Please Please don't take this as mac bashing because it isnt. But I just configured a MBP 17in to the same specs as my dell and it came out to $3800+ vs $1300 for my dell. Now this was without any software or any real options, as well as it had 2GB of ram to my 3GB. Before you bash my dell its construction is exactly that of a tank, and Ive had zero issues with it. Now without all the software how is this justified? Dont say OSX as Ive played with my wife's MB from work and its nothing special, as well as it crashes a decent amount (kinda reminds me of vista pre SP1). Now I dont hate Mac products or anything but what is it that gets people spending ~ 3 times as much for a Mac?
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sonoritygenius Goddess of Laptops
They pay premium for having the Apple brand; the logo on it. And ofcourse, the OSX..
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Read this -
FatMangosLAWL Notebook Evangelist
1. They like the style.
2. They don't care about the price.
3. They like OSX.
4. Something about Macs that I don't know about. -
At this moment in time the Macbooks are poor value for money in terms of hardware. This is because Apple, in contrast to other manufacturers, do not reduce the price of their products over time. Instead, they upgrade the hardware while maintaining the same price.
The Macbook range haven't been updated for quite some time, so the pricing of the models are not competitive hardware wise. Rumours have it they will be updated in September (monteniva, new design, new GPU, etc.), by which their value for money will significantly increase. -
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Guys,please,not again...
OP,just use a mac for a week and you will understand -
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. My wife has a MB that Ive used for many days as well as my k-12 school system uses primarily macs. So I can say that Ive seen apple IIe to MBP, and I think that is more then enough experience with Apple products. Plus this isnt supposed to be negative its just a simple harmless question, and if some mac people get offended then they need to check their attitudes at the door.
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Don't the Macbook's have good build quality, nice screens, and thin and light bodies?
Edit: Forgot to mention the backlit keyboards. -
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masterchef341 The guy from The Notebook
1300 vs 3800?
i didn't even look at it, and i seriously doubt it.
i mean, you MIGHT be able to configure some crazy macbook pro to be 3800, but you are a moron if you do. basically all of the macbook pro's are the same spec now. the little differences just don't matter. $1799 is the price of the macbook pro, and it comes with a free $300 ipod touch. how much does the comparable dell machine cost? i dont know. but the mac just doesn't cost 3800 dollars. thats insane. obviously anti-apple fanboy hype skewing the results. i remember something like this from about a year ago. -
There are tons of obvious things that make macs "worth" the money. There are tons of arguments for and against their "value". There are tons of reasons to get a mac as well as tons of reasons not to. If you would like to see them there have been 1000000000000 threads on this forum as well as others that outline clearly all of the pros and cons.
No one is offended, people are just annoyed. You are being captious and antagonistic. The fact that you veiled your petty attempt at provocation in some ridiculous insincere caveat means nothing.
To answer your question, the relative value of Macs decreases the longer it's been since an update. Because, as a few people have said, instead of heavily discounting the price of their notebooks as time passes they keep the price point static and update them every 4-6 months. We are close to a refresh so the relative value of a MBP to your dell would probably be at it's lowest right now. At release MBPs have in the past been more expensive than an equivalently specced (and featured) notebook, but not by all that much. MBPs also offer tons of features that your Dell does not.
If you still can't wrap your head around that. People buy macs because they can and want to. Apple is trendy and hip. Why spend 40k on a BMW when you can get a Ford Focus with the exact same engine under the hood for 15k? -
this thread is becoming a flame war and should be closed.the point is-Apple is unique,and thats why it can set the price to whatever they want.Dont like that?then dont buy.and turns out that lots of people like that.
- Microsoft (MSFT) - $255,648,204,000
- IBM (IBM) - $169,964,678,000
- Apple (AAPL) - $157,012,662,240
- Google (GOOG) - $156,392,862,560
- Cisco (CSCO) - $142,125,692,160
- Intel (INTC) - $135,658,860,000
- Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) - $111,866,423,760
- Nokia (NOK) - $97,746,699,520
- Research In Motion (RIMM) - $71,143,935,000
- Disney (DIS) - $59,257,501,500
- Dell (DELL) - $50,483,256,060
The practical significance of this ranking of market cap is little, but does always revive a famous comment by Michael Dell in 1997 when asked about what he would do to fix the then money-losing Apple:
"What would I do? I'd shut [Apple] down and give the money back to the shareholders," Michael Dell said before a crowd of several thousand IT executives. -
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EDIT:
If your only criteria for buying a computer is price/performance then Apple is not for you. That isn't even something that needs explaining. Apple hardware costs more. Apple offers other things that make their computers worth buying. -
The LCD I have
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824112011 -
well,you cant compare cheapest budget notebook to top notebook just because they have same screen size.sorry,but your price comparison was not "correct"
EDIT:again,if they have the same res doesnt mean that they should have the same quality. -
sonoritygenius Goddess of Laptops
OP: It seems as though you are happy with your Dell and dont need an Apple. You have recieved more than enough justifications and yet continue to compare your Dell vs Apple for the pure purpose of exacerbating debate for unneccessary reasons.
I understand you simply wanted to know economical justification but to keep chewing this issue (on the Apple subforum nonetheless) is a bit troll-esque to get attention and what not.
