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Apple is not overpriced

Overpriced compared to what ??

I think the big question is always how long you want to keep the item you are going to buy. For me, somehow the apple products are keepers. When I buy a product from Apple, I usually have it way longer then any other item. With a longer use, a higher price can be justified AND it is actually cheaper then a less expensive product with much less power and no bliss factor.
Lets take my iPod Touch 1.gen. I just love that thing and it works great. Actually I have no reason to change anything, its just great. For an MP3 Player its now more then 4 years old and I will keep it another two. Heck, they even sell every spare part on ebay now, such as spare battery with opening set!

Try to do that with a china plastic product.. ???

If I would have bought an MP3 with half the price tag in 2007, I would have gotten something I wouldn't have wanted, with half the memory and maybe lower quality and throwing it away after two years. With half the budget saved, I could have bought a second cheap product in 2010 to come up even. Looking at this, you may get out even from a capital point of view. However the apple dividend topping it with:

- You have the original, not a copy
- You have the best and most innovative
- You get service (2 firmware upgrades on the 1.gen)
- Its more environment friendly to buy less frequent
- Synergy effect! You can still use it with the apple infrastructure and add ons
(charger works for the iPhone, usb cable works for the iphone and iPad)
- Apple resell value, - and this is the biggest.

Apple is cheaper than any other brand, people just don't know that.

For anybody that still think Apple is overpriced, do some homework and read this:

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Amortization_vs_Depreciation

Oh yes folks, Apple lied to you. You have the less overpriced products out there...
 
When I was searching for a laptop for college a few months ago, i explored all the possibilities. My budget was a maximum of $2000 (I planned on doing pretty much everything on my laptop as a computer science major) so I looked at all the greats: Thinkpads, Vaios, Elitebooks, and Macs. I was torn between a ThinkPad, VAIO, and a Macbook, so I configured all of my laptops to have equal or near-equal specs. I focused on the base model of the 15" MBP, so my 16GB RAM and SSD upgrades are not included in the price. Here were my results in my search:

Lenovo ThinkPad W530: $1500-1600 equal specs (but better 1080p screen)
Sony Vaio S-series: $1300 (slower processor, but more RAM, better display, and a free PS3!)
Macbook Pro 15" w/ hi-res: $1700 with student discount

So yes, Apple is overpriced when you look at specs, and frankly there are some design features of the other laptops that I would have liked on my MBP (better cooling, USB on two sides) but I knew what I was getting when I bought the MBP. I mainly bought it for Mountain Lion's iCloud integration and because I wanted to try OSX. Was it worth the $200 premium over the closest laptop (the ThinkPad)? To me, yes. To others, maybe not.
 
Here are my conclusions on why people hate Apple:

Loving Apple is too Mainstream.

There's a lot of people who praises Apple for being so successful, with their iPhone, iPad, and Macs. Some people wants to be unique by going against praising Apple and bashing them instead.

Apple Products are Expensive

Yes, they are expensive, but not overpriced. I wouldn't hate a porsche because I can't afford one. Since Apple is successful, these expensive iOS devices are being seen everywhere and being held by people who can afford it. And people who can't afford it are jealous.

Macs don't play games

This is the most annoying YouTube comment line you'll ever read. They actually do play games, but these prejudiced idiots won't even try to look at Macs in detail. Yes, they do play games. How? Pick one of the three. Porting, Machine Virtualization or Dual Booting?
 
Blackberryroid said:
Macs don't play games

This is the most annoying YouTube comment line you'll ever read. They actually do play games, but these prejudiced idiots won't even try to look at Macs in detail. Yes, they do play games. How? Pick one of the three. Porting, Machine Virtualization or Dual Booting?
Click to expand...

And all of those solutions are crap.

Porting - we all know how awful ported games are
Machine Virtualization - Direct3D and OpenGL runs like crap in Windows over top OS X
Dual Booting - the only legit option still hampered by the absolute garbage video card that apple decided to give its consumers

The only way to get any kind of decent gaming on a Mac is buy using a 3rd party video card which requires spending 2-3 thousand dollars on a Mac Pro, and even then games still run like crap with low FPS counts.
 
Forkjulle said:
I have had this argument over and over, and have come to realise that Apple is not overpriced. I think that people say "Apple is overpriced" because it's the fashionable thing to do.

...

