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Does a Mac have snob value?

Kwill said:
Purchasing comfortable leather shoes to sooth sore feet doesn't make a person snobbish. A Mac feels comfortable with less pain than a PC. :p
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Are you referring to orthopedic shoes? the only leather shoes I've tried were horrible. $60-80 trainers tend to do best, ime.
with pcs/macs... dunno... seems if you needed an indigo² in '92, i guess you needed it... same with anything running 32+mb of ram now. i get by with old hardware because i know how to run light. i buy new cheap pcs, because used pcs are ridiculously over priced (why pay $200 for an early p4 512mb when i can get a 4000+ with 1 or 2gb ram from dell refurb for $250 (est)?) Then i use the pc for 8-10 years.
 
Kwill said:
Are you upset because your new MacBook is now "slightly dented?" ;)
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I don't understand. I don't have a new Macbook...I bought it in 2007, and it's just fine. I am not bothered by the fact that it's not the newest, and I'm not even bothered by the chips out of it and the dented battery from dropping it. It's held up for my needs perfectly, despite all the abuse.

Or was this some sort of sexual joke?

*old-guy* said:
Hi again,
There have been some really good, thought provoking answers to my question.
I guess it's true that Macs, in general, cost more than windows PCs and so anyone using a Windows PC is going to look at a Mac user and just KNOW the Mac was more expensive than his/her own set up (all things being equal)
So maybe the idea of snobbishness is actually in the eye of the beholder and not the Mac user.
I think all that means that Mac snobs are just ordinary snobs that just happen to own a Mac, lol
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Very untrue. When I bought my Macbok last year, there was not a single equivalent Dell for cheaper.
 
Im in high school and i also have a job( min wage but w/e).My family isnt rich and niether am I. I spend my money on electronics. I dont spend my money on clothes, accessories, starbucks, eating out every day at lunch, ect. I just spend my money on other things. So the money i save from not buying other stuff goes towards the mac.
 
I'm not rich, but I bought my MBA cash because it fit the bill of what I wanted and I had the money. It is kind of funny when people at school are amazed at what I have and want to talk to me about it and ask questions. It's a bit flattering...it's just a computer afterall.

I do secretly like showing it off though.
 
I mean i am in high school with no job but my parents buy all my stuff. I guess i am part of the "snob" factor i do love to brag about what i have
 
notjustjay said:
Perhaps "rich" is in the eye of the beholder.

I have a basic bike that cost me $150. It does the job. Others spend hundreds, even thousands on bikes with features I couldn't even begin to understand. You could interpret it as them being rich enough to afford an expensive bike, or you could say they care about biking enough to invest in quality equipment for the job they want it to do (commuting, racing, whatever).

Others spend tons of money on golf clubs. Others on fixing up old cars. Others on their boats. You get the idea.

I spend a lot of money on my Mac (compared to a PC I could buy for $299) because I care about the experience and want a quality machine, not because I can wave it around like a status symbol. I do know one person who has been eyeing the Mac and wants to purchase one for himself because I can see in his eyes the resentment -- "if HE can afford to buy one, *I* certainly can too". HE may think of it as a status symbol. But that's his attitude, not mine.

We all spend money in certain ways (and not others). I scrimp where I need to so I can splurge elsewhere. I don't think that's the same as being snobbish or throwing money around.
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+1

im not rich and to give you an idea
my dad makes around 20k a year

i got the gbp as a gift from my sister
who makes over 100k a year, pharmacist :D

well that quote above pretty much says it all

i guess the real answer is that im WILLING to spend so much on a computer cause i care about the experience, etc..
 
I'll chime in about the market when I got my Macbook as well. When I got mine a few years ago, there was no comparable computer in the same price range. I paid 900.00 for my MacBook out the door, with the base model and base options. The cheapest Dell at the time was really slow. At least with this I get OSX, small well thought out laptop, and I can install XP on it as well so I can still run my Windows only programs (programs I don't want to re-buy is what I mean, eh).

I think it was the best decision I made because I used to have so many problems with Windows. Having to reinstall the OS every three months or more was a pain just to keep the OS floating at the same speed. It gets slow over time, fact. I don't have time to deal with that crap anymore. I want a computer that no matter how long I use it, it will continue to be as fast as Day 1.
 
A few months back, I bought my first iMac (24"). I'm not rich, but I decided to invest in the iMac for iPhone programming. I was so impressed with it, that I then invested in a MacBook Pro.

I can't afford either of these, but you have to speculate to accumulate. I believe that the apple hardware is perfect for the tasks I've got in store and I will get a return from the money I've spent.

