why are macs so ****ing expensive

Chris Hansen

Are macs dearer so **** can brag about them being dearer?

marco_polo

bpb101 wrote: »

yea sure here u go
here one with a bigger hdd and better battery for
€235
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/10463093/art/asus/eeepc-1011px-black.html

payable by laser , and all major credit cards

Im a PC man, and that is the most silly comparison I have ever seen.

Taking a 13" mac book pro as an example, in fairness a comparable 13" notebook that is robust, light, ultra thin, long battery life, and roughly same RAM/processor specs) carry a fairly hefty price premium over a regular 13" notebook and would probably set you a minimum of around 800 quid or so (Look at the MSI or Asus ultra slim ranges for examples).

So while macs definately carry a large price premium over a bog standard laptop with similar basic specs, a large a portion of that is that portability factor which could equally be applied to other notebooks.

I would personally hold the opinion that Mac books are over priced by a few hundred, but nothing like to the degree you are claiming.

MartMax

if you don't have a MacBook Air, well, you don't have a MacBook Air.

kowloon

Macs were always more expensive, long before they became fashionable. I used to have an all in one black and white job in the 80s. my first computer. The OS was better than Windows versions 10 years later (or more).
I miss my LC Color (Colour).

Can't say I have any use for one now, my PC is better spec for less money and all the software I use is Win 7 compatible. I know a guy with a studio and he only uses Mac, as do many in his line of work.

The branding definitely bloats the price and with the same architecture I can't see them getting away with it forever. You don't need a mac to run the OS, but it's something most mac users either don't know about or could be bothered with and something the vast majority of PC users don't seem to care about.

If I needed to run apple software I'd go hackintosh. Apple are always on the defensive about this, they know if everyone catches on their profits will plummet.

I was disappointed to hear that the new update does away with support for older applications, want to get my mac version of syndicate running , a prime example of something that was just better on a mac.

All said and done, I think the Mac vs. PC rivalry is good for everyone. Competition is always good for the consumer.

Trevor451

Apple sticker

johnners2981

11-inch MacBook Air $999
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air/select?mco=MjMzOTQxMjE

Alienware M11x $999
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dkcwcr1&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&model_id=alienware-m11x-r3

Main differences:
Mac: 64gb flash storage vs Dell: 320Gb 7200 hdd
Mac: 2gb ram vs Dell: 4GB ram
Mac: i5-2467M vs Dell: i5-2537M
Mac: Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 256mb vs Dell: NVIDIA GT540M graphics with 1GB

There ya go, think what you will

kowloon

johnners2981 wrote: »

11-inch MacBook Air $999
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air/select?mco=MjMzOTQxMjE

Alienware M11x $999
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dkcwcr1&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&model_id=alienware-m11x-r3

Main differences:
Mac: 64gb flash storage vs Dell: 320Gb 7200 hdd
Mac: 2gb ram vs Dell: 4GB ram
Mac: i5-2467M vs Dell: i5-2537M
Mac: Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 256mb vs Dell: NVIDIA GT540M graphics with 1GB

There ya go, think what you will

Alienware are a bit of a rip off too, their desktops are just as overpriced.
Nicely finished and all, but I have my art hung on my wall, I see computers as purely functional objects. I think that's where the divide starts for a lot of people, they're willing to pay more for design and 'prestige' branding.

papu

kowloon wrote: »

Alienware are a bit of a rip off too, their desktops are just as overpriced.
Nicely finished and all, but I have my art hung on my wall, I see computers as purely functional objects. I think that's where the divide starts for a lot of people, they're willing to pay more for design and 'prestige' branding.

Gonna chuck this into the Pot

Inspiron Duo
Now , I'm only making an educated guess here , but If apple had launched something like this first , I'm sure They'd get six one coverage and everyone would be telling steve he's done it again and Changed the world blah blah... just like all they're other Hyped launches..

549$ for a tablet AND a PC?! thats like a third of a Ipad+macbook air

Are Macs worth the Crazy money they Charge? no
Isnt gonna stop people buying them and justifying them.

ethernet

Price: it's about image, mark-up and pretty decent support.

Viruses and general malware: they do exist on Mac OS but not to the same level as Windows. Macs do seem to be getting more attention (read: being targeted) of late in this regard.

Finally, can't we all just get along? http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/08/users-treat-criticism-of-favorite-brands-as-threat-to-self-image.ars

ZENER

Here we go again ! Horses for courses is the way I see it. A reliable robust OS that doesn't get bloated after a few months use or where every application you install wants to install something in the startup sequence which ultimately slows the machine down after a while.

