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Doing the Math On the New MacBook
Technologizer writes "Apple's new MacBook is a significantly different machine than its predecessor — a slicker laptop at a higher price point. But does it carry a large price premium over similar Windows PCs? I did a painstaking spec-by-spec comparison versus three roughly comparably-configured Windows machines, and came to the conclusion that the value it offers for price paid is not out of whack with the Windows world." The article uses the phrase "Mac tax," which one commenter points out is a recent Microsoft marketing canard.
There's one major difference this analysis doesn't cover. If you're patient, you can get a dell for up to 40% off, and although it's not quite as drastic with Lenovo, the same is true. This macbook will ALWAYS be expensive.
Did that commenter also point out that "Mac tax" is (the first time) both written in quotation marks to imply that it's not their phrase and link to an article that was called "Are Macs More Expensive? Definitely - Just Ask Microsoft!"? The whole point of the article is that the phrase has been coined and they're investigating whether Macs are more expensive for the specs than comparable PCs.
Not that I'm saying Macs are cheap - I'd rather custom build/upgrade and slap Linux on it - but it's not as if it's an unbalanced comparison article.
Cry about it over here, or over here:
Users Rage Over Missing FireWire On New MacBooks
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/17/1331229
A Brief History of Features Apple Has Killed
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/17/215256
Long story short, the least expensive Windows laptop he found comparable to the $1400 MacBook was an $820 Dell, making the Mac Tax a whole 70% on top of the price-conscious buyer's choice in the Windows world.
However, he did succeed in finding two similarly overpriced models to the Mac from Sony and Lenovo, demonstrating that bad choices are also available in the PC world, if you look hard enough.
To reply to my own post, knocking the 13" Macbook up to the same specs as the Lenovo in terms of RAM, HDD, and video out increases the price to $1,457.00, or $150-200 more than the Lenovo depending on whether we go by the "sale price" or the list price.
So in summary: yes, there is a "Mac tax" (which incidentally is a phrase which was in use long before MS adopted it).
Read Pynchon.
Im a big Mac guy, but even I felt bad for my friend who wanted to switch, he wanted to rebuy his computer again (long story), his $1500 NZD PC (some media centre thing with tv tuner card etc) was roughly equal in specs to the $3000 NZD iMac he ended up getting, once the warranty on the Mac was brought up to 3 years as well as rebuying Office for Mac. It was painful, and he misses the TV Tuner, ones I've seen that plug in cost HUNDREDS! Ouch.
Maybe in America, but I think in many parts of the world, Macs are very sadly more expensive than PCs. I compare my Macs to computers a friend has built for himself, and theres a big difference in price. I would still take the Mac for design and OSX, but they are not cheap here in New Zealand :)
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Seriously, no FireWire?
Not to say I agree, but Steve's response to this was:
"Actually, all of the new HD camcorders of the past few years use USB 2."
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/10/17/steve-jobs-concisely-answers-the-macbook-firewire-question
Personally, I would miss the Target Disk Mode that FireWire offered.
GameRanger - multiplayer gaming service for PC and Mac games
Way to not understand how a gummi bear works!
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
Price isn't all of it. You can get an HP notebook with great specs really cheap, and I did. The DV6130us was a steal for its specs back in its time, but it didn't perform like a machine with those numbers should (they forgot to tell you the front side bus was totally gimped) and it degraded quickly in ways that weren't covered by warranty.
Now fingers crossed here, but I haven't had a problem with the mac mini I bought to be my web/svn server/jukebox/snes/arcade machine wannabe nor my macbook pro, and I put linux on them both (as well as the aforementioned HP notebook), so it's not Apple fanboyism.
When I priced out the mini I realized I could get a machine that was 6 times the size, much louder, an entire 200 mhtz faster, with a slightly larger hard drive for the same price. That is if you include the same features (bluetooth, atheros wireless, firewire, gig ethernet, etc).
I did my own comparisons, and really, I see the Mac tax.
I have a HP Pavilion DV6000, comes with pretty much everything. I bought it a few months ago for £400 (GBP). A Mac Mini costs £399 (GBP).