What is your experience? Do you think Apple's laptops are overpriced?
Click to expand...

What Apple provides is quite price competative. The problem is that it's completely unusable as it lacks a key feature.

Mom wants a quality laptop for everyday computing. Apple's $1000 Macbook Air is great, but it has an 11" screen. Looks like she's getting a $1200 Macbook Air

Dad wants a workhorse for programming. Apple's 15" Macbook Pro has the screen size he needs, and all of the power that he wants.

Son wants a media powerhouse for making the next Avatar on. The only laptop he can buy is a $2000 Macbook Pro, as the others aren't powerful enough or lack the hard drive space necessary to store HD video.

Daughter wants an everyday laptop for college. That's the $1300 macbook Pro, because it's the cheapest laptop with a DVD drive.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Now, back to the question of whether they're overpriced. In every single scenario I listed, the person in question can purchase a comparable laptop that can perform equally as well for the desired tasks, for 1/2 of the price.

Mom would be happy with a $500 Dell. Spend $900 (still $300 less) and she'll have a PC equivalent of the 13" Macbook Air.

Dad could buy a Dell for under a grand with the same specs as a 15" MBP.

Son can buy the same laptop as his dad, and the daughter can buy almost any laptop from Walmart and be happy.

On paper Apple's $2000 Macbook Pro is a great deal, but when you go to use a mac for a purpose time it's not as good of a deal anymore. And in order to get the laptop to do what you want, you have to $pend $pend $pend at the Apple $tore.
 
Are they clearly overpriced?

Yes!

Will I continue to buy them?

Yes!

Reason:

One must factor in first; the cost of Research and Development for these products. It is necessary for Apple to offset these costs by charging more for their products.

One also must factor in the out of warranty support that comes with Apple products.

There is no other technology manufacturer in existence that provides free in-person technical support for the life of the product, regardless of where the product was purchased... i.e., the Genius Bar.

Just my two cents! :)
 
There is such a thing called the apple tax, they are not alone in providing a product that consumers pay a premium.

I will continue to buy apple products as longs as they create insanely great things.
 
Blackberryroid said:
Here are my conclusions on why people hate Apple:

Loving Apple is too Mainstream.

There's a lot of people who praises Apple for being so successful, with their iPhone, iPad, and Macs. Some people wants to be unique by going against praising Apple and bashing them instead.
Click to expand...

Some people are individuals as well, who don't follow the populist drumbeat, regardless of who's hitting the drum.

Apple Products are Expensive

Yes, they are expensive, but not overpriced. I wouldn't hate a porsche because I can't afford one. Since Apple is successful, these expensive iOS devices are being seen everywhere and being held by people who can afford it. And people who can't afford it are jealous.
Click to expand...

They're expensive but when people look at the price they have expectations for it. So, let's analyze and see if the expectations are real or imagined...

A Porsche is built better than a MacBook Pro (e.g. no warped screws, no slopped thermal paste that will adversely affect long-term operation of the very expensive unit, no scratches on the case... no unevenly lit keyboard backlighting... unevenly lit screens... in other words, the people who build them actually give a damn (or still do for now), but for 50 cents an hour what would you expect... or do if you worked for that level of pay... if people think that's quality built, then they need to stop proving the corporations that claim Americans are not educated right and actually be bothered to read up on technical details. iFixit is one of MANY such resources that take the time to find out things... as is notebookcheck.net but, wait, let me guess, they're all just jealous too... granted, the latter - which has pointed out inadequate power supplies and other issues - still rates MBPs very highly, despite pointing out 2011 MBPs throttling down and not making full use of the CPU speed because the designers put in underpowered components when the processor needed more, which is why the CPU would not get to the top setting (now think of the folks who bought the high-end BTOs... if the stock models can't make full use of the CPUs, the BTOs certainly will not...)

A Porsche does not use off-the-shelf consumer hardware, nor does a Porsche utilize open source software and leech off of others' hard work so brazenly... though every company does leech at one form or another, such leeching lays the groundwork for innovation and building a better proverbial mousetrap...)

I'm not jealous of a coworker who has a 2012 rMBP. Or the ones who have iPads. Why should I be? Since you've claimed I and others apparently are, why don't you tell us the details instead of spreading unjust and parroted memes?