Macs have the ability to run all three of the OSs mentioned so far - OS X, Linux and (God forbid) Windows natively or through Virtual machines. Show me a laptop or PC that comes with this fully supported by the maker where drivers are supplied ?

Before you all start shouting about installing OS X on a standard PC remember that for the normal untechy a hackintosh is simply not an option. I have one here but go through hoops every time there's an update to get everything working again. Plus this option is not condoned nor supported by Apple nor any PC manufacturer - try ringing Dell and ask them for support for OS X on an Inspiron !!! Hacks also need specific hardware to run even moderately reliably. This is only an option for people with a good level of technical knowledge.

As for comparing a MacBook Air with it's core i3 (or i5) CPU and ultra reliable SSD and high quality LED screen to a plastic netbook with a puny Atom processor . . . Try running Photoshop CS5 on the netbook . . . 'nuff said !

Apples customer care is second to none too.

As for Linux, another techy OS requiring a high level of technical know how not posessed by your normal everyday computer user. No Photoshop, no Quark express, no Office. Hit and miss as to whether it will work when you turn it on and you need different packages depending on which flavour of Linux you use. Linux isn't now nor ever will be a mainstream OS for the normal computer user who wouldn't know a repository from a command shell. I've played with Linux - Mandriva and Ubuntu and Many other flavours, excellent as servers and for playing about with Apache, SQL, PHP and so on but useless (to me) for graphics, music and general everyday computing.

Ken

Liameter

whydoibother? wrote: »

Do macs maintain their speed after a few years? My 4 year old windows is extremely slow to boot up. If I upgrade in a few months and spend the money on a mac, will I avoid this problem in the future?

My 2000 Mac is just as fast as it was when I bought it. Likewise my 2008 Mac Mini and my 2009 MacBook.

Of course MacOSX will slow down if you do something stupid, such as loading the "desktop" with hundreds of files, or running an application from within its installer disc image (instead of actually installing it - I've seen this!)

And, if you fill up the boot drive, you'll experience a slowing down.

However, if you keep your files "tidy" and don't do anything daft, there's no reason why OSX would slow down.

Note: I have seen some Macs that were slow from the day of purchase, simply because they had insufficient memory fitted.

jester77

I don't get all this a is better than b, or b is better than c crap.

Right tool for the right job, and every OS does a better job at different things. I manage a host of VMs with different variations of windows, linux and mac OS's. Some OS's are a nightmare (I'm looking at you Vista :mad:), some are a pleasure (XP, snow leopard).

I use ubunutu at work as it's the best tool for what I do. Colleagues in accounting use windows as it's the best tool for their job. Admin guys use linux as it's the best tool for their job. Graphics guys use mac as it's the best tool for their job. Ruby developers use mac as it's the best tool for their job.... and I could go on.

I use mac at home as it's the best fit for managing my media collection and much easier to use than windows or linux. Why do people have to get so worked up over something?

Idleater

jester77 wrote: »

Why do people have to get so worked up over something?

I agree. In fact, I wonder why the OP even posted in the first place as the question posed does not make sense given the limited information in the post.
Is (s)he in the market for a mac air and doesn't want to pay the price, is (s)he in the market for something else and decided (un)knowingly to select the air as a viable candidate or is (s)he not in the market at all and is making a judgement on a small segment of computer buying public?

Kinetic^

Why do people get so wound up about this?

melekalikimaka

bpb101 wrote: »

slightly smiller screnn
hdd is better than ssd , can be replaced easier
i never said it did , i said this is a good pc, and will work as quick as a mac and it much cheaper and better

hdd better than ssd? :rolleyes:

work as quick and better? :rolleyes:

we have netbooks in my house... they are evil creatures, spawns of satan

Dont be at yourself

bpb101 wrote: »

yea sure here u go
here one with a bigger hdd and better battery for
€235
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/10463093/art/asus/eeepc-1011px-black.html

payable by laser , and all major credit cards

Amazing. It's almost identical to the Air, for a fraction of the price!

Processor: Sure an Intel i5 is basically the same as an Atom, right?
RAM: 2GB is really overkill these days. You won't notice the drop down to 1GB.
Screen: 1024x600 has only half the pixels of the Air, is smaller, has a worse viewing angle and worse colour reproduction. But that doesn't matter.
Storage: You don't need that SDD with crazy fast read/write times, which boots in literally seconds. Less likely to break if it receives a bump too? What use is that on a laptop?
Ports: Thunderbolt? What do you want that for? To connect to super-fast external drives, or drive a second display, simultaneously? USB2.0 and VGA is where it's at, fellas.
Speakers: Some people like that tinny laptop speaker sound, you know.
Keyboard: Comfortable, backlit and with an array of buttons tailored specific to the hardware and OS combination. Don't need that.
Trackpad: Large, multi-touch, capable of tracking up to 4 finger gestures. Sounds rubbish.
Size: Even taking the maximum height, width and depth of the Air, it's still almost half the overall volume of the Asus. Too small, really.
Weight: The Asus is more than a third heavier. A very reassuring weight.
Bundled software: You can keep your OSX, iLife and App Store. Windows 7 Starter is all I need.