I'll admit though - I do think there is a certain pretentious air about mac users. And now I'm one of them! :D Yes!
 
define snob...
someone who looks down their noses at others doing something different than them? perhaps yes, you will always get jumped-up little kids claiming the be all and end all is, and always will be, apple. these are usually the first to slam them for their own mistakes and problems they create, when they can't understand how to work, and end up breaking, their machines. bizarrely this eons old and tired debate of mac v pc never seems to die, but why is it the mac-ophiles that tend to get all uppity over it? dunno but maybe thats just some people...

do mac users have wadges of cash to splash? no. but optimum equipment does come at a price. for example I needed a solution to a problem, apple was able to meet and surpass my requirements so I got a mac. knowing I'd be good for a number of years. last time I updated my computer (pc) it was aimed at middle of the road level and in no way multicored at all. it still works but its up to the eyeballs in anti-viral software and malware removal stuff I just needed a fresh start. plus if you try and sort out a xeon 8 core pc its just as much if not much more(!) than the mac pro...

end of the day if it works for you great, no one tells you how to spend your money...I hope.
 
I have Rolex watches (among my collection), Louis Vuitton bags (among my collection), Gucci loafers (among my collection), a Mercedes and a MBP (although not the latest one). No i'm not kidding and No i am no a snob. I simply gain the pleasure of owning creations that are well-made. :p Do I judge others, no. People should be happy with the stuff they've got and disregard what others may perceive of them because of their possession.
 
Not everyone that owns a mac is rich, but a lot are. After all macs are pretty expensive.
 
I think to get an accurate answer you would need to sort out those who support themselves from the kids who get their goodies from their parents.

I have seen many, many kids who do not respect nor understand how expensive electronics are.

As for the snobbery from grown folks who buy their own, yes it does exist. I have had people tell me they wouldnt use a skin because it covers the apple and no one would know they had a mac.

Apple use to represent the most beautifully aesthetic technology going. I bought them for me, not to show friends/family/general public how cool I am. I like beautiful things, not necessarily expensive things. But aesthetics are important to me.
 
I don't know about students with 'rich parents'.

I've used macs for 20 years because they work well with the work I do. I guess yes, I can afford to chose high end products but I don't really think of apple as a stays symbol.

Most of the people I know who use Macs are in the desgin or film trades and, well apple is an obvious choice.

I do know some very wealthy people and they don't to my knowldge use macs and use blackberrys over iPhones!
 
In general, I like nice things and I work hard to have them (I'm not rich by any means; I'm a grad student with 2 jobs). I prefer quality over quantity. The things I have are nice, but I started with nothing and I've accumulated said things very slowly.

I like my mac. I'd never go back. Some things are worth the money to have the quality you want. I'd rather dump 2k into a laptop and use it for 4 years than replace my windows laptop every 8 months and rip my hair out in the process.
 
as most college students i have no job and barely have any money. I needed a macbook pro for film school, so i can use final cut pro ect ect. So by no means am i rich. Maybe this is just a stereo type mac has, because they charge a hefty price for their products, but you get what you pay for. If you compare a mac to a similar pc they actually cost almost the same. In most cases the pc costs more.
 
JBazz said:
I think to get an accurate answer you would need to sort out those who support themselves from the kids who get their goodies from their parents.

I have seen many, many kids who do not respect nor understand how expensive electronics are.
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I'm a college student, so I've seen tons of that.

I saw somebody spill soda all over a 17" MBP at lunch and then just toss it in the trash can. There was a girl in another one of my classes who brought both of her iPhones and her gold-plated MBP to class and never paid attention, brought her friends in and just disrupted class. Another guy that sat behind me in an English class got a new BMW 'just because', to borrow from the other poster's phrasing. That's not even including the kid who went through 3 Ferrari's because he kept wrecking them...

I've seen tons of kids who get spoiled like this. Some of them are pretty down to earth and it doesn't seem to affect them, but a lot of 'those kids' tend to not have any sort of concept of money since they've never had to pay for anything, and it's really sad, really.

For the people who make enough to afford all that stuff, I don't have a problem. But I think throwing cash at kids does more harm than good.
 
I'm another relatively new Mac user (since early January this year), who is *definitely* nowhere near even the "upper middle class" category, let alone "rich".

What I *am* lucky enough to have are some decent stocks, and was able to purchase my Mac Pro using those, because frankly, it would take me almost a year to save that much cash in the usual way.

So why didn't I go for something less expensive? Because Steve won't let me. I've been spoiled by desktop PCs for almost the past 20 years, and I just can't go from having expandability to getting an iMac with a laptop-grade processor and a built-in screen, which means that if something happens to it, I'm stuck without a computer.

My only real option was the Mac Pro for being a headless desktop computer, but I'll tell you what - I bought myself enough power to last me the next 5-7 years at least, and thanks to how stable and secure (and virus/spyware-free) OS X is, I will *NOT* be going back to a PC.

Is that snobby? I don't think so. The higher-quality components and better OS make it *worth* a price premium. "You get what you pay for" is particularly true with computer hardware.
 
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