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Is apple hardware really overpriced?

A

Arminator

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 10, 2010
51
0
Hi,
Im new to the macuniverse, and as so much people i had long time the prejudice that apple products are overpriced.
Since ive bought the iPhone, im starting to think different.

My case is that i need a new laptop, which is portable enough for daily use in university, but has enough power to play a game. (Two times in a year i need to participate in a LAN party, and moreover i need to train a bit before).

So i think a 13" modell would be best for me, which is why i looked around in the 13" world. As i dont want a laptop lasting not longer than 2 years, lowquality builds like acers is no option for me. But when i checked the prices for IBM and Dell, i couldnt find the big differences to the 13" apple.

So is apple reall that much overpriced, especially when theres the revision (soon to come)?
 
I agree, the 13" model isn't THAT overpriced. But the 15" & 17" are very overpriced. It seems that to get a decent 13" you have to spend about £1000 whichever manufacturer you go to.
 
Overpriced is really in the eye of the buyer, the way I look at it. Hardware wise yes: pound for pound you can get much more machine in a PC than you can in a mac. What keeps selling the machines is the overall user EXPERIENCE and Apple's customer service.

What OS X delivers is a headache free user experience. i don't have tons of crapware I have to take off a brand new machine. I don't have to go in and clean out the registry, disable a lot of useless [to me] windows processes. no constant disc cleanup and defrag. No constant tinkering to get the OS running the way it should have from the factory. Nope, when you buy a mac, you turn it on, put in your name, disable spotlight search permanently [personal preference]. . and you're good to go :)

Yes, I realize I'm mostly tossing out Apple's sales pitch, but it *IS* what sells a lot of these machines. I think it's worth taking the time to remember that hardware alone does not a great machine make. I spend a lot of time working on cleaning/restoring/tweaking the PCs of the untrained user. When I come home at the end of the day, the last thing i want is to spend the same ammount of time screwing with my OWN machine because I can't get it performing the way I feel it should.

Features like time machine, contacts/calendar syncing with iPhone. . .these are icing just the nice refinements that keep me here, rather than getting frustrated with the either 2 week backorder or failed core iX release. Yea, I could get something like:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220695

And I could save a lot of cash. But it's not gonna handle like I want it to. It's not going to DO what I want it to. It's. . . not a mac /shrug

my $.02 take it with a grain of salt ^^
 
Arminator said:
My case is that i need a new laptop, which is portable enough for daily use in university, but has enough power to play a game. (Two times in a year i need to participate in a LAN party, and moreover i need to train a bit before).

So i think a 13" modell would be best for me,
Click to expand...

The only thing is that the 13" model lacks a discrete graphics card. For games, that makes a huge difference. You might consider the 15" if you can wait until Apple releases the next model (hopefully next week sometime but you never can tell).
 
Arminator said:
Hi,
Im new to the macuniverse, and as so much people i had long time the prejudice that apple products are overpriced.
Since ive bought the iPhone, im starting to think different.

My case is that i need a new laptop, which is portable enough for daily use in university, but has enough power to play a game. (Two times in a year i need to participate in a LAN party, and moreover i need to train a bit before).

So i think a 13" modell would be best for me, which is why i looked around in the 13" world. As i dont want a laptop lasting not longer than 2 years, lowquality builds like acers is no option for me. But when i checked the prices for IBM and Dell, i couldnt find the big differences to the 13" apple.

So is apple reall that much overpriced, especially when theres the revision (soon to come)?
Click to expand...

Hardware wise, yes. Unless you definitely want to run mac os, you're better off elsewhere. If you are for form over function, then this is also for you.

With that aside, the main reason to own a Mac is for... surprise running mac OS. If you plan to run windows then
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...52921665992051&categoryId=8198552921644569395

is a better bet with more ram, discrete graphics so you can game, and such.