And then there's the other hundreds of little intangibles. The brushed alluminum finish. The magsafe adapter which won't throw your laptop across the floor if you trip on the cable. The free walk-in tech support at Apple Stores. None of which is worth anything.

Jofspring

From a point of view of a regular computer user that wouldn't know much about specifics or technical side of things.

I have had a few PC's and so has pretty much everyone I know but I never had a more reliable laptop/computer than the Macbook I currently have. Yes it is expensive but the speed has stayed the exact same for the last few years and any problem I have had no matter how big or small I have found it very easy to get a solution to. With the PC's I have always found it way harder to solve problems in them if one arose as I am not that technically minded. Even with antivirus software I still found the computer getting affected or slowing down, especially when a scan was running but have never had this problem with my Macbook as I haven't had to run antivirus scans.

I find with similar spec (possibly cheaper) PC's that you have to be more technically minded to be able to run them which is great for people seriously into computers but not for the general user. With the Mac I find it way more user friendly and straight forward.

Also it takes no time to boot up, no time to shut down and when it comes out of sleep it is instantly ready to be used. I have never had this with a PC, I have always had to wait a while for it to shut down, startup and when it comes out of sleep I could be waiting a few minutes just for the thing to be useable. I have yet to find compatibility issues with software I have downloaded also and everything feels ready to go as soon as I have downloaded it.

The girlfriend also has a brand new vaio that she had to get because the college she is attending would not allow her use a mac and it just feels so plastic and cheap compared to the mac even though it wasn't that cheap of a computer.

Its the little things I like also. The trackpad is excellent it it really makes you feel in total control of the screen. The magnetic charger which has saved my ass once or twice after standing on the cable by accident.

air

I bought a 27in iMac about a year and a half ago.
I always had pcs and was in the market for a new one but wanted a large high res screen.
At the time, the cheapest I could buy a 27in screen to match the iMac's one was about 1000 euro.
I got the iMac for under 1300 from the refurb store so I was basically getting the computer part for 300 euro, a total no brainer.
So for me, I went to Mac because:

1. It was cheaper than the PC equivalent
2. The all in one form factor of the iMac saves space

I agree that on notebooks they are quite expensive but the build quality is excellent, it's up to the consumer whether that is worth it to them or not. Personally I recently bought an Asus netbook despite my positive Apple experiences.

Kavrocks

bpb101 wrote: »

but there nothing there that a €300 linux netbook (windows formated) would'nt have ... so why would you spend

Prove there is a cheaper option than the Macbook Air which offers the same specs. I have asked many people who say the exact same as you to prove their ramblings and nobody has even though I wanted them to.

nesf

johnners2981 wrote: »

11-inch MacBook Air $999
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air/select?mco=MjMzOTQxMjE

Alienware M11x $999
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dkcwcr1&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&model_id=alienware-m11x-r3

Main differences:
Mac: 64gb flash storage vs Dell: 320Gb 7200 hdd
Mac: 2gb ram vs Dell: 4GB ram
Mac: i5-2467M vs Dell: i5-2537M
Mac: Intel HD Graphics 3000 with 256mb vs Dell: NVIDIA GT540M graphics with 1GB

There ya go, think what you will

Different beasts altogether. One is an ultra-portable, one is a gaming laptop. Both are expensive for different reasons.

kowloon

Kinetic^ wrote: »

Why do people get so wound up about this?

Same as someone criticising the clothes, car or house you buy. People want to have made the best choice and can get insecure about criticism. What 'best' is is open to interpretation and a personal thing.

Mac fuckes your gradeds balls .

nesf

Oh and people quit feeding the troll. Anyone technically enough minded to run Linux knows an Atom chip ain't the same as an i5. Although Ubuntu has gotten idiot proof enough that this may no longer hold.

kowloon

melekalikimaka wrote: »

hdd better than ssd? :rolleyes:

work as quick and better? :rolleyes:

we have netbooks in my house... they are evil creatures, spawns of satan

Am I correct in thinking the cheaper netbook ssds had slow controllers? Or is that only true of the earlier models?

Freddie59

Wolflikeme wrote: »

Boll0cks. Complete b0llocks.

I've had a good few of both (I'm loyal to neither PC's nor Mac) and my current Windows laptop (Vaio) is an absolute beast. And it's super fast. All for a much much lower price than a Mac equivalent would cost me.

