Apple’s Pricing Scheme Is Starting To Bother Me
If you look at Apple's online store right now you will find that the cheapest laptop you can buy is $1,099, the cheapest 15" laptop will run almost twice that at $1,999. If you go to Best Buy's online store you can buy a 15" Acer laptop, right this very moment, for $479.99! Now I realize that Apple sells premium hardware, and I realize you are paying for OS X, and I realize that you get so much more with the Mac, but a price difference of over $1,500? Really? Am I the only one who thinks this is excessive?
Before someone hunts down this laptop and decides to crucify with its specs let me first say that I realize it is inferior in every way to the Mac. This Acer has a smaller harddrive, less memory, an older processor, no super drive, no built in camera, more weight, a bigger footprint and it runs Vista. You will get no argument from me that it isn't nearly as nice a machine as the Apple. But it is worth keeping in mind that you could buy 4 Acers for the price of 1 Apple, and still have money left over for shipping. The perspective on that should be mind blowing. You could buy 4 Acers for the price of 1 Mac. Please tell me I'm not the only one out there who thinks this situation is ridiculous?
Someone please explain to me why your average person out there should have to spend $2,000 at least if they want to try a 15" Apple laptop. I recognize that Apple has always sold premium hardware, and I further realize that you will always pay a premium for their equipment, but doesn't $2,000 seem a bit steep to anyone else?
Here is another example from Best Buy's site. Dell has a 15" Inspiron laptop
for sale. It has a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processo, 3 GB of RAM, a 250 GB harddrive, a built in camera, a super drive and a 15" screen. Apple sells a similar Mac Book Pro that has a faster processor (2.4 GHz), less memory (2 GB) and a smaller harddrive (200 GB). The Apple's price: $2,000. The Dell's price: $600.
Maybe its just me, but it seems like the difference between Apple's prices and the rest of the industry are greater now than they have ever been. With new advances in technology an excellent portable computing experience can be had for less than $1,000. Why Apple is the only maker out there who refuses to recoginze this fact is beyond me.
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Comments
“If you can’t afford a BMW, you can’t afford it. What’s the problem?”
As is typical of kool-aid-drinking Mac fanatics, you guys are trying to have it both ways, arguing both that Macs are not more expensive and that they are, in fact, more expensive.
I’m quite certain James of all people would not argue that you don’t get what you pay for with Macs. That’s not the point. The point is that people can get into PCs a lot cheaper than they can get into Macs, and that those PCs will get you from point A to point B just as well as an expensive computer, since most people just check e-mail and browse or do Office work.
“Only the low cost manufacturers who don’t do research, who have low wage employees (and Apple does not)”
How much DO those Chinese workers make anyhoo?
No one is saying that Macs aren’t more expensive - they’re more expensive than a lump of coal (see Best Buy’s ad) but no more expensive than a comparably equipped Windows machine (when containing comparable features).
To put it back into the car analogy, the BMW is not more expensive than other comparably equipped cars, but yes it is definitely more expensive than the Aveo. Sure, you can get into cars cheaper than via buying a BMW (just buy a 10-year old Chevy), but the BMW is NOT more expensive - it’s just better. Same goes for a Mac when compared to a comparably equipped Windows machine (that is, one with the same hardware capabilities).
I completely agree with your post.
This is precisely a reason why I didn’t buy mac laptop this year, even with that free ipod touch. This just doesn’t make sense.
Their pricing is almost a scam. Anyone who object to it, think about the relevant comparison.
macbook pro vs dell XPS m1530. This is somewhat similar.
You can get similar spec m1530 as 2.5ghz macbook pro less than $1400. Same or better spec, along with LED, longer warranty. Just look for some coupon code.
I am fine with paying $2000 machine, but it’s gotta better than dell.
Apple loves you for your money; Microsoft loves you for your time.
It’s hard to find earnings info from the PRC (or Taiwan), but articles dated 8/2007 report that Foxconn (where iPods & other Apple units are assembled) was being ‘investigated’ because they were paying laborers amounts equal to $50.00 per MONTH of 80 hour weeks. They apparently got into trouble with the govt’ as there they only allow each employee to work 36 hours ‘overtime’ per period.
I can’t agree more. Whatever happened to the $1800 professional-class Mac tower? Now the lowest point of entry is a $2800 8-core Mac Pro. I don’t need 8-cores and the glare of the iMac screen doesn’t exactly help when I need to edit photos for clients. I’d like my low-end Mac Pro back please. A single Core 2 Quad or even a single Core 2 Duo-based machine would be enough horsepower to run Photoshop. Can we please have it back Steve? You’re making the Hackintosh route a very tempting road indeed.
I’ve had a lot of the same thoughts as some of you and I still don’t agree with the price point but less aggressively than I used to. I am more tolerant partly because I understand more of what I am paying for, personally.
I think one of the most over looked (taken for granted) values is ease of use. Not because it’s never discussed but because the people who it really benefits are not usually part of these conversations. The people that are part of these discussions usually range from advanced users to techies and take that for granted. It’s the same on both platforms. If I have a similar discussion with my techie windows friends, like me, all their windows boxes work great, very few problems. But are we a good sampling of the average user? I say no. Like beeb pointed out the average person is surfing and emailing and I agree. However, IMHO those are the people that really need to be on a mac.