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Go buy the $999 MBA Air. A fully loaded MacBook Pro sounds like it is beyond your means
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16-Inch M3 Max MacBook Pro Now Costs $7,200 With All Upgrades
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There are so many things that are more expensive for special needs. You can see that the Apple brand and products have become so mainstream that it gives such knee jerk reactions every year.
And we finally got 8GB iPhone and will probably have 12-16 and MB will still be 8
For that price, you can get a souped up PC that supports RAY TRACING AND be able to GAME on it properly. You can also get some displays, some consoles, and many games. But i get how some will argue you need this amount of Mac to work. Explain to me what type of content is so urgently needed that this over $7200 Mac is the only means to do it vs any other cheaper Mac with wait times. The amount of content I see today is utter garbage. I’d be plenty happy to wait an hour for rendering times. The prices are just absurd for the hardware you get M3 or not. This is as absurd as buying a $9 cup of joe.
I would only guess that mostly video companies would be ready to pay that amount of money for macbooks. Basically editing on fly, documentaries, TV, so on. Audio work is rarely done on go as it requires proper monitoring, mastering and mixing and it aint done on notebook speakers or even monitoring headphones, office work doesn't require more than 8GB of RAM, photography and design are also rarely done on go, mostly on large properly calibrated displays, only video rendering and editing may need, such as some indie and YT studios, and also wedding videos.
Not sure how taxes work in UK...but in the US, I would need a tax "credit" for it to be free. Otherwise, I just get the amount commensurate with my tax rate (or the corporation's tax rate).
So if I buy a $7000 laptop, and my company pays a 25% tax rate, then it pays $1750 less in taxes because the earnings are lowered by $7000 (over the five year life of the machine).
The rate (and thus the savings) might be higher with pass-through corporation like an S-Corp or LLC. Perhaps as high as 50% in some states, but still not close to 100%...
Ok. But, if they want repair-a-bility. Then making a computer with a SoC is going to be very difficult to repair. Making it a socketed solution would add complexity the SoC was trying to solve in the first place. And what do you do with the old SoC chip? Does anyone else want an 8GB M3 with 256GB of storage? How many people want to solder their MacBooks motherboard to remove the storage and up it to max capacity? It's a very low number. Most will either sell it to someone else that needs it. It becomes a hand-me-down. Or trade it in for the next model when you no longer need it or need something more.
There are too much libraries and tools written in Cuda, it's around for 16 years now. It's not the gaming market where you write a game, milk it for five years, then throw it away and start again. Heck, some of the python libs are just wrappers around good old Fortran code.
And the thing is, you won't run really serious workloads on notebooks, you'll develop them on one, then run it on a cluster. And nobody will build an Apple Silicon cluster for HPC/AI.
Apple has never targeted the downmarket segment. If you want them to make less money just because you do, there’s the door. I’m sure HP will be happy to have you.
Using a socket itself isn't complex. Trying to configure a common set of pins that future silicon versions might use is more complex, but it isn't impossible. Most SoC will have mappable pins which can be configured to take on the functionality of the internal services as required. As for the old SoC, I'd rather dispose of my processor (or sell it if I got lucky) than my entire laptop.
And I very well might be able to sell it. If it's the base model then someone who has a faulty chip might well want to buy it. And if it's not the base model, then others might want a second hand lower cost CPU as an upgrade. If there's an option to trade silicon, a second market will spring up. And an active aftermarket, too.
No-one wants to solder the motherboard. I don't understand your comment. Isn't that the point of using sockets?
Apple's top-of-the-line 16-inch M3 Max MacBook Pro costs $7,200 when you opt for all upgrades. Pricing used to top out at $6,499, but with support for 128GB Unified Memory, maximum memory now costs $1,000.
The highest-end 16-inch MacBook Pro has a base cost of $4,000 with 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 48GB Unified memory, and 1TB SSD. Fully upgrading the memory costs $1,000, while opting for an 8TB SSD adds another $2,200. The 14-inch MacBook Pro can be purchased with the same upgraded specs for $6,899.
128GB Unified Memory is only available with the M3 Max chip. The M3 chip is limited to 24GB Unified Memory like the M2 chip, while the M2 Pro supports up to 36GB Unified Memory.
The new MacBook Pro models can be ordered now from Apple's online store. The M3 and M3 Pro models will ship out to customers next week, while the M3 Max models will be coming later in November.
Article Link: 16-Inch M3 Max MacBook Pro Now Costs $7,200 With All Upgrades
Wow. OCLP for the win.
For that price, I could buy an i9 4090 PC AND LAPTOP both, not just a souped up PC....heck throw in a Surface Pro for note-taking. Still less.
