13, 15 or 17 - which has most uptake

[nate.the.great]

I did misread your question initially but upon re-reading it's still pointless. Macrumors members are not necessarily representative of "the general public." Voting for which model you have does not translate into which one sells more for the general public.

According to some light Googling, the Macbook Airs are the best-selling portables as of about 2 quarters ago. You may be able to find more up-to-date statistics, but the trend is probably the same.

You didn't misread, he ninja edited his original post. I saw the pre-edited version as well. And later in this thread he comes around full circle to discuss resale of the most popular Macbook Pro, the 13 inch.

I have to admit, I am surprised at how much people are offended by snarky remarks from strangers on the internet.

To be honest, you need the snarky people, especially as a forum gets more popular. Without them this place is going to go from threads that post color profiles for monitor models to a place where every thread is...

"You know nothing about me or my needs, but I want to know which Macbook I should buy, and at what price. Oh, by the way, can someone tell me when the new Macbook will be launched and what specs it will have?"

The best solution I've seen is to have a newbie subforum where no-snarkiness is allowed. All poorly written questions or questions which can be solved with a simple search get moved there.

 

[dusk007]

I agree with what was said above about most people just getting the cheapest Mac they can find. I think some people are just buying into the image and others really don't require much out of their computer but want OSX. What strikes me as weird is that most people who buy PCs tend to get 14" or higher whereas majority of Mac users have a 13". Seems like a big compromise has been made.

The reason for people getting generally bigger PC notebooks is also due to price. 15" holds all the cheapest stuff. Usually 13" is more expensive because it is smaller and more expensive to build. 17" is also almost always more expensive.
Apple is different as they have very high markups for the 15" and 17" that aren't really justified by manufacturing costs. Apple disgregards that for the most part and aims to target user types and press out of them what they can.
13" is the least professional notebook and thus the cheapest.
With PCs 13" and smaller is more mobile and thus more expensive. 17" is more gaming, more workstation, bigger and thus more expensive. 15" is the baseline.
Sony Z, Samsung series 9 are the most expensive consumer notebooks and all small. Lenovo X200 same story.
17" are usually the gaming, workstation or media center desktop replacements and in most cases more expensive but also with more hardware.
15" holds all the stuff and the cheapest. An Acer Travelmate in 14" with the very same specifications as a 15" costs about 100-200$ more.

The most popular is always the cheapest but since the price difference between a 13" MBP and a 15" is big and huge to a 17" only few people would pay for the more expensive and than there are those that just buy a 13" for the size too. If the 15" was the cheapest or equally cheap I guess 13" would still win but by a much smaller margin.

 

[Boe11]

Don't worry. For every curmudgeonly hatemonger that spends their day bitterly scouring every sub forum looking for people to spread their sadness to, there's 100 friendly people who like sharing information and having a discussion with the people who seek it (within reason, of course ).

I can attest to the preference for a quick pain-free local trade at a loss rather than going through the often painful alternative routes of trying to sell a used computer online. I've been trying to sell my late 2011 17" MBP for a while now, at what I thought was a hefty mark down, with no luck. Suddenly these trade offers from my friends don't sound so bad. What's that? You want to trade me a crossbow, some Mama's Family DVDs and a REAL treasure map??? Deal!

Sometimes it's worth the hit, imo.

 

[bniu]

in my mind, the 13" is the one that sells the most, the 15" would probably be the most profitable one, and then 17" would have the highest margins.

Kinda parallel to an aircraft cabin:

Economy sells the most, Business has the highest profitability, and First has the highest margins but tiny demand.

13" Pro is for most users out there who don't need discrete graphics or quad core performance. 15" Pro is for the minority of customers who need discrete graphics cards or want quad core performance or just want a decently sized screen. 17" Pro is for the ultra-minority of users like me who like the high end 15" Pro but want a bigger screen and who feel the extra weight is well worth the much larger real estate (1920x1200 vs 1440x900). My big ego may also have a factor into why I bought a 17 inches

 

[Magpie-23]

You didn't misread, he ninja edited his original post. I saw the pre-edited version as well. And later in this thread he comes around full circle to discuss resale of the most popular Macbook Pro, the 13 inch.

I have to admit, I am surprised at how much people are offended by snarky remarks from strangers on the internet.

To be honest, you need the snarky people, especially as a forum gets more popular. Without them this place is going to go from threads that post color profiles for monitor models to a place where every thread is...

"You know nothing about me or my needs, but I want to know which Macbook I should buy, and at what price. Oh, by the way, can someone tell me when the new Macbook will be launched and what specs it will have?"

The best solution I've seen is to have a newbie subforum where no-snarkiness is allowed. All poorly written questions or questions which can be solved with a simple search get moved there.

You are incorrect. The only edit was the one the moderators made to my reply when I referred to the the poster as an idiot for being abusive rather than constructive. And in doing so I ironically and regretfully descended into the sort of snarking you seem to think is the corner stone to keeping this forum meaningful.
Your suggestion concerning having a forum for newbies where you can't be rude is quite frankly sad. Politeness should be a given to any reply and usually, when individuals have been brought up well by their parents, avoidance of politeness is not a natural reaction.
The MBP forum is full of people who want to chew the fat over opinions. It's not just for people who want to discuss specific technical issues and related fixes. I think Facebook and the like is where teenagers bitch and whine. As a 40 year old father of two with 15 years in the computer industry I thought this place would be above all that, where people with a common passion - Apple and the Mac - could discuss the subject with like minded mature individuals. Sadly, as previous posters have alluded to, it is not. It's full of kids venting their angst. Shame really. Back to the MacCast podcast to get my fix....Prob too old to have meaningful discussion with some of the younger angry types.

 

[Eddyisgreat]

All of us 17" MBP owners collectively decided to STOP taking our machines out into the wild because they were so rare and people would poach them.

I'd imagine the cheapest macbook would have the most uptake.