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Macbook Pro- Priced out of the market

B

BiggAW

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jun 19, 2010
2,563
176
Connecticut
I'm wondering if Apple has priced themselves clear out of the laptop market. I remember a time about 5 years ago when Apples and PCs weren't that far off for the equivalent hardware (although PCs still had a much lower starting price with stripped down hardware). Now, as PCs have become dirt cheap, Apple gets more and more expensive. There's definitely a price premium they can demand, but they seem to have gone off the deep end.

With all flash storage, in order to get a 1TB drive, the base price on a MBP is now $2300 or $2800, depending on size. There is the one 13" MBP left with a hard drive, but it looks like they are killing them off. This just seems insane. Thoughts?
 
well when you look at the 5c and the ipad 2 that they're still selling at premium prices, it's very difficult not to call them greedy.
 
Compared to earlier MB and MBP prices, the new ones are right in line. On a value and longevity basis, I think they are a very good value.

Hell, not having to run Windows is worth quite a lot. :D
 
Insanely high prices, NON-user upgradable, disposable machines is a trend I am not happy about either. I'm glad I have the last rev of the 15" cMBP that can grow with me over time.

I won't have to make this choice for a while, but I'd be hard pressed to justify buying the new 15" MBP with these prices.
 
Apple does not compete well with cheap laptops that's for sure. But its laptops are very competitively priced with other expensive laptops. For example, I do not think you can get a retina quality display 13 inch display, 128SSD, and 4 GB ram for under $1299 from other manufacturers.
 
definitive said:
well when you look at the 5c and the ipad 2 that they're still selling at premium prices, it's very difficult not to call them greedy.
Click to expand...

I believe this is strategic. The 5c and ipad 2 are there mostly to make people choose to buy the 5s and ipad air. "It's ONLY $100 more".

As for their laptops, if you HAVE to use mac os and mac software, then they don't have any competition. So they can charge whatever they want. But I also think that the price includes great service and apple stores are very accessible. So, you're not only buying the product, but warranty, service, support. There are many people who buy apple just for the peace of mind. They can go and see someone face to face if they have problems, like older folks who have never used computers.

Disclaimer: I don't own a mac or ipad. I'm an android and windows user. But I do use an iphone 5. I believe in enjoying all and hating none (maybe blackberry, yuck!).
 
Laco said:
Apple does not compete well with cheap laptops that's for sure. But its laptops are very competitively priced with other expensive laptops. For example, I do not think you can get a retina quality display 13 inch display, 128SSD, and 4 GB ram for under $1299 from other manufacturers.
Click to expand...

You're correct here, at least for the 13" model. The 15" is another beast, but premium, workstation-class computers tend to hover around $1800 and up for similar build quality and specs.

Check this out --

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/yoga/yoga-2-pro/

That's the new Lenovo Yoga 2 ultrabook. They are around $1000-1100 pre-tax. Once you up the CPU some, the price rises. Then you have to factor in that the GPU is very poor on the Lenovo, and solid on the new rMBP. Sure, it has a tablet gimmick and touch screen, but core specs to core specs, you could spec that thing out and be just as high as Apple, but with a lesser GPU.

Sony's new "Pro" line is the same way. You can spec them in the same range as the rMBP, but it has a lesser GPU and lesser screen.

Apple is actually priced pretty competitively in most markets, if you really spec out 1:1 and select machines with similar build quality. Can you get cheaper? Sure, but there are drawbacks to be had.
 
Coming from over 25 years with PC's, I don't think Apple is pricing itself out of the market (especially with the price drops on the MBP's), and having used OS X for three weeks, I'd hate to know I had to return to Windows 8.

MBP's are not cheap, but Windows laptops with comparable specs are pretty pricey, too, especially if you get the high resolution models such as the new Dell XPS 15.

I replaced my Lenovo ThinkPad T500 with a refurbished mid-2012 rMBP 15". Both palm rests on the ThinkPad had cracked simply from office use, and the screen was really poor. The rMBP is a much more solid and better built computer.

That said, I love competition and hope that it will give us even better computers at lower price points.
 
They may price out a few people, but the higher margin on each product makes up for the discrepancy in terms of the bottom line. Basically, Apple could care less if you can't afford their product, because their are plenty of people that can, and the higher price those people pay more than makes up for the lack of your business.

As an investor, not a consumer, I think it is a good strategy because they maintain themselves as a premium, luxury, and aspirational brand. If they offered their computers at a lower price and made them out of plastic like everyone else, they would not be any different than Dell, HP, etc.