If you dont want to buy or dont like an Apple, dont- others do, and for the reasons already mentioned above should be suffice - you want every hardware component compared with your Dell to prolong this thread for the sake of debate? You have a Dell, live with it and go away -
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It's been said a million times. You are obviously making some juvenile attempt at trolling. Apples price to performance ratio will never beat a dell or an HP or even a lenovo in most cases. Your dell is NOT the same laptop as a MBP. It may have the same processor ram and grahpics card, but it is far from the same.
I will reiterate what I said before. Why buy a BMW when you can get a car for 1/4 of the price with the same internals? -
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Stop trolling. -
Why are people taking this the wrong way? I never once said PC or my dell was superior EVER. I just wanted to learn more about Macs and why the price is different and instead of what I wanted I got a bunch of people calling me Juvenal and childish. All I wanted was an educated discussion about the pros and what the justification was for Macs. I dont see how this can be misconstrued into a Mac bashing fest and a "troll" post when all I wanted was a simple discussion for educational purposes.
Before I leave I just wanted to let you all know that just because a PC guy comes over here with a price/performance thread dont take it as a negative post. I know there is alot of Mac bashing going around, but that wasnt my intention. Not once did I say one product was inferior or superior, rather I simply was looking for information. -
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Have you even read anything i've posted?
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m8,i think we should really stop this-it is becoming pointless...
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OP, why do people buy $300 dollar jeans? Because they can, and want to be happy. That's basically it.
One reason I can see justification with a Mac is reliability for people who don't need to spend any time configuring/rebooting/etc. and want almost 100% uptime.
(rendering).
But OSX isn't THAT special as many believe; and Vista isn't bad at all as many also believe.
People just need to stop falling for fanboy/marketing propaganda and lies.
It's an operating system, afterall. -
Thread failed please close it.
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masterchef341 The guy from The Notebook
no no not failed.
listen- if you are a performance person and windows works for you, there is no reason to switch to the mac. its more expensive. thats it. problem solved, go pc.
the mac really just represents an opportunity to try things differently. the normal mac pricing is not as bad as you made it out to be, but you have to keep in mind that with apple, you don't want to use custom configurations. just stick with the models they offer. then compare those specs to equivalent dell specs. you will see the price difference drop from 300% to about 25%.
but yes, its unquestionably more expensive. the advantage is in the hardware and software that you don't normally consider. you have the nice form factor, thin aluminum case, good (comparatively) internal speakers, clean lines, backlit keyboard, and OS X. thats what your 25% extra cost gets you. its not cheap, but its worth it to some people. if you are mostly concerned with graphics cards and gaming, you should not look at the mac.
OSX is a very powerful operating system. animation is done with opengl, there is a lot of work done to make things work well for developers (and a ton of work to make it easy for new developers to make powerful applications), and there is unity in the software (applications tend to work well together and interface with each other). also- a lot of things are built into the operating system that require an additional download on windows. and there is no registry. most applications contain their entire package and preferences (some have a separate "preferences" file) but essentially installing and uninstalling software just involves a drag and drop to the hard drive or the trash, and no conflicts. and there is a security advantage. no facebook virus for mac -
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. This is exactly what I was looking for. I did notice my wifes MB has MUCH nicer speakers then my dell. That is also a nice feature as far as the applications are concerned. I have run ccleaner on my PC's every once in a while and the registry fills up with all sorts of crap.
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Basically comes down to this...
1. OS X
2. Service Integration
3. Design
4. Apple logo
5. Community
6. Open Source Software (linux, unix, and os x)
Happy? I suspect not. -
masterchef341 The guy from The Notebook
its the little things like that. they add up to provide a lot of value, and apple rightly charges extra for it. and despite some people not knowing much about unix or osx, it really is a very robust and powerful operating system. it is not just flashy, although since it uses opengl, it is pretty flashy. the crazy thing is that since all the UI stuff is offloaded to the gpu, its really not a hog of an operating system. it doesn't need very much in terms of resources, and at the same time provides a very wide array of functionality.
doesn't change the fact that you can accomplish the same tasks in windows on a dell as you can with a macbook pro and osx, and that the dell computer will cost less. -
"also- a lot of things are built into the operating system that require an additional download on windows. and there is no registry. most applications contain their entire package and preferences (some have a separate "preferences" file) but essentially installing and uninstalling software just involves a drag and drop to the hard drive or the trash, and no conflicts. and there is a security advantage. no facebook virus for mac "
This, to me, is a perfect answer to the OP's question as to what makes a MAC more expensive. Especially for those who may not be as computer literate (I am sure there are a lot of usI am willing to pay a higher price not to have to worry about bullshi* viruses and reboots etc etc. shouldn't this answer be enough to satisfy the question?
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Aside from the first couple of pages I feel more informed when it comes to Apple products. Thanks to those who gave nice intelligent responses, you have not only informed me of what I sought after initially but also showed maturity in an Apple vs PC bashing world. Very much obliged
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We get it! You bought a PC that can do everything a mac can for half the price. The urge to come in here and tell Mac users off must be unbearable. -
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This topic appears to have strayed quite off topic and has been reported for having a high risk of turning into a flame war. As a result, it will be closed.
The question to the original topic has been answered in the first page of this discussion, both from the various responses and from Khris' link (explaining that Apple does indeed overcharge for upgrades - which is why people usually upgrade their Macs themselves).
not Mac bashing but wow...
Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by Thaenatos, Aug 18, 2008.