Else if you plan to dabble in the mac world, the current Macbook is on sale at microcenter without any rebates for 799, and it has the same/better specs as the 13 inch macbook pro base model. And I know the naysayers will show up lol, I own the base model of the 13 macbook pro and have purchased 2 of the new plastic models for family. The screen isn't really noticibly worse for most people, infact I like how it is about 2-3 times brighter than my 13 pro screen even after I had apple replace the screen, with significantly less yellow. The thing also boots faster than my umbp. Oh, and you'll be missing firewire and an SD card slot, but then again it's 300$ cheaper. At 799 I would say it's not really much more expensive hardware wise than a comparable pc. laptop that doesn't use CULV.

Oh don't let people convince you that you are "future proofing" when you buy. There's no such thing in technology. Computers are becoming more of a commodity item, almost like a rental. Back in the day you bought thousands of dollars worth of computer and expected it to last years.. sorta like a kitchenaid stand mixer. Nowadays, its easier to take the same money and buy 1 step down from the newest and take the rest of the money and save it to buy the next upgrade in 1 year or so that would be so much faster than the top of the line model you would buy now anyways.
 
Apple stays out of the low-cost pc market.

They stay on the high-end of things.

And Apple never drops the price even though the price of components fall.

That's how they get the over-priced rap.

Anyway the best time to get a Mac is at the beginning of the lifecycle aka when a refresh happens. That's when they are most price competitive. And not over-priced.
 
There is such a thing called the apple tax, so pound for pound over similarly configured machines, apple will be more expensive then dell or HP.

A few months back, I recall comparing a dell laptop and a 15" MBP. The dell was about 600 to 900 dollars cheaper. Same CPU, screen, HD, etc. The only major difference was dell was using a different GPU. I'm not sure if it was a better or worse component (it was not an intel integrated GPU).

This comparison was typical of prior times, I've done that exercise. That is you pay more for apples then other computers.
 
wilro15 said:
I agree, the 13" model isn't THAT overpriced. But the 15" & 17" are very overpriced. It seems that to get a decent 13" you have to spend about £1000 whichever manufacturer you go to.
Click to expand...

I can get a decent 13" Dell laptop for $600 USD, with comparable specs to the MacBook.
 
The other day for the fun of it I configured a Dell laptop and desktop as close as I knew to its Mac counterpart, and the Dell came out 10-20 percent less, but that doesn't tell the whole story. iWork costs less than Office. Anti-virus software can be $50 a year. The case and materials on the Dell look of less quality than the Mac. There are Apple stores to go to when you have issues/questions, there are no Dell stores. I would think that if I configured a higher end PC, e.g. a Sony or a Northwest Falcon, to the same spec's as a Mac the price would be even closer, if not even with a Mac.

I was surprised with all the talk of Apple being overpriced I thought the Dell would come out 30 percent less, but around a 15% gap isn't so bad.

I should add I was configuring higher end Dells to compare to a MBA and to a Mac Pro. The hardest part was selecting the GPU to match ones on the Mac Pro
 
in short, yea its overpriced. and its definitely overpriced as it nears the end of the cycle. u will hear people sitting on their laurels and rave about how great OSX is because it gives u a "head-ache free experience" or how you won't get viruses like PCs. its all ********. sorry to burst ur bubble. pc and macs are more or less the same.
 
Mindinversion said:
Overpriced is really in the eye of the buyer, the way I look at it. Hardware wise yes: pound for pound you can get much more machine in a PC than you can in a mac. What keeps selling the machines is the overall user EXPERIENCE and Apple's customer service.

What OS X delivers is a headache free user experience. i don't have tons of crapware I have to take off a brand new machine. I don't have to go in and clean out the registry, disable a lot of useless [to me] windows processes. no constant disc cleanup and defrag. No constant tinkering to get the OS running the way it should have from the factory. Nope, when you buy a mac, you turn it on, put in your name, disable spotlight search permanently [personal preference]. . and you're good to go :)

Yes, I realize I'm mostly tossing out Apple's sales pitch, but it *IS* what sells a lot of these machines. I think it's worth taking the time to remember that hardware alone does not a great machine make. I spend a lot of time working on cleaning/restoring/tweaking the PCs of the untrained user. When I come home at the end of the day, the last thing i want is to spend the same ammount of time screwing with my OWN machine because I can't get it performing the way I feel it should.