This laptop has dedicated RAM for graphic card (GeForce 8400M GS - runs all my games just fine, with excellent quality) usage, 2GB RAM, sdcard reader, firewire, A/G/B wireless, DVD burner, HDMI, three USB ports, VGA, modem, ethernet, video out, webcam, microphone...
I use this machine as my mobile gaming machine (it works great) and work stuff (software development, office work), home stuff (movie editing etc). The only disadvantage with it, is that it each core has 1.66GHz, while on the Mac Mini has 1.83GHz. That said, I couldn't use the Mac Mini for decent gaming, or for the majority of the stuff I use this laptop for without significant performance costs, lack of hardware options etc.
That's just the Mini, the cheapest laptop from Apple is the MacBook is £719.00 (GBP), which has Intel GMA graphics, no dedicated graphic card RAM, only 1GB RAM.
Sorry, I'm not convinced Apple systems are on par with PCs for their cost.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
So yes Apple computers are obviously more expensive than their counterparts and represent terrible value as time advances. Maybe the gulf is not as wide as it once was but its still there.
Terrible value, true. Macbook aftermarket (=used) prices are 70-80% of current shop prices, at least around here. That is value indeed - upgrading to a new model takes surprisingly little additional € when you sell the old one off.
You missed the point. He means that the thief can easily swipe the fingerprint of the legitimate user from the keyboard, then use it on the fingerprint scanner.
In fact, you don't even have to steal the laptop. Just press a gummi bear on a key on the keyboard, then swipe that. The machine is now open. Send goat porn to the CEO from the victim, then relock the machine.
"It had to be you, it was locked with a fingerprint scanner!"
Actually there *are* unique features to the Mac WoW client, to quote TUAW: "Most gaming companies tend to shy away from the Mac, but Blizzard has always been the exception. And with World of Warcraft, there are actually huge benefits to playing the game on a Mac. A while ago they added builtin iTunes controls (right into the official client), and as of the upcoming patch (now available for players to play around with on a public test), they've actually created an ingame movie recorder-- only for the WoW Mac client. It's a pretty well done feature, too. WoW Insider's Paul Sherrard took the recorder for a test drive, and created what you see above (after a little bit of iMovie fiddling). The options are pretty impressive for an ingame vid capture as well-- you can control whether the UI or cursor is seen or not, and you even get a choice of codecs (including H.264, Pixlet, or Motion JPEG). Very nice. Whoever's working on the Mac team at Blizzard really knows what they're doing, and is definitely giving Mac users the hookup on cool exclusive features." Re: http://www.tuaw.com/2007/07/13/world-of-warcraft-mac-client-adds-builtin-movie-capture/
Who buys those high-end Windows machines? Nobody with any sense.
Yet they are manufactured. Thus someone thought they did make sense business-wise. Perhaps, not everyone just buys the cheapest, and actually buy things that offer better quality, fit or finish?
Wow, condescend much? Dork.
At least in my lab, most of those things get plugged directly into a serial concentrator accessed over the network before they're ever turned on.
I have a $5 USB -> RS232 adapter in my desk drawer for the odd occasion I need it. There's no reason to bulk up the ports on my laptop with a serial port.
This
I bought 2 of my 3 macs second-hand, all were a bargain, and still I'd gladly pay the 'mac tax' on a new macbook if I needed a new laptop. However, at the moment I can still manage with the $600 iBook G4 I bought like 4 years ago or something. This isn't Windows, you don't _need_ to upgrade your hardware every 2 years (which already more than offsets the 'mac tax').
Anyway this should disprove your argument, at least in my case. It's not so much 'us mac users' feel we need to 'justify our money spent', but instead 'we' feel the product was 'worth the extra money'. I have to concur with the guy somewhere above here: I don't really get why ppl need to piss over Apple's pricing strategy (you don't _have_ to buy it) but have no problem whatsoever with other high-end products which cost more, but also provide better value.