Also, they dropped the prices on most products, and offer almost all of their non-pro software is free as of today.

EDIT: I won't argue the price to GB ration issue from the transition to flash. However, I remember when you could order a $3700 MacBook Pro 17" (about five years ago).
 
Last edited:
BiggAW said:
I'm wondering if Apple has priced themselves clear out of the laptop market. I remember a time about 5 years ago when Apples and PCs weren't that far off for the equivalent hardware (although PCs still had a much lower starting price with stripped down hardware). Now, as PCs have become dirt cheap, Apple gets more and more expensive. There's definitely a price premium they can demand, but they seem to have gone off the deep end.

With all flash storage, in order to get a 1TB drive, the base price on a MBP is now $2300 or $2800, depending on size. There is the one 13" MBP left with a hard drive, but it looks like they are killing them off. This just seems insane. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

There will always be those who prefer a Mercedes/BMW/Audi to a Civic even though both have the same basic functions/purpose/and capabilities. It's not hard at all to test your hypothesis. Simply look at current/upcoming sales data and revenue numbers along with market share percentage to see if Apple has indeed priced themselves out of the game. I have a hunch your findings may in fact surprise you.
 
Gotta admire the flexibility of some, in order to bend over backwards to justify the prices.
 
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Count Blah said:
Insanely high prices, NON-user upgradable, disposable machines is a trend I am not happy about either. I'm glad I have the last rev of the 15" cMBP that can grow with me over time.

I won't have to make this choice for a while, but I'd be hard pressed to justify buying the new 15" MBP with these prices.
Click to expand...

This has been happening forever.

Can you upgrade the CPU on a 2010 Macbook Pro? How about the graphics card? How about add a MADI interface with low latency for mobile recording via expresscard?

Doh, they don't have expresscard... the CPU is soldered onto the board, as is the GPU.

Laptops in GENERAL have been going in this direction for a long time, and Apple is no different. They're just ahead of the curve. People yelled bloody murder when GPUs & CPUs got soldered onto the mainboard of Apple laptops, tell me now if even more than 5% of the laptops in best buy have socketed/discrete CPU or GPU.

Customer support that tells you to buy a new computer when you break off your headphones inside the jack is something that's been going on for over five years. This whole "disposable computer" culture didn't start with the retina or the air - it's been going on for a long time! You are just now noticing it.

Memory upgrades offer minimal performance boosts. By the time a laptop is old enough that it needs a memory upgrade from whatever is available stock it often makes barely a **** difference. Take an A1181 from 2006 for example. You can put 2 GB or 4 GB in that machine, it is still a piece of **** by all means.

Users can't put their own SSD in, they need to buy Apple's, but you're probably used to that as a Mac owner anyway. Can't buy my displayport to HDMI cable in the store, I need to buy it from Apple. Can't buy a B156XW02 V.6 that fits 2000 other laptops when my screen breaks, I need to get an LP133WP1 that takes an hour to install and costs over $150.

Apple knows what people are willing to put up with and willing to live without. People want thinner, sleeker, faster. The average user could care less about upgrade-ability, or about being tied into proprietary Apple nonsense. If anything, sales went up - people wanted more!! Apple delivered.



----------
justin216 said:
You're correct here, at least for the 13" model. The 15" is another beast, but premium, workstation-class computers tend to hover around $1800 and up for similar build quality and specs.

Check this out --

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/yoga/yoga-2-pro/

That's the new Lenovo Yoga 2 ultrabook. They are around $1000-1100 pre-tax. Once you up the CPU some, the price rises. Then you have to factor in that the GPU is very poor on the Lenovo, and solid on the new rMBP. Sure, it has a tablet gimmick and touch screen, but core specs to core specs, you could spec that thing out and be just as high as Apple, but with a lesser GPU.

Sony's new "Pro" line is the same way. You can spec them in the same range as the rMBP, but it has a lesser GPU and lesser screen.

Apple is actually priced pretty competitively in most markets, if you really spec out 1:1 and select machines with similar build quality. Can you get cheaper? Sure, but there are drawbacks to be had.
Click to expand...

When using Lenovo as a basis for comparison, anything other than the Thinkpad T or W series is easy to make fun of. They did a great job of continuing what IBM started, and a silly job in some aspects trying to branch out & make their own lineups. A lot of the lower end is as bad as the HP/Toshiba $326 crap you see in best buy and a lot of their higher-end-non-thinkpads wind up being as silly as the upper echelon of Sony's concept car like designs.
 