2x 4TB samsung 990 pro is $558 right now. it is the fastest consumer pcie 4 nvme SSD currently available.
the 1TB -> 2TB upgrade of the MBP is $400.
yes, apple's SSD prices are insane for the consumer. amazing for the business.
You're right. I'm also sure there are cheaper options out there. I'm just saying that the targeted demographic for a $7,000 maxed out laptop likely isn't Joe Six-Pack
you must be young. I have used Apple products for a very long time.. since the first Mac. I have owned Quadra's, PowerMac's, Powerbook's, MacBook Pro's and the first line of MacPros. They were affordable for mid sized business back then, typically we would budget in the 3g range and buy after market upgrades when needed as time passed. If you can honestly justify an 8GB computer for $1800 in this day and age... that's hilarious. They have always competed with the PC market, and they still are near double the cost of an equivalent PC for less performance. No matter how they try to spin it. You are buying a brand and social status now that is optimized for logic and final cut, not a computer. This all started the second jobs died. take out all ports, streamline production by glueing things together. No after market upgrading. You need to buy all your upgrades at the time of purchase right from apple. Then dispose of your computer quickly because it is no longer supported by the OS. Don't fool yourself. Tim Cook has changed apple into a money machine. but those era's usually come to an end and the company is left looking ridiculous with the people that actually know what is going on.
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$5200 for 4TB storage and 64GB RAM which is the bare minimum for a "Pro" machine.
Apple hasn't made a compelling Mac since the 90s.
Apple hasn't made a compelling Mac since the 90s.
Over priced disposable non upgradable computing at its finest.
Cross shopping with a PC could get you something with less Ram (64GB) but oodles more SSD (24TB). The RTX4090 with 16GB would make sense for UE5 and you’d pay Scan £5038 for a 17” laptop (but it would be heavy
www.scan.co.uk
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 4090 Gaming Laptop - 3XS
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 4090 Gaming Laptop
I agree with most of what you said, except buying it for social status (although im sure this is def true for some). The reason I will buy another MBP is the build quality. My 2016 MBP has been the best built laptop I've ever had. And yes it has had a few issues like with the hinge which got recalled on the 13" model but Apple didnt do a recall on the 15. But they fixed it for free when asked.
But I've also done masses of travel with it in my backpack and it has survived it all. It cost me double what I had previously spent on Windows laptops but it has lasted 6.5 years now which is 3x longer than anything else I've had and I think it may well last another couple of years. So for these reasons I will buy again when it eventually dies.
It started well before his death - it started with him returning to Apple.
Right with the first iMacs, iPods and iPhones - and continued with aluminum unibody MacBooks.
I think we know how to make sockets. Point was that, its well... Pointless. Most people don't bother to upgrade. And most Mac owners keep their devices/computers for a long time. The need to swap chips isn't something that happens enough to justify making it socketed. On the Mac. Selling it, trading it in, or hand-me-downs are mostly the norms.
There are Apple Stores everywhere now, it's not terribly difficult to get one repaired properly if something is faulty.
RAM and Storage, we can certainly make the argument for. And we can certainly argue that Apple charges a bit over a premium price to upgrade either. BUT, most people that buy Apple products can get away with the base model. And those that actually need more, know they do and purchase accordingly. Now, if they are not satisfied with what Apple offers for the price, you have PC's. For which, all those options to upgrade/mod/change/etc exist. It also happens to be the more popular option for many people. Apple doesn't cater to that crowd.
This isn't to paint every Mac owner/user in a box and say they all behave in "X" manor. It is to say there aren't enough of "us" that care enough to change a chip out even if it was able to. No need for any laws to make Apple add the ability.
It would also be a hot box running with 1000W+ power supplies. I'm sure covered in RGB lit fans and such, but still.
I think we lose sight of the fact that what you just said is running on a chip at like 40 watts. Maybe.
To be fair the displays can be used for either. And if you like consoles that doesn't affect the price of the Mac or PC.
It's not that you can't do it. It's just that it can take longer, as you stated. If time is money to you, then it's worth it. If you have time to spare, then it's not.
Mac prices have always been expensive. I'm personally shocked people think these devices/computers are too expensive. I had a biege G3 tower that had 128MB (MEGA BYTES) of RAM that cost over $3500. I also needed a CD burner (2X speed!), which connected via SCSI, and Toast (CD burning software). I think I spent over $4k for that setup. Oh plus a monitor (Viewsonic). Another few hundred for a 17" flat GLASS CRT. We have more power in our watches these days.
It’s because they give you a handicapped machine (8 GB memory, 256 GB SSD) and figure you’ll have to spend more money to make it usable. I have an 8 GB M1 Mac mini and as soon as I start the computer after opening just two or three programs it’s already using several GB of swamp space.
And instead of lower the price so they can increase their sales they keep the price high to try and compensate for the lowering sales which will push more and more people away and can eventually cause a major collapse in sales.