The bundled Microsoft Windows license, which is still way too difficult to shake loose, is a significant "Microsoft tax." In fact, it's the single most expensive component in most PCs. As the price of other PC components continues to fall, the Microsoft tax is becoming more onerous as a greater share of the cost structure, causing consumers and vendors to rebel increasingly. The tax is particularly acute with netbooks, so Linux is gaining a significant foothold in that market segment.
Microsoft's share price has been stagnant for a long time, and the company has been reluctant to reduce their software pricing. (Actually, their prices keep increasing, and the "anti-piracy" features are growing increasingly annoying to everyone.) This is not a sustainable business model. I think some people at Microsoft sense this and are trying to find various solutions, including more Google-like delivery models and increased segmentation. The explosion in the number of Windows flavors is one example of increased segmentation, juicing the balance sheet near-term but exacerbating the long-term problems. Apple continues to "skim the cream" off the top of the PC market, gaining share each quarter, and Linux netbooks are a growing threat on the low end. Apple now has a $999 MacBook which will sell huge numbers, so they're doing some more segmentation, too. Devices like the iPhone/iPod touch and Google's Android platform are raising questions about the very need for PCs. Open Office and its cousins, like Lotus Symphony and NeoOffice, are disrupting the Microsoft Office franchise. It's a good time for Microsoft to be paranoid.
Did anyone still believe that? It's easy to do this comparison, and Macs have almost always been similarly priced to comparable alternatives.
Of course some of their items are still overpriced, such as the monitors.
From my experiences, Dell Latitudes have excellent quality parts in them, minus the hard drives... That would be why they are a premium price over an equivalently spec'ed XPS, or Inspiron, if you could even spec them the same.
Plus, Dell's Tech Support has been phenomenal for us where I work, every Latitude we've had an issue with, which hasn't been many out of the 200+ we have deployed; have been resolved within 20 minutes, and the parts are here to repair the machine by the next day.
Don't knock the Latitudes, they are an amazing machine, thats why I recommend them to anyone who wants a laptop they can rely on.
As for infecting machines.... Have you considered a lock-down policy, with not giving every user admin rights?
As others have pointed out, there are things the author didn't consider such as the magsafe power connection and the backlit keyboard that no other laptop has. You may not think these kinds of things are worth $400, but others might, especially if they have a small child who likes to run through power cords stretched across pathways or if they have to use their laptop in the dark. So, you can say that mac users are just trying to come up with reasons why they paid more, but Apple builds things into their laptops that no other laptop maker has, Apple's operating system is something that no other laptop maker has. There's a price premium for these, you betcha, but some people think it's worth having these things. You saying that mac users are just trying to justify the cost of the laptop makes it sound like there's no reason for the extra cost, which is simply untrue.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Okay, seriously? This is bullshit. Know what I did for comparison?
1. Hop on Newegg.
2. Look up "Geforce 9600M" (the chip that comes in the Macbook Pro!).
3. Sort by "lowest price".
What do I get? An HP laptop that's $1100. What's it come with?
- 17 inch screen
- 2 GHZ Core 2 Duo, Geforce 9600M (surprise?)
- 512 megs dedicated to the Geforce (The same amount in the nicer $2500 Macbook pro)
- 4 gigs of RAM
- Bluray Drive that burns DVD's
- Bluetooth (just noted, as many notebooks don't have it built-in)
- 320GB hard drive, multi-card reader, 4 USB ports, real HDMI out, VGA out.
- Built-in camera (just in case someone brings it up)
- Wireless N, modem for those times you get stuck in a crappy motel
So for $200 less than the new Macbook, we've got a computer that rivals the nicer Macbook pro in everything but CPU speed. Yes, the Apple tax is fucking high. No, comparing a Mac to the most overpriced piece of shit (as far as Sony is concerned, anyway) notebooks on the market isn't a COMPARISON. It's a RATIONALIZATION.
Hell, if that Mac usb dongle was available as a PCMCIA card, I'd pick that fucker up with a copy of Leopard right now and still come out on top to an absurd degree. :: drops mic ::
Appx is an abbreviation for approximately. Not the standard, no, but that was clearly on purpose. I don't know how you would accidentally type p, then x.