Orr said:
There will always be those who prefer a Mercedes/BMW/Audi to a Civic even though both have the same basic functions/purpose/and capabilities. It's not hard at all to test your hypothesis. Simply look at current/upcoming sales data and revenue numbers along with market share percentage to see if Apple has indeed priced themselves out of the game. I have a hunch your findings may in fact surprise you.
Click to expand...

Count Blah said:
Gotta admire the flexibility of some, in order to bend over backwards to justify the prices.
Click to expand...

I assume your comment was intended towards me so I figured I'd respond. I'm actually very happy with the price points of the current models released today. I wasn't aware that I was being bent over backwards, although maybe I was and simply failed to notice. If I didn't like what Apple offered or felt that the goods and services they are offering weren't worth the asking price, I would have gone a different direction plain and simple. This is one of the nice things about a free (or at least semi-free) market that we currently enjoy.
 
apple's smart. the consumer laptop industry is dead. the day of high volume, low profits is over. dell and hp have literally priced themselves out of the market. the cheap laptops of yesteryear are the tablets of today.

apple just needs to make a profit. they found a price segment that they can exploit and they're exploiting it.
 
Last edited:
BiggAW said:
I'm wondering if Apple has priced themselves clear out of the laptop market. I remember a time about 5 years ago when Apples and PCs weren't that far off for the equivalent hardware (although PCs still had a much lower starting price with stripped down hardware). Now, as PCs have become dirt cheap, Apple gets more and more expensive. There's definitely a price premium they can demand, but they seem to have gone off the deep end.

With all flash storage, in order to get a 1TB drive, the base price on a MBP is now $2300 or $2800, depending on size. There is the one 13" MBP left with a hard drive, but it looks like they are killing them off. This just seems insane. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

So all the 13" retina MBPs don't count? Show me an equivalent 13" PC at the same price.
 
neteng101 said:
Only an insane person buys a laptop with a hard drive these days!

/thoughts
Click to expand...

Ah....no.

Contrary to popular belief on this forum, there are plenty of people who value storage space over speed.

"Upgraded" from a 1TB SSHD Hybrid to 250 GB SSD....While fast, 250 GB is rather cramped. If you want any decent amount of storage it's going to cost a fortune in SSD. SSDs are getting there, but they have a long way to go before they start appearing in sub $1000 laptops.

The college student with 300GB iPhoto library, 100GB iTunes library, and 100GB Steam Game Library could care less if his/her machine boots up in 5 nanoseconds.
 
TechZeke said:
Ah....no.

Contrary to popular belief on this forum, there are plenty of people who value storage space over speed.

"Upgraded" from a 1TB SSHD Hybrid to 250 GB SSD....While fast, 250 GB is rather cramped. If you want any decent amount of storage it's going to cost a fortune in SSD. SSDs are getting there, but they have a long way to go before they start appearing in sub $1000 laptops.

The college student with 300GB iPhoto library, 100GB iTunes library, and 100GB Steam Game Library could care less if his/her machine boots up in 5 nanoseconds.
Click to expand...

Ironically, as a college student myself, I DO care if my laptop is able to boot up under 5 nano seconds. Sucks when u wake up early morning trying to finish up that assignment on ur laptop only to find it being stuck on the boot up screen for hours on end - due to system updates or whatsoever. I use an external 7.2k rpm hdd for my entertainment nonsense. #
 
BiggAW said:
I'm wondering if Apple has priced themselves clear out of the laptop market. I remember a time about 5 years ago when Apples and PCs weren't that far off for the equivalent hardware (although PCs still had a much lower starting price with stripped down hardware). Now, as PCs have become dirt cheap, Apple gets more and more expensive. There's definitely a price premium they can demand, but they seem to have gone off the deep end.

With all flash storage, in order to get a 1TB drive, the base price on a MBP is now $2300 or $2800, depending on size. There is the one 13" MBP left with a hard drive, but it looks like they are killing them off. This just seems insane. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

It looks to me you are not all that well aware of PC pricing. These Macs are in line with the market for these parts (some premium on some models). If what you are looking for 500-600$ laptops, you won't find those in Apple because they simply don't make laptops with such cheap parts... But you have refurbs and ebay to find models from 2 or 3 years ago for those prices.
 
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