So if you conclude people are jealous and making a blanket statement about all who don't always like Apple, then I'm concluding people prefer scapegoating and rationalizing with flimsy magical stories and analogies (e.g. the expensive sports car analogy) while providing zero substance behind the claim. It is not jealousy, but dislike of how the details don't match the sticker price. A shiny, partly-scratched case isn't enough to make me think "Ooooh, pwetty". For $2000+, I expect not even a nitpick. Not major technical issues underneath the Emperor's new clothes.

Macs don't play games

This is the most annoying YouTube comment line you'll ever read. They actually do play games, but these prejudiced idiots won't even try to look at Macs in detail. Yes, they do play games. How? Pick one of the three. Porting, Machine Virtualization or Dual Booting?
Click to expand...

They do play games, but not at the same speed as opposed to a Windows PC with higher quality hardware (e.g. video card and video RAM). Apple's notebooks have improved compared to 3 years ago, though... but given the 2009 Mac Pro tower had an option of only a puny ATi 4870 card when, at the time, the 6970 came out, followed by others and Apple did was nap... while new iMacs came out, with mobile GPUs as opposed to much faster desktop GPUs and that's where gaming power comes from, detractors have a point. Still do, but not by as much of a margin anymore...

---

Given the FreeBSD origins of OS X, and noting how much of a nightmare it is to administer Windows machines (20 years experience), virtualizing Windows is wonderful on a Mac. I used to use Boot Camp, but the administration problem came back and 64-bit Windows (at the time, 2010) was a pain. But Parallels negated the need for all that, and it's downright easy to back up and maintain VMs. So is any Linux distro (or FreeBSD), but I use OS X for practical/pragmatic reasons - the operating system, and the fact Adobe has yet to make a Linux edition and it's safe to say they never will, which is both a blessing (for Apple) and curse (for those of us who like a wide array of competing platforms... But would I use Linux if given the chance, and to have a native version of Adobe's CS suite? hardly! I'm well-versed with Linux and Unix, but Apple's streamlining of functions, backups, app installs, etc, is the slickest I've ever seen and I do content creation these days, not OS tinkering. I may nitpick Apple at times, but rest assured - there are many things to give absolute credit for and that is why many of us non-rich workin' folk use OS X. And that is the reason why it's worth as much as it is. For business/practical reasons, and not because of bling or anything else shallow...)

I also noted your use of "prejudiced idiots" and noting how ironic your comments were... since you really prefer to be prejudicial of people who question or dislike Apple. Some of them fit your vapid criteria, but others - especially those knowledgeable in electronics and other things - definitely have every right to make a statement.
 
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I bet the folks on here saying you can get a $600 Dell with the same specs as a $1500 MacBook have never owned a $600 Dell. If the $600 Dell is so great, why don't you have one?

As someone who at one time had to deal with a $500 Dell, there's so much BS in this thread that if BS flew my computer screen would be on the damn ceiling.

Oh the memories of the $500 Dell. 6 months in, keys started falling off. 8 months - the screen started getting vertical bars. Nearly a year in - the Motherboard/GPU died completely. Sure it had the same specs as a Macbook that cost $1000+, but my 5+ year old white macbook still works. Imagine that. Don't even get me started about HPs.

Dell's comparable 2012 XPS 15 that actually has a very similar design with similar specs and thickness, actually costs nearly as much as a Macbook Pro. Especially when you factor in what MBP makes up where the Dell lacks. The Point: Even PC manufacters can't make a laptop with the thinness of a MBP with similar performance for under $1300.(Atleast without it being complete crap, like HP)

Same for All-in-ones. Dell's comparable 27in AIO costs just as much as the iMac.
 
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TechZeke said:
I bet the folks on here saying you can get a $600 Dell with the same specs as a $1500 MacBook have never owned a $600 Dell. If the $600 Dell is so great, why don't you have one?

As someone who at one time had to deal with a $500 Dell, there's so much BS in this thread that if BS flew my computer screen would be on the damn ceiling.

Oh the memories of the $500 Dell. 6 months in, keys started falling off. 8 months - the screen started getting vertical bars. Nearly a year in - the Motherboard/GPU died completely. Sure it had the same specs as a Macbook that cost $1000+, but my 5+ year old white macbook still works. Imagine that. Don't even get me started about HPs.

