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Mac Tax, Dell Tax, HP Tax
Harry writes "Microsoft's new Windows ad, with shopper Lauren buying a cheap 17-inch HP laptop instead of a $2,800 MacBook Pro, has unleashed the whole 'Are Macs Expensive?' debate again. I'm diving in with a pretty exhaustive comparison of the MacBook Pro against machines from Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Sony that were as comparably configured as I could manage. The conclusion: High-end laptops tend to carry high-end prices, whether their operating system hails from Cupertino or Redmond. And the MacBook Pro wasn't the priciest of the systems I compared." We looked at this question, not in as much depth, a couple of years back.
Haven't we all reached the conclusion that:
a) no, Macs are not significantly more expensive than PCs
and
b) there are far fewer hardware configurations available such that when you take any one premium feature and then try to go bargain hunting on other features, Macs will be significantly more expensive.
If you want a laptop with a 17" screen, 512M RAM and a 60G HD, suddenly you're comparing an $800 PC against a $2700 MBP since Apple doesn't make a computer with a 17" screen and less than 2G RAM. But if you actually want all the stuff in the 17" MBP, a comparable PC won't be all that differently priced.
Long story short, buying a Mac forces you to upgrade in areas that you may not need whereas buying a PC allows you to save money on any component of the system that is less important to you.
It is technically possible, and doesn't even look to hard, although I have not done it, to install Mac OS on your own hardware. http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/build-a-hackintosh-mac-for-under-800-321913.php or newer http://lifehacker.com/348653/install-os-x-on-your-hackintosh-pc-no-hacking-required/
This just in: Buying from the manufacture cheaper then going with someone else.
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Apple's prices are inline with the compeition on RAM upgrades these days.
It's not as customizable as a desktop, but DIY laptops are possible... http://www.tomsguide.com/us/diy-laptop-whitebook,review-1286.html
In my experience, Macs are priced by Apple and rarely discounted much until they are EOLed for the next generation. Sometimes Microcenter or Macmall has $100 off or something like that.
Dell, on the other hand, changes their pricing and offers more often than I change my socks. I've found that you can get killer deals on them if you are willing to wait a few weeks until a deal rolls around. For instance (now expired), there were great deals for 17" laptops at 30-40% off what TFA paid:
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/913148
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/912911
Of course, if you are incapable of that kind of patience, preferring instant gratification, then Dell is more than willing to charge you a lot more if you are foolish enough to just go to dell.com and start clicking on things. [ Slightly OT Side Story: Ever since my boss found out that I know how to work the magic dell website, I've earned huge brownie points for buying the same equipment at basically half the great educational rates offered to my university. Actually, at one point I accosted the school's Dell Rep with a printout of the various orders I put in through Dell Home and asked if they would give an educational institution the same deals available to everyone -- no points for guessing the answer. ]
Bottom line: Dell's prices are volatile and the author of TFA is totally clueless on how to best work that.
Simply, they do everything they can do to limit 3rd party markets. The non-removable batteries we see in iPhone and the latest laptops mean little more to me than trying to limit 3rd party parts. If they made batteries removable, there are plenty of laws in various locations that make it illegal for them to attempt to prevent other people from selling parts compatible with your computer. Apple does this with everything it possibly can and control the market for 3rd party software as much as possible as well. Ostensibly, this is to control the quality of the user experience.
Why can't they offer the equivalent hardware of an iMac in the shell of a Mac Pro and meet the halfway point in terms of price? That would be the sweet spot for me.
Because Apple stopped catering to people who upgrade their computers a long time ago. The vast majority of consumers never upgrade a single component in their computer, and that's the lowest common denominator that Apple is appealing to. This means they can save cost and increase margin in a very competitive market.
I'm sure I'll come across as a Mac apologist, but it's the god's honest truth. I would love a mid/low powered expandable desktop, but it isn't going to happen anytime soon.