Windows can be tweaked for optimal performance too and overclocking etc. if that's your bag.

TBH I'm not really into this whole 'one is better than the other' BS. I've got both a four year-old Dell Optiplex 745 and a 2010 27" iMac with 8GB RAM (running both Mac OSx and W7).

My experience? The Dell practically vomits on startup (the W7 side on the Mac is going down the same road). The iMac is still 52 seconds to a working desktop - 7 seconds to shutdown - even after 12 months.

I priced a Windows PC with similar specs at the time I was buying the iMac. I couldn't get a screen of the same size -or more importantly quality - and it was coming in a couple of hundred Euro cheaper.

It was a no-brainer to buy the Mac. The screen resolution and performance - in my experience - are far superior to a PC. Will I buy another Mac down the road? Economics will dictate.

FWIW, I don't consider myself a 'fanboy'. I don't have an iPhone - my personal preference is a Nokia - (I do have an iPod which I rarely use). But it's amazing to see the animosity directed at Mac owners. So what if we shell out a bit more....for a better product. It's personal freedom and choice. Get over yourselves!:D

The Black Oil

Surely, virus protection is only as good as the person who uses it, how often they update it and whether the updates/support provided by the AV software manufacturers are any good. I've never really understood the battle over this point on the Mac vs. PC side of things. I understand that the range of threats may be different, but if someone using a machine doesn't know what they're doing they may well open a dodgy attachment, regardless of the OS.

I bought my first machine (Macbook) just before my final year of my Dip in college in 2007. I didn't want to go near Vista and although I don't mind XP (have a PC with it), I was a little tired of it and wanted to try something new. A classmate was a bit of a Machead, I'll admit, the customer support seemed good and we'd been using them a little in one of our modules, too. I later bought an iMac, so yeah, I like them and as for the design, it's mainly the lack of the clutter I like, not that it's shiny.

Cost is part of it, but isn't it about where you want that cost to go?

Zimmerframe

The Black Oil wrote: »

I've never really understood the battle over this point on the Mac vs. PC side of things. I understand that the range of threats may be different, but if someone using a machine doesn't know what they're doing they may well open a dodgy attachment, regardless of the OS.

No m8, there is a world of difference re. the OS and one of the main reasons why, is because of the domination of Widows OS, most hackers direct their efforts to that OS as their evil ways will reach a bigger audience.
For all intensive purposes your "dodgy attachment" will have no effect on a Osx or Linux machine.

The Black Oil

Aye, I understand that aspect alright and where most of the threats are said to lie, just some of the pissing contests that go on seem a bit daft.

papu

Zimmerframe wrote: »

No m8, there is a world of difference re. the OS and one of the main reasons why, is because of the domination of Widows OS, most hackers direct their efforts to that OS as their evil ways will reach a bigger audience.
For all intensive purposes your "dodgy attachment" will have no effect on a Osx or Linux machine.

Gotta love when people back things up with sources and Proper info

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2761468/posts

Despite commonly held beliefs that Apple products draw less attention from attackers, some statistics seem to buck that notion, he says. For example, over the past three years, 1,151 common vulnerabilities and exposures (major bugs) have affected Apple products, including third party software. The number for Windows is 1,325, not that much higher, Stamos says.

Soo yeah , that crutch is gone whats left to lean on?

nesf

papu wrote: »

Gotta love when people back things up with sources and Proper info

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2761468/posts


Soo yeah , that crutch is gone whats left to lean on?

Doesn't matter if there's a vulnerability if no one is trying to exploit it. Mac OSX benefits from the same thing Linux benefits from, just being economically very unattractive to hackers. Both are exploitable, it just isn't worth the time and effort when you could be exploiting Windows machines instead.

Thor

I personally prefer PC, While i use to hate them and when i first found out they hand no right click, I was like " That makes no sense" But to be fair, They are completely different and i don't think they should be compared.

I run OSX 10 on my pc aswell, So to be fair, It has nothing to do with software when you start comparing hardware, It does getting a little interesting.

The thing about macs are that they always come with the best of the best hardware they can, You will no have to worry about it when it comes to reliability, They are simply built to last and last is exactly what they do.

That being said, So do some top windows based computer's aswell, for the same price of a macbook air, You can get an extremely decent laptop, Alienware m17x anyone or even m15x or m11x!!

Really comes down to preference, But to me, If you have a decent pc, Then you can run both Windows and Mac OSX. Sure OSX only costs something like €30.

In the end, This is the laptop i would prefer

http://www.gscreenlaptop.com/

Thanks to hardware, I could run and use both Windows and Mac OSX at the same time!!