Dell's comparable 2012 XPS 15 that actually has a very similar design with similar specs and thickness, actually costs nearly as much as a Macbook Pro. Especially when you factor in what MBP makes up where the Dell lacks. The Point: Even PC manufacters can't make a laptop with the thinness of a MBP with similar performance for under $1300.(Atleast without it being complete crap, like HP)

Same for All-in-ones. Dell's comparable 27in AIO costs just as much as the iMac.
Click to expand...

You can't get a $500 dell with same specs as a $1500 macbook. The pc/mac market isn't that drastic.
 
mackid1993 said:
the cost of Research and Development for these products. It is necessary for Apple to offset these costs by charging more for their products.
Click to expand...
take a look at all quaterly reports
i'm sure apple needs to charge that much only for research that we as a customer can have better things
thanks apple:apple:
edit: they deliver a (good) product and charge us the hell for it... thats it
 
nitromac said:
You can't get a $500 dell with same specs as a $1500 macbook. The pc/mac market isn't that drastic.
Click to expand...

Well no ***** sherlock, of course it isn't *that* drastic for the most part. Though it actually can be with some companies like HP offering $500 off coupon codes. You completely missed the point of the entire post. Great Job.
 
It heavily depends, but in my experience, the steeper price tag is worth it five years down the line when the machine runs great, looks great, and PCs that others have had in the same timeframe broke down long ago.
 
in using my first Mac for a week come this Tuesday. I come to the conclusion Apple is not overpriced. I can now see why these machines have high resale unlike any other computer company. I feel confident if I choose to upgrade come 1.5 - 2 years I very much can sell this machine and get decent price to go toward the upgrade.
 
They sure are, sonys customizable vaio laptops offer the 640m for only 80 bucks.......



the 2gb version is only 130........ why apple put the 1gb 640m in well thats apple for ya........
 
AZREOSpecialist said:
Let's look at the Retina MacBook Pro. The laptop has absolutely no competition. How can anyone say a computer is overpriced when there is nothing from any other manufacturer that comes close? PC laptop makers are only now starting to incorporate Thunderbolt into their machines, my goodness!
Click to expand...
Apple had an exclusivity deal that prevented PC manufacturers implementing Thunderbolt.

You could make a similar argument about Apple only now introducing USB3, which has been available since the beginning of 2010—far longer than Thunderbolt has been available, and far more commonly used.


I would argue that they are becoming overpriced now. The cheapest 13″ Apple notebook now costs 60% more than five years ago, and is far more expensive relative to the equivalent PC.

They’re moving towards flash–only configurations, which increases costs significantly if you want anything more than the base spec.

Upgrading the Retina MacBook Pro to 768GB from 256GB costs $500 compared to $99 for a 1TB hard drive—and that’s cheap! Over here, the upgrade price is $630. Sure, flash is a lot faster, but there are a number of reasons why it just isn’t necessary. Most people would probably be fine with 128–256GB flash, and the rest being disk-based for storage.



They make good hardware, but I haven’t found it to be any more reliable than other PC hardware. Less-so in some cases, where an easily fixable fault requires the whole machine to be returned to an Apple service centre.

I would still want a MacBook over any other PC-based notebook, because I prefer their hardware design, especially when it comes to the trackpad etc. but as someone who has two older MacBooks still in use that are going to need replaced within 12–18 months, they are definitely looking ovepriced compared to PCs these days. There was not nearly such a big price gap between PC hardware and these MacBooks back when they were purchased.
 
Durability itself is already worth the cost, I have friends with powerbooks and ibooks working till this day. Apple is becoming the next IBM in terms of quality.
 
I don't find it overprice I think is the bestest thing you can afford if you're a hardcore Apple Fan like me : )
 
AlexMaximus said:
If I would have bought an MP3 with half the price tag in 2007, I would have gotten something I wouldn't have wanted, with half the memory and maybe lower quality and throwing it away after two years. With half the budget saved, I could have bought a second cheap product in 2010 to come up even. Looking at this, you may get out even from a capital point of view. However the apple dividend topping it with:

- You have the original, not a copy
- You have the best and most innovative
- You get service (2 firmware upgrades on the 1.gen)
- Its more environment friendly to buy less frequent
- Synergy effect! You can still use it with the apple infrastructure and add ons
(charger works for the iPhone, usb cable works for the iphone and iPad)
- Apple resell value, - and this is the biggest.

Apple is cheaper than any other brand, people just don't know that.

