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.

Comments

Well, someone paid a tax

[Breakfast Pants]

I don't know who paid it, but someone did:

The challenge of the thumbscoop was to create a crisply machined scoop that was still comfortable to use. The designers at Apple worked on hundreds of versions of the thumbscoop -- even examining them under an electron microscope -- to get it right.

If anyone can read that last part without laughing...

Re:Well, someone paid a tax

[PopeRatzo]

Every man that I see that touches one of the newest Macbook's has a wet stain on his pants and says in a low tone..."I must have this"

You have to get out more. The notion that "every man" is a shallow, childish consumer-bot who has sexual feelings for a chunk of metal and plastic (don't forget the glass!) is really sad.

The last time I had "a wet stain on my pants and said in a low tone..."I must have this"" is the first time my wife kissed me.

Lumpy, I can understand the appreciation of good design, but for me the most important part of great design is the ability to offer the product at a reasonable price.

Considering that a lot of people are having some serious financial problems at the moment, not only here in the 'States but worldwide, I'd think that it might be time for a little re-evaluation of the importance of the objects we desire.

When you walk in with a laptop that makes the suits stare...

Lumpy, you have to try to find other ways to feel good about yourself in front of the "suits". You will find in life that the pleasure achieved from making others "stare" is fleeting and ultimately hollow. Your self-worth should not derive from something you can buy because at some point (probably soon) you will have maxed out your Visa and it's going to be harder to get those bumps in credit that the banks have been so happy to dole out to us over the years to make up for the fact that our real income has been stagnant. You simply have to find something inside yourself that creates a sense of pride and self-worth. I'm sure if you really really look (really) you'll see that there are good enough, smart enough and darnit, people like you. Probably.

Now come here and let me give you a hug, Lumpy.

Design items...

[Max Romantschuk]

Macs are design items. Some people don't mind paying a higher price for something which appeals to them.

Price is what you pay, value is what you get. If you subjectively feel that the value of the product matches the price paid then an objective comparison is not significant.

Re:Design items...

[Max Romantschuk]

Many of you? With all due respect there are not a huge number of things that really honestly require a Mac these days. I've done desktop publishing, graphics work, sound recording and design, video editing all on Windows. It works quite well with the right software these days. Granted, if you _have_ to have some particular OS X only software a Mac is the only option. But that's a clear minority these days.

So no, not that many.

But I never said that everyone buys Macs for the nice design. I said that an objective price comparison is irrelevant to someone who did. Don't jump to generalizations just because I managed to irritate you when you didn't bother to read my post thoroughly.

the big diff

[raffe]

is the OS. You dont get mac os x on another machine!

Re:the big diff

[iced_773]

Which is exactly why I'm a PC guy

Seriously, I'm just going to install and use Linux anyway - I want the best hardware for the lowest price.

Re:the big diff

[rolfwind]

There's more than that. What I don't get on other notebooks is:

1. True multi-touch trackpad (not just scrolling). You can go on ebay and try for a fingerworks trackpad when they are available at ebay but they go for big money and are for desktops (but nice software, too bad company was bought by apple).

2. Economizing ports. I like a lack of ports, it always irks me when I see something as antiquated as a serial port on my notebook. Don't ask me why, but it's rather like seeing a floppy drive on a notebook.

3. Stylish elegance. THe unibody construction is really nice. It may be silly, but even the upper end notebooks from competitors seem like hunks of ugly black plastic, and if not, they still get a lot of little things wrong. The little things like their crappy bezels/logos on the back or just the obvious overpacking of ports to fill out a bureacratic checklist. It's like they try to a certain extent, and then promptly give up once they have to invest in something that costs more money than usual.

Yes, Apple owns me completely, I guess I'm their whore in this direction. But since a notebook is a tool I work with all day (has replace my desktop as well), I might as well get something I like, even if it costs a bit more.

I honestly don't get the debate. Either buy it or don't. But this issue/whining comes so frequently, I have to wonder if its from people who want to get one but can't afford it, can't talk their boss/SO into it, or just too cheap. I never hear people obsess over Alienware's prices as much. Even the new Macbook, lacking firewire, may be called the new 13 inch Mac Book Pro for all intents and purposes and considering some of the upgrade, the rise in price was probably warranted (more RAM in both offerings by default is called for though).

Instead, it seems like they are constantly trying to make others feel bad for their purchase. Lighten up, it's just a notebook. I would got with an MSI Wind|EEEpc + cheap desktop if I couldn't afford the Mac right now. Not a big deal.

Fingerprint items

[phantomfive]

Here is one of the items of comparison:

Fingerprint Scanner
The Dell and Sony have one. ADVANTAGE: DELL AND SONY

It makes me laugh every time: Hmmmm a finger print reader......where would I be able to find fingerprints of someone who has used this laptop that I have just stolen? Sure hope they don't always use gloves when they type.....

I mean, where can you think of a more cool-but-useless feature? And it is sooo cool.......

Groundhog Day:

[cosmocain]

1) MacBook (Beginning of 2006):
"AAAAH, EXPENSIVE"
"See, i did the math, it's comparable!"

2) MacBook (End of 2006):
"AAAAH, EXPENSIVE"
"See, i did the math, it's comparable!"

3) MacBook (Mid 2007):
"AAAAH, EXPENSIVE"
"See, i did the math, it's comparable!"

4) MacBook (End of 2007):
"AAAAH, EXPENSIVE"
"See, i did the math, it's comparable!"

5) MacBook (Beginning of 2008):
"AAAAH, EXPENSIVE"
"See, i did the math, it's comparable!"

And now - totally surprising:

5) MacBook (End of 2008):
"AAAAH, EXPENSIVE"
"See, i did the math, it's comparable!"

Who would have thought!

Another big difference: competition.

