280 replies to this topic

[apowerr]

Purple Puppy, on Jan 31 2008, 03:49 PM, said:

I think that currently the two Apple products with the most competitive pricing are the Macbook and the Mac Pro.
The Macbook, well, many people have already repeatedly compared it to Dell counterparts, and they are nearly the same price.

You're right. The MBP (currently) is very overpriced. And while you can't directly compare the Mac Mini or iMac to a traditional mid-tower (which I think Apple does on purpose), you can get a much faster computer for the same price. This computer will not have the same form factor as the Mini or iMac, of course. The Macbook happens also happens to be my favorite Mac

[Maxintosh]

erei33, on Jan 31 2008, 02:56 PM, said:

This computer will not have the same form factor as the Mini or iMac, of course.

But that's the whole point with those computers. The people that buy those see their form factor as an important 'feature' so you can't put a price on that. The majority of our clients that buy the Mac Mini buy it specifically because of its form factor. I was talking with one customer with a Mac Mini last Sunday and he commented that he was amazed that "something so small could do so much and do it well". These people couldn't care less about 'playing games' on their computer. For them, getting something like a spreadsheet done via Numbers is much more important. Many people who have Mac Minis have purchased a second one afterward, or have had a friend see it and then they went out and purchased one. I'm not an iMac fan per se but it's form factor is important too. If Apple ever came out with a Mac mini Pro they would sell a ton of them, I'm sure of that. Apple does a lot of things good but they're really missing the ball by not coming out with a display-less desktop that's between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro (and no, I'm not including the iMac for obvious reasons). You can't compare an Apple computer with a generic PC anymore then you could compare Angelina Jolie with Judge Judy. Sure they both share certain aspects, BUT when most people are looking at Judge Judy they don't have the same things in mind as with Angelina Jolie. Likewise, someone who buys a Mac usually buys it because to them it's sexier, and what it does (for them) it does better than a typical PC would. OS X has a lot to do with this too. Countless amounts of people have switched to buying a Mac simply because they are sick and tired of the hassels, viruses, spyware, and constant maintenance issues associated with PC, that you don't have to worry about with a Mac. Ask them about value. Most of them would gladly pay twice as much for a Mac just to get away for all of those PC hassles   Value is a personal thing. Everyone sees it as being different. I like Macbooks too, but I wish their form factor was closer to the MB Airs. I'm sure in time they will be.

[TurdFergasun]

applepalace.com charges around $340 for a 250gb HD sata for a mac pro, in their mac pro parts section.  apple store upgrades are even more attrocious, a "super drive"? $250 probably made by the same company benq pays to make the $30 "super drive".  apple feeds off the enthusiasm they built originally by actually having something different, and are feeding off it now in pure megalomaniac fashion.  Whats so special about a logic board that it needs to cost $700? what benefit will you get over a regular intel xeon board with cheaper and faster cpu's?  Other than convincing yourself that the spit and polish that apple offers is really worth a 50-90% markup above and beyond regular retail prices for identical hardware. Is there really anything non-subjective the jingoists can present that refutes this?

OT.  just watched the majority of the steve jobs keynote presentation, reminded me of Napoleon from animal farm.  mindless cheering and applause for video rentals! wow sure changed my life.  only thing missing was a defection from steve balmer to get the crowd extra frothy.

[Synaesthesia]

A few counterpoints.

Everything you say is true, I myself can't even afford a mac. This is why I run OSx86. Everyone can bitch all they like about the high price of Apple Products, but Apple don't care. They want their range to be different from everyone else's, and they justify the extra cost with the uniqueness of their design.

A Mac Pro is just that, a Pro machine. Xeons are the only way to get 8 cores at the moment. Apple computers like the iMac and mac mini cost slightly more than a regular pc, but the experience and design is arguably well worth the money.

No doubt about it, if you want to save money, buy or build a regular pc. If you want a super compact and super silent setup, it will probably end up costing more than getting a Mac.

If you don't like their high prices, then don't buy from applepalace.com.

[one_7]

yeah..the point of this thread is to rant about the high price of apple computers but in the end it will stay like it is..just do hackintosh then..hoho

[Maxintosh]

TurdFergasun, on Feb 6 2008, 04:09 AM, said:

Whats so special about a logic board that it needs to cost $700?