Features like time machine, contacts/calendar syncing with iPhone. . .these are icing just the nice refinements that keep me here, rather than getting frustrated with the either 2 week backorder or failed core iX release. Yea, I could get something like:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220695

And I could save a lot of cash. But it's not gonna handle like I want it to. It's not going to DO what I want it to. It's. . . not a mac /shrug

my $.02 take it with a grain of salt ^^
Click to expand...

On the software front, I agree with you (apart from spotlight).

Apart from the software, apple hardware may be overpriced by 10-15% but it is definitely worth it in the long run.

My roommate's Dell which he purchased for $1200 literally fell apart in his hands after 1 year of use. The build quality was pure flimsy and don't get me started on the display. The trackpad was unusable and scrolling was a pain.

I personally feel that Apple does a great job with the aesthetics of the computer, making sure that everything's built to last and that's one of the major factors in me waiting for the MBP refresh instead of buying a PC laptop.

And Mac's have good resale value.

The bottom line is:
Yes, you can find similarly configured PC's for cheaper but nothing in the market beats a macbook/macbookpro for reliability and durability.

Note: The arguments above are void for the current line of MBP.
 
The important thing is to consider not only the initial cash outlay, but the overall cost associated with the product over its useful life. Most of us tend to focus on the former, but not so much on the latter. Apple products may not seem so attractive from the perspective of the initial expense, but their design, robustness, and customer service make them very attractive once looking at them from the overall perspective.
 
Luba Cox said:
The other day for the fun of it I configured a Dell laptop and desktop as close as I knew to its Mac counterpart, and the Dell came out 10-20 percent less, but that doesn't tell the whole story. iWork costs less than Office. Anti-virus software can be $50 a year. The case and materials on the Dell look of less quality than the Mac. There are Apple stores to go to when you have issues/questions, there are no Dell stores. I would think that if I configured a higher end PC, e.g. a Sony or a Northwest Falcon, to the same spec's as a Mac the price would be even closer, if not even with a Mac.
Click to expand...

iWork is no Microsoft Office my friend. iWork lacks many, many features of Office. iWork is more comparable to Microsoft Works, which is on price parity to iWork (though I'll give iWork the feature edge).

Anyone with a brain knows MSSE, Avast, and AVG are more than good. This should not be a factor, as those free AVs are more than fine.

Apple stores are definitely a plus, but how often do power users need to go there?

And my Sony has a 16" 1080p screen, 6GB of RAM, Core i7 CPU, nVidia 330M. It looks nice, sure it doesn't have Apple style, but I got that all for $1349. Can't beat that price.
 
Boy, do I get tired of these comments about poor reliability from manufacturers other than Apple. I've had two Dell laptops and two Thinkpads, and each performed flawlessly until I decided to retire them after several years of heavy use. My office laptop is a third Dell, and it runs all day long and has not so much as hiccuped in two years of use. If you check out forums for Dell and Lenovo, you don't typically see nearly as many posts about motherboard replacements that you see on the Apple forums.

Apple products are prettier (although you'll find Thinkpad users who love the industrial look) and Apple's marketing about things "just working" has convinced many buyers to pay more for the same hardware functionality. On the OS side, it's also a matter of personal preference. I'm happy with my 13" MBP, and I'm also happy with my current Dell 15" laptop and Dell desktop (both running Win 7). Apple can get away with charging higher prices because customers are willing to pay those prices for now.
 
Lol I don't think any Macs are overpriced... For how much easier to use they are than the Winboxes I've used. For one I don't need a password to open my web browser.... lol
 
nmrrjw66 said:
The Macbooks are nothing more than overpriced fashion accessories. What you get for $2000 is a joke. The iMacs and Mac Pros are a different story.
Click to expand...

Hmm not really.

