Is the price justified?

[kirbs]

Alright all I am asking is, is the price between a top of the line macbook, and a macbook pro justified in the spec. bumps one receives over the other?

Macbook 2.4 with 4 gb of ram and apple care: $1817(student discount)

Macbook pro 2.53 250Gb HD, and apple care: $2493(student discount)

I dont have to pay tax on either.
The difference is $675

I'm not debating which one is better for what purpose or for what I need. Just solely on what you get for your dollar.

Thanks for your CONSTRUCTIVE and PERTINENT feedback.

 

[yoppie]

Only you can determine that for yourself. What's justifiable is how much you're willing to pay without regret.

 

[Phrasikleia]

It's just barely worth it.

I'm curious: where can you get both the edu discount and no tax?

 

[derryquinn]

It's just barely worth it.

I'm curious: where can you get both the edu discount and no tax?

When he buys it through the Education Store and pays with his dad's company's credit card...

His dad claims VAT back on it, and he pays his dad the price excluding VAT on it... Or so I'd imagine...


Am I right?

 

[Eddyisgreat]

I'm not debating which one is better for what purpose or for what I need. Just solely on what you get for your dollar.

But that's exactly what determines what is the better value for you, the consumer.

Dollar for Dollar , The Macbook will be your best bet UNLESS you utilize FW800, the extra real estate and ehnanced graphics capabilities.

If your a computer programmer, that 600 extra dollars is worth the price for the extra real estate.

If you are a gamer, that extra 600 dollars will be worth the price for additional gaming capabilities.

If you've invested heavily in Firewire Gear, that 600 dollars will be worth the price to maintain connectivity to your devices, unless you can score 600 dollars worth of USB Gear that'll replace your firewire hardware.

 

[Nikklaus]

if you want a good panel then the extra $675 is worth it. huuuge difference in quality.

 

[kirbs]

No tax= Portland Oregon

I was asking from a purely technical standpoint, is apple overcharging for those upgrades. I'm not trying to justify those prices as in terms of worth to me and practicality. As in are they just increasing the price because it says pro and is slightly faster or does the hardware actually warrant the high price tag. Does that make sense?

 

[alanlindsay]

Points to consider:

1. Firewire is only available on MBP
2. More display real estate
3. Screen on MBP is much higher quality than MB (http://gizmodo.com/5063492/macbook-and-macbook-pro-dual-review)
4. Much higher graphics capability with 9600GT.
5. (2.53-2.4)/2.4 = 5.4% increase in CPU performance
6. 6MB cache instead of 3MB cache ( harder to quantify the advantage as it is task dependent )

These are the advantages you get for paying 37% more. Some of them are hard to quantify as they depend on your use. In my opinion, if you can afford it and the increased weight and footprint is not an issue, get the MBP.

Alan

 

[MowingDevil]

The higher end Macs have NEVER been good value for the money, you're paying premium price for a premium product (or so the logic goes). If you want value get a mini, iMac or MacBook. The MB & iMac have never been so powerful compared to the Pro lines so they've even better value than ever before.