For anybody that still think Apple is overpriced, do some homework and read this:

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Amortization_vs_Depreciation

Oh yes folks, Apple lied to you. You have the less overpriced products out there...
Click to expand...

This isn't true at all. iPods are one thing I really disliked. Both of mine had battery failures right outside their warranties, and it's not uncommon. Plenty of other mp3 players offered equivalent sound quality. I meant to link an article on this, but I can't find it. Anyway this is nothing more than self righteous crap to justify your own purchasing habits. I get that you're happy with yours, but they weren't necessarily the best hardware. What they had was phenomenal marketing and a nice accompanying software package.

Blackberryroid said:
This is the most annoying YouTube comment line you'll ever read. They actually do play games, but these prejudiced idiots won't even try to look at Macs in detail. Yes, they do play games. How? Pick one of the three. Porting, Machine Virtualization or Dual Booting?
Click to expand...

Hardforum and the Apple discussion boards have both seen some interesting discussions on this topic. I came across them searching for something else a while ago. Anyway bootcamp is the only valid one if you're running anything heavy, such as gaming. Whether you're under OSX or Windows, you do have to watch settings, as you can pull more power than the charger can supply. I found this out trying to render something on a macbook pro, but the topic of transcoding comes up too. The point was that it's not always as simple as you suggest, although the people who will run into such issues are probably limited to a small percentage.

wikus said:
And all of those solutions are crap.

Porting - we all know how awful ported games are
Machine Virtualization - Direct3D and OpenGL runs like crap in Windows over top OS X
Dual Booting - the only legit option still hampered by the absolute garbage video card that apple decided to give its consumers

The only way to get any kind of decent gaming on a Mac is buy using a 3rd party video card which requires spending 2-3 thousand dollars on a Mac Pro, and even then games still run like crap with low FPS counts.
Click to expand...

The notebook card options haven't been that bad aside from the lowest 15" early 2011 unless I'm missing something. The imac cards are kind of weak for desktop machines, although no one has really used a powerful card in an all in one to date. Were you primarily referring to the 5770 in the mac pro? Their base configuration option was bleh even in 2009-2010. Considering the cost of entry, they could/should have provided a few more bumps.
 
thermodynamic said:
S as is notebookcheck.net but, wait, let me guess, they're all just jealous too... granted, the latter - which has pointed out inadequate power supplies and other issues - still rates MBPs very highly, despite pointing out 2011 MBPs throttling down and not making full use of the CPU speed because the designers put in underpowered components when the processor needed more, which is why the CPU would not get to the top setting (now think of the folks who bought the high-end BTOs... if the stock models can't make full use of the CPUs, the BTOs certainly will not...)
Click to expand...
The reason they rate them quite high is mostly because the others don't do much bette.
Dell has done terrible with any of their last XPS lines. They all had some or various issues. Compared to a workstation class Elitebook or Thinkpad they grant Apple that the thin form factor calls for trade offs. Yeah a strong power supply is nice but it is also heavy and most of the time people don't need it. If it was Dell they would offer two different ones but they don't give options.
I think that is really the main problem with Apple. One size doesn't fit all but Apple sells only one.
thekev said:
This isn't true at all. iPods are one thing I really disliked. Both of mine had battery failures right outside their warranties, and it's not uncommon. Plenty of other mp3 players offered equivalent sound quality. I meant to link an article on this, but I can't find it. Anyway this is nothing more than self righteous crap to justify your own purchasing habits. I get that you're happy with yours, but they weren't necessarily the best hardware. What they had was phenomenal marketing and a nice accompanying software package.
Click to expand...
Actually when I was into the mp3 stuff and did lots of research. ipods have been on the lower end of sound quality. They got okay but far from top scoring points. Trekstor organix ruled once. Sony beat Apple with most of their line.
iPod offered okay sound quality but there weren't just plenty of equals, there was plenty better stuff. Given also that many of those others had no problem working with different Mediaplayers like foobar2000 I never understood what people wanted with ipods. ipods ever only ruled in the US and I think your review sites must have been quite biased or some other reason.
 
Forkjulle said:
This is a discussion board where people, from around the world, discuss. People's opinions and experiences are valuable.
Click to expand...

Sitting around talking about this stuff is a waste of time.

Very rarely does someone who thinks Apple is overpriced change their mind and vice versa.
 
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