Newegg carries crucial and kingston ram which is comparable to the micron (crucial), samsung, nanya, and hynix Apple normally uses. The Mac Pro is a special exception as it previously used custom fb-dimms due to cooling. macsales.com and www.transintl.com are good sources for quality inexpensive ram when Apple does use something proprietary.
Processors have not increased in speed for 5 years
What the hell? I mean, ostensibly, I suppose that clock speeds have stabilized, but don't you remember the big hubbub a few years ago when everyone got tired of overclocking to 8ghz and realized that clock speeds aren't the determinative factor these days?
Try and play Supreme Commander on a pimped-out computer with modern components but, say, an AMD Athlon 2100+ and tell me processors haven't improved. My 2.0 ghz, minimum spec MacBook will outdo my behemoth four-year-old Windows tower in any processor-intensive task. In fact, it's only when the video card gets called to task that it isn't better in every respect, and even there the 9400M isn't all that far behind the card of the day when I built my tower (the 6800GT), at least at laptop resolutions.
Apple's standard RAM pricing ranges from the 'moderately acceptable' to 'insane' depending on a number of things.
The 4GB > 8GB pricing is overpriced, but not as far off standard market value as you might think. The iMac only has two slots, meaning 8GB RAM requires 4GB sticks; even on Newegg they're $360 each, and straight from Crucial they come in at $490. That puts Apple's upgrade at about $300 overpriced - certainly unpleasant, but then so's Crucial's.
I think you sort of missed the point. What he's saying is that for 90% of people, the fact that processors today have 2-4 cores and execute many more instructions per clock than the ones five years ago is irrelevant. This is probably why netbooks are becoming popular, despite having CPUs about as powerful as the CPUs from 5 years ago.
All your base are belong to Wii.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIS6G-HvnkU .7 seconds on www.youtube.com
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You are right - you cannot buy a $400 (new) macbook.
You also cannot buy a $20000 (new) Ferrari.
What's your point?
I believe the article shows that for similarly spec'd machines, the cost between an Apple and an HP/Dell/Lenovo is comparable.
Just because Apple doesn't offer a very low end laptop doens't necessarily mean their stuff is overpriced. And according to the article, it is not, with regards to the systems that were compared.
that ram from apple is far better than that crap you get from the bottom price rung on newegg.com ... please tell me you don't really believe this.
Please tell me you don't actually believe that Apple's RAM is anything other than thoroughly mediocre.
+++ATH0
CUPS came from Apple and is open source.
Nonsense, CUPS was open source before Apple. Apple liked the technology but not the GNU license. First they negotiated with the developer to grant an exemption for OS X. Eventually they bought the rights to it. Now as the copyright holder they can do whatever they like in their own products. Anyone else is bound by the GNU licensing.
-Go to www.crucial.com.
-select your model mac
-buy ram, which is the same ram (price and spec) as the crucial ram you'd buy for any other computer...
I could really care less if I could have bought a "PC" for $500.00. I do high end video editing and a lot of virtualization as well. I use every 800 Firewire bit of my 17" MBP and am very happy with the purchase.
That's fine. Of course you could be doing high end video editing, virtualization, and Firewire on a PC too, for a fraction of the cost... but if money is no object to you, knock yourself out!
As long as you realize that your experience isn't typical: most people do care how much money they spend, and would rather save $500-$1000 getting a system that still meets their needs.
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I didn't see any clear statement on the page provided that said that. Having ran a macbookpro before under Linux, I was able to determine that while there was dedicated videoram, the video memory was still in fact, shared with system memory.
Then something was funny with your Linux install, because all the Macbook Pro's ever made came with dedicated memory. The first Macbook Pro's came with ATI Mobility Radeon X1600's, which had dedicated, not shared memory. Then Apple switched to Nvidia 8xxxm/9xxxm chips, which all have dedicated memory.
The only exception to this is the brand new 17" Macbook Pro's, but that's only because they have two graphics processors, and only if you're using the 9400m option. If you switch to using the 9600m processor, it uses dedicated DDR3 memory.