ordered my mac mini this morning at the local Gravis store (southwestern Germany). The bigger machine, airport, bluetooth, super drive, 1 Gig, the works. It's not cheap, they looked at me with sad eyes, telling me I would have to wait at least for a month or even longer. One gets the impression they start producing the new things only after Steve announced them...

Here in italy the imac mini sells (or will eventually sell) for 499. Considering the actual 1.3:1 ratio for $: it costs 116$ more than in the US (or about 24% more). Things used to be MUCH worse anyway, i remember the powerbook 17" costing something like 5/600 more than the US counterpart, and that was NOT considering the favorable to $ ratio (i mean, the final difference was like 4160$ versus 2700$, you could easily pay yourself a week of vacation in new york, flight included, to buy the powerbook and still save some money... what? that's illegal? oooops ;))). anyway, the worst thing is that even on the european union market, where there is NO taxation between coutries, there's a difference in prices: italy 499 germany 489 belgium 519 spain 489 greece 432 (!!!) Regards Marcello

In my view Apple pricing in Europe is correct. People tend to forget the Sales Tax (as already mentioned by previous posters) which is included in the advertised prices in Europe but not in the US. And next they forget that an international company can not use the latest exchange rates but has to take a weighted average over a certain historical period (12 months for instance). Apple is charging 1.20$/ for the mini. If you look at historical exchange rates you will see that that the Euro passed the 1.20$ mark as late as September 2004.

The Mac Mini costs 420 EUR in the Netherlands Apple store, excluding VAT. That is about $546 (using an exchange rate of 1 EUR = $1.30) or $47 more than in the US Apple Store (also without tax). If you add the 19% VAT in the Netherlands, it comes to 499 EUR (or $649). If you buy the same Mac Mini in San Francisco, you have to pay sales tax of 8.5%, so the Mac Mini will cost $540. The difference (with taxes imposed in both places) is about $100. Ouch!

regarding an other mini: after steve jobs unveiled the ipod mini last year, it took about seven months (!) for the first units to appear in retail stores, at least here in sweden. the price? it was the same as when they were announced, of course. the price did in effect not drop even with the "back to school campaigns in august". i dont really give much for the prices mentioned and *especially* not the ETA (3-4w they say, LOL). last time i ordered an ibook, it took about 5 weeks and as many phone calls to get it to my office, that was when ordering through apple store.

In Sweden the Mac mini cost about $50 more than in the US if I add the Swedish sales tax to the US price.

I'm not sure about the rest of europe but here in holland the 19% tax is probably the biggest problem

I'm looking to buy one too - as soon as the price drops. I live in Finland and the price is even more outrageous here than in Germany, because in here we have a 22% VAT. I guess I could order it from Germany and try to get Finnish OS X somewhere...

"UK customers will also be forced to pay more than their counterparts across the Atlantic. The cheaper Mac mini sells for $499 in the US -- around 268. However, to buy the same Mac in the UK would cost 339." That's a whole lot more! Quoted from here: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/mac/0,39020393,39184535,00.htm