Even tho the 27" imac is currently the best deal in the whole apple line up, it's only somewhat good because of how recent the refresh was.

Mac Pros are probably the worse investment you can make in your whole life. They are way overrated for 3000$ you have about 1000$ of PC.

Yes you'll get the cpu but with like 3gb of rams, last decade's gpu, small hdd (and plz pay 600$ for the 6tb, wtf is that?)

Upgrades on a mac pro are at ridiculous prices.

Now getting back on the imac.. yes it's a all in one and not a desktop.. but in the end, I'd rather only have my normal sized monitors + keyboard and mice on my desk rather than this HUUUUGE thing that could be so much smaller if it was only a screen... the tower is under the desk anyway, I don't even see it.. considering this, my desktop set up is smaller than any imac.

Also, imacs are quite weak for their prices... Considering how easy it is to build your own machine (or have someone build it for you) and how unimportant design is compared to the laptops... the imacs and mac pros aren't good deals at all.. I'd consider the mbp to be the good deal in the apple line up because this is where design/build quality/small size matters the most.. (and they have superior battery life) See... the two advantages of macbooks and macbook pros are 2 features that aren't even considered when we talk about imacs or mac pros.

and one last thing... it's so much easier to get os x running on a desktop than on a laptop...
 
mrsir2009 said:
I disagree. Laptop parts are more expensive, and for $2000 you can get a pretty good MBP. I've got a $2000 13" MBP and its great :D
Click to expand...

I'd like to add that the MBP is great mostly for its aesthetics (that includes build quality, design, how slim it is, the pad and keyboard, the ports placement) and battery life rather than for its specs.

Specs wise it's very easy to get better for cheaper... especially just before the mbp upgrades... however, even once they refresh, the pcs will still be much cheaper for specs..

It's important to consider that today, there are things more important than specs for a lot of people when we talk about a laptop... That's why the macbooks sell well.
 
Arminator said:
Hi,
Im new to the macuniverse, and as so much people i had long time the prejudice that apple products are overpriced.
Since ive bought the iPhone, im starting to think different.

My case is that i need a new laptop, which is portable enough for daily use in university, but has enough power to play a game. (Two times in a year i need to participate in a LAN party, and moreover i need to train a bit before).

So i think a 13" modell would be best for me, which is why i looked around in the 13" world. As i dont want a laptop lasting not longer than 2 years, lowquality builds like acers is no option for me. But when i checked the prices for IBM and Dell, i couldnt find the big differences to the 13" apple.

So is apple reall that much overpriced, especially when theres the revision (soon to come)?
Click to expand...

Yes overpriced somewhat, yet Apple offers the best looking computers inside and out IMHO.
 
I use both PCs and Macs. Some Apple hardware indeed is overpriced. The current Mac Pro lineup is a great example. Another is the accessory lineup, with high-markup items like $30 USB cables. There's a reason why the Apple retail stores rank #1 in terms of profit per square foot.

On the other hand, some Apple hardware that often gets knocked for the "Apple tax" actually is priced competitively. Take the MacBook Pro line, for instance. It's quite easy to find consumer-class notebooks with equivalent specs priced much lower than a MBP. A spec-for-price analysis, fails to consider aesthetics, design, durability, OS X support, and warranty support — aspects in which the MBPs arguably trump all other notebooks in the consumer space. It is perfectly reasonable that Apple would demand a premium for those qualities of the product.

When business-class notebooks are considered, it is easier to find products that surpass the MBP in almost all aspects excepting aesthetics and OS X support. Business-class PCs are available with better specs, better durability, and better warranty support. However, those products will often cost more than the equivalent Apple notebook and require concessions in other qualities (e.g. portability). For instance, the HP EliteBook 8540w I just configured has an asking price of $4044.

A separate argument is the worth of the Apple brand identity. Sure, a MBP looks great at Starbucks. It also looks great in my client's boardroom. You might be paying a little for that Apple logo, but in some cases having the logo is not worthless.

"Apple is overpriced" is true of some products, but typically not as many as us PC users want to believe.
 
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