I'm not sure where you're buying your logic boards at but that sounds a bit high. Most cost half that, but to understand why Apple may charge more than a bargain basement PC board maybe it's the precision .01% resistors that they use instead of the more generic and cheaper 5% resistors, or maybe it's the MIL Spec Precision caps used instead of the generic 20% caps found in do-it-yourself PC's, or using double sided laminated PCB's instead of the cheaper waferboard used in most PC's, or the fact that it's engineered to be a greener product, instead of a cheaper run of the mill designed product, etc...  You get what you pay for    For most people buying a Mac is more than just a collection of parts, it's knowing that they use world class engineering in their products. If you want something more generic then don't buy Apple, pretty simple   The best time to buy an Apple product is right after they announce a new version of a product. You can usually get the older version for around 40% regular prices, and they all come with the full factory warranties...

[~pcwiz]

The Mac Pro logic board costs around $300 or $400, not $700 for sure. But that still doesn't fully justify it, seeing as you can get the best motherboard out there right now, the ASUS Striker II Formula which has the 780i chipset and thus supports new PCI Express 2.0 and a whopping 3 graphics cards for just $350 and that certainly has much more power than a Mac Pro logic board.

[Synaesthesia]

Quote

But that still doesn't fully justify it, seeing as you can get the best motherboard out there right now, the ASUS Striker II Formula which has the 780i chipset and thus supports new PCI Express 2.0 and a whopping 3 graphics cards for just $350 and that certainly has much more power than a Mac Pro logic board.

Umm,I don't see how you can say that. Just FYI the Mac Pro also supports PCI Express 2.0 and a whopping four graphics cards. And two quad core xeon processors, as well as up to 32gb of RAM (now I know DDR2 > FBDimms, but still)

[Maxintosh]

Well first of all any retailer will tell you that dealer cost, and what you sell something for are two different things. The market determines the price. One item may have a higher margin but that's not always the manufactures fault. There is also distributing factors. If something has select distributing points then its cost will naturally be higher. Something like a Asus board can be found pretty much anywhere, so costs are driven down. Many things determine the final cost of an item, not just who makes it.

[TurdFergasun]

yet the logic board doesn't support any ram at all, you'd need to go and buy 2 memory risers on top of that.  And i doubt the intel server boards designed for xeons have any worse components on them than the mac logic boards.  

it seems more like this to me.  customer A drives a honda civic and pays $700 for a set of yokohama tires, while customer B purchases the same tires on a mini but pays $1400 for the same tires because they're going on a more stylish car.  now you could buy your own tires and put them on the mini yourself if you wanted one, but you can't get it off the lot without some form of tires you have to waste your money on just to replace.

Synaesthesia, on Feb 7 2008, 05:59 AM, said:

Umm,I don't see how you can say that. Just FYI the Mac Pro also supports PCI Express 2.0 and a whopping four graphics cards. And two quad core xeon processors, as well as up to 32gb of RAM (now I know DDR2 > FBDimms, but still)

[Deals Hunt]

Looking Good but for price i think it is little bit high because The Mac Pro logic board costs around $300 or $400

[CharredPC]

Hey, who says Mac's aren't affordable? I just bought an 800Mhz G3 iBook for $100!

... sorry, trying to interject some humor here. Seriously, though, the older you go the cheaper it is, and if you're dead set on a cheap Mac like my mother-in-law... better an iBook running 10.4.7 than some random P3 Compaq with XP. At least this way I don't have to stop by and clean up virus / spyware / etc every few months.

That said, I'm happy with my sub-$500 Hackbook. I don't have thousands to spend to check my email!

[poofyhairguy]

Just want to comment on the parent point of the thread:

I think these sorts of debates are useless now that we are a few years into the Intel switch. It is VERY obvious to anyone who even knows a little about computers that for pure muscle real Macs are not the best value. If you try to really compare regular PC and laptop prices to Macs (and not just clicking blindly on Dell's site, but using proper coupons and packages to get the most possible for the money) you find that the Macs are always going to be more than PC equivalent except for a few rare times on a few models for the first three months or so after their release.