[caitsith01]

You will also get some brands of Windows laptop much cheaper by shopping around. In fact, Dell is one of the only companies who don't fall into this category.

Not to mention that the review picks Lenovo and Sony, two of the most expensive brands. Where is Asus, for instance?

Seriously flawed...

[Joce640k]

Is it more expensive than a high-end Windows machine? Not really.

Who buys those high-end Windows machines? Nobody with any sense.

Does Apple offer $500 laptops? Nope.

Ergo, Apple is expensive.

Re:Seriously flawed...

[beelsebob]

Yes, apple is expensive. But the question was -- are apple taxing you for buying their brand. Answer no -- you get the high end kit, and you pay market rate for it, if you don't want high end kit, don't buy a Mac.

Re:You've been owned

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Tell me, what is the marginal utility of that special Mac aura?

OSX is what userland Linux should be. It's secure enough. And there is a culture of user-centricity amongst the application developers. That's the special Mac aura - to me.

The keyboards are really good, too. I love that spacing between the keys - the margin of error is built-in, so that you can type faster and still avoid hitting the neighbouring key. Stuff like being able to write appx 10% faster is also the "marginal" utility of a Mac.

Well the guy was reaching

[Shivetya]

Seriously, how many categories did he need? I guess he wanted ads.

The problem is, that for the target market it is horribly overpriced. This guy had to go out of his way to ignore all the similarly TARGETED machines that you can find in your Sunday circular for $500 to $800. Some of them even have discreet graphics at that price.

Better yet, everyone knows Dell is always on sale. You can find deals on any laptop maker other than Apple.

The real Mac tax is found when comparing targeted audience. In other words, the people who would love to have a laptop for light work. This the audience Apple misses completely by pricing themselves out of consideration.

I could probably find half a dozen laptops that would serve just as well, if not with more features, but they wouldn't look cool.

(fwiw I own an iMac, 2nd gen iPod, and 2nd gen Touch, and am awaiting the next gen iMac to come out)

Re:I also like this

[GrahamCox]

From Apple's Macbook mini-site:

All engineered to standards that don't even exist yet.

Even as a Mac user/developer this makes me cringe. Ewww...

Re:One big difference: discounts.

[aliquis]

So people will think it's an extra good purchase right now and think they have to hurry up and buy now and feel happy with their purchase because they got "such a good price"? Quite obvious isn't it?

The question is why Apple don't offer anything on 7 month old laptops.

Those standards may amaze you

[goombah99]

From Apple's Macbook mini-site:

All engineered to standards that don't even exist yet.

Even as a Mac user/developer this makes me cringe. Ewww...

There's at least two things they are referring to.

1) Snow Leopard will support OpenCL. You might say well so what, eventually my Dell will to, after all that's what Open means. True, but look at the architecture in the macs. They elimiated the Northbridge and the Bus chips. The CPU now connects directly to the GPU.

If you have ever tried to program an NVIDIA GPU for computational work you know that the slow step is shuttling the data back to the CPU. So having OpenCL with an insanley fast bus means that standard is going to actually be useful.

2) the Open HD video connector.
on the new macs, running H264 high def has dropped processor utilization from 100% to 20%, presumbaly because of the NVIDIA chip. So now streaming HD is going to be a reality and will actually exist for the mac world. And TVs that support the Open HD are becoming available.

Re:One big difference: discounts.

[je ne sais quoi]

I know this is slashdot and RTFA is a problem but here ya go:

If my math is right, I said that the machines are at PARITY in six of the categories we've reviewed. The MacBook has an ADVANTAGE in thirteen categories, the Dell in nine, the Lenovo and Sony in eight apiece, and the white MacBook in seven.

He didn't even count the magsafe connection for the power adaptor, so my count would put it at 14. So, instead of just called them the same specs, how about you actually point out why this guy spec comparison is wrong? But no, unsubstantiated assertions are insightful as long as you're bashing Apple, Microsoft or Google here at slashdot.

And you know something? I've used/administered several Dells -- they're $400 cheaper for a reason, it's called QA/QC and Dells lack it in my experience. Average lifetime of a Dell 3-5 years maybe with better luck on the monitors. Average lifetime of my Apple machines: 5-6 years. This is counting all warrantied replacement parts as included in the lifetime.

As ususal, asking the wrong question

[Budenny]

As usual the article and the commentaries ask and answer completely the wrong question.

The interesting question is NOT whether, if you take a Mac spec as your starting point, you can duplicate it for less elsewhere from another vendor. The answer is usually, no, not very much, and sometimes it costs more. Which tells us just about nothing about suitability of product or value for money.

The interesting question is whether, if you are looking for a computer, you can find a better value choice better suited to your needs from the Mac range or from other vendors ranges.

You almost always can. The reason is, the paucity of price points and specification points in the Mac range. This results in Macs being an overpriced or underfeatured choice for most people most of the time.

This leads to a simple conclusion. For most people, most of the time, the Mac product is going to be overpriced. For most people, the other vendor product is going to offer better value. Which is quite compatible with the proposition that for any given point in the Mac range, its hard or impossible to duplicate it for much less. This was however never the issue.

The Mac range is not the starting point for comparisons, any more than the Louis Vuitton range is. How one wishes people would stop pretending that it is.

My personal summary

[earlymon]

I was always convinced of the Mac tax on their laptops.

Then I owned one. I didn't want it at first. I didn't lust after it.

Now I am convinced that there is no Mac tax. I happen to know that I'm immune to the idea that I'm a fanboi suffering from post-purchase justification. I just know that once you own one, if you had the Mac tax issue, you lose it. Quickly. Completely. Forever.

Then your next laptop will be a Mac. And you'll recommend them. And you'll probably try to explain something in a post that might not be easily explained.