That leaves a whole army of people justifying the extra money by commenting on how you can't get a PC with the iMac or Mac Mini's form factor for the same price (who really cares about form factor on a desktop though unless its a media PC or something?), or that unibody design, lighted keys, magisafe connectors or whatever other quirky non essential (but still nifty) features Macs have but PCs (usually) don't is worth the extra cost.

Its very simple- Mac is a luxury brand. What you pay for must be worth it (or no one would buy them) and the higher margins on Macs keeps Apple out of the abysses that HP and Dell find themselves on the edge of.

Honestly if you really think the Mac is over priced, then you just justified to yourself building a hackintosh- go do it. There is a whole forum of people here to help you "get by" the Mac tax. But unless you have fun hacking stuff, you will quickly learn what you are really spending the money on- getting something that "Just Works" without the fiddling that the PC world is known for and has to enabled the Geeksquad to keep food on their family's tables for all these years...

[sn0le]

There is no going around that Mac's are more design than muscle.
You can get alot more muscle if you build your own PC, for a lower cost.

This goes for most hobbies.

I fly RC Helicopters.
And you can:
a ) Buy a "ready to fly" kit, which is prebuilt, pre-adjusted and easy for the noobs.
b ) Build your own helicopter, using the parts you want, and you have to put it together and adjust everything yourself.

Option a is usually more expensive than b.
But with b you can customize it to death with the parts you want.
And allthoug your pre-built kit looks prettier, the custom heli will be what most experienced flyers go for.

[brutalhonesty]

I've always been turned of by Apple high prices...that's what makes the concept of a Hackintosh so beautiful.

[Hangten]

Interesting thread but my personal Hackintosh has exceeded the price of the current 8 core Mac Pro entry level very easily. I would argue its current status puts it up easily exceeding performance of that machine. Its nearly one and half years old with continually upgrading parts. Latest is my 100gig VERTEX LE soon FERMI but its not important sense FERMI is not supported and Windows 7 is rarely used other than downloading and video encoding while I am out. Just gotten so use to the magic mouse and apple wireless keyboard. Overall I wouldn't mind having another Mac around so they could be on together. One is doing mundane downloading stuff and gaming. The other looking pretty and posting here and my movie, music encoding. Hell I was looking at an IPS monitor but thats a waste considering Apple's 27" is great + its a computer. Iofusion PCI-E is also tempting but then again not Apple compatible. IMO if you can enjoy and use your computer thats all that matters. I had named my pentuim 166mhz Turtle and loved that thing until it was just to unpractical to have around. Apples pricing just seems to = slower performance per dollar but then again beyond a certain price the return of your performance parts has very little return.

[jaimes]

Although I see the productivity benefits of Macs (they 'just work'), they're frustratingly straightforward. Would I pay the price for productivity? No, I'll get a refurb for half the price.

[UrbanTechGuerrilla]

pcwiz, on Sep 30 2007, 05:57 AM, said:

No wonder why people choose PCs over Macs. If Apple were to lower their prices to compete with PCs, then they would be ruling right now.

They tried that during the 1990s, under Michael Spindler and nearly went bankrupt.

[charlie-b-210]

im not sad about all the prices, for example, the price for the ipods are very fair in comparison with other mp3-players with the same features... but if you want to buy a new mac or an iphone it gets hard if your not earning that much money... :-(

[iGuess]

Eh, it's fairly simple. I'm sure it's been said before in this thread, but Apple makes money from hardware. Microsoft, in the PC world, makes money from software. Compare the price of Snow Leopard to Windows 7 Ultimate. Apple's selling point is that you have to buy their hardware to run OS X (obviously plenty of people on this forum would have a thing or two to say about that, but for the general public, this is the perception, and it's fairly accurate). Apple is all about appearance and it shows that designers, not engineers, are the most prominent voice in the creation of new Macs. I've been using a Mac since 1993, and things have changed a lot, but apple still gets away with selling underpowered computers with functionality stripped from them that wouldn't be acceptable to any veteran computer user because hey, their stuff is pretty, and OS X is an incredible OS.