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Microsoft Follows Apple By Hiking Price of Surface Book Laptops in the U.K.
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I didn't say they were making bad products. Apple level: popularity
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It is pricing gouging but ms don't need to follow that route. Apple is pulling this joke on their customers because of name brand. Ms don't need to follow that route.
Cheers, look forward to some sources on the upcoming boom for the UK. I must have missed it on the news. Could do with some uplifting news, so far Brexit has brought nothing but negative results for me personally. The weekly shop is more expensive, a lot of electronics are have gone up in price, savings rates are at historical lows etc. etc.
It's not a joke, it's basic economics. Lots have companies have moved to cover the fall in £, and many more will join, some I know of:
- Apple
- Microsoft
- Sonos
- Unilever Group (which inlcudes all sorts from food to cleaning products)
- Adobe
- HP
- Lenovo
- WMWare
- Musical instruments made abroad (like guitars: http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/80046/brexit-and-new-price-increases-already)
I'm sure the build is nice, but it's not "fantastic" or comparable to the MBP. The MBP is a work of art and Apple creates new manufacturing processes to build their laptops. Even the insides of the MBP is a work of art.
I had a chance to tear down a 2007 MBP and the internals were in par with today's dell. That's sad.
Adjusting for exchange rage changes (and there has been a big one) isn't price gouging.
Plus, the comparison in the article is misleading as usual: the UK prices include 20% VAT (sales tax) vs. US prices on top of which you may or may not (ask an American) pay sales tax.
Once you take this into account (and allow for the fact that exporting and internationalising a product, complying with more generous EU consumer rights, exchange fees etc.) then $1 = £1 for published retail prices is actually shooting in the right ballpark (in the past, when £1 was more like $2, VAT was lower and US companies still priced at £1=$, now that was gouging!)
The SurfaceBook has always been priced at Apple-like levels: whether you care to pay Apple prices for Microsoft kit is an interesting question...
What's more annoying is that the new, faster "Performance Base" option still isn't available in the UK, nor is the Surface Studio.
Enjoy overpaying. Also, what type of work do you do? I just have this sneaking suspicion it's not engineering.
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The Late-2016 13' MBP uses LDDR3, not DDR4.
I can just as easily buy my own NVMe drive and 16GB of RAM. Getting an i7 chassis with the screen, through a channel discount, new, runs around $1200. So after you procure the parts, call it $700 in savings vs the Mac.
Enjoy dongle land, I'll keep my ports.
...but anybody with investments in the stock market and a half-decent financial planner has been doing very nicely: as sterling falls, the sterling value of US/Internationally traded companies goes up, and the uncertainty is doing wonders for gold/mining prices...
So, yeah, vote Brexit and strike a blow for ordinary people against the elite establishment (said a bunch of ex-stockbrokers and wealthy right-wing politicians who think "ordinary people" are those with portfolios of less than £10m).
That's correct, though if you're gonna be pedantic about such minor differences, I might point out that carrying a 13-foot laptop does get a little unwieldy after a while.
OK, enjoy your frankenmachine. You clearly weren't in the market for the Mac in the first place.
I didn't know you were stupid until you admitted it. Never mind, if you relocate to one of the remaining EU countries you can join the other stupid people who enjoy being ripped off.
Like all reasonable people I voted to stay.
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It is hard to do that when something is worth it.
This is irrelevant.
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...-of-england-may-raise-forecast-for-uk-economy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/11/eu-has-lose-hard-brexit-uk-mark-carney-says/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...its-Brexit-NOT-biggest-risk-UK-s-economy.html
http://news.sky.com/story/bank-of-england-raises-uk-growth-forecast-again-to-2-for-2017-10753130
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/02/bank-of-england-uk-growth-forecast-economy-brexit
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...ead-of-brexit-high-court-verdict-and-bank-of/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...higher-pound-dips-125-investors-eye-eurozone/
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-sterling-idUKKBN15F0VD
As I said, price gouging... if you look at the last reports, the pound had its strongest January against the dollar since 2011 this year, and yet all the prices are going up...
The best example is Apples App Store, it's now increased its pricing so 1 pound equals 1 dollar, even though the pound is worth more. And how does that work out anyway because it's not like they import apps into the UK......
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https://www.theguardian.com/busines...-of-england-may-raise-forecast-for-uk-economy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/11/eu-has-lose-hard-brexit-uk-mark-carney-says/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...its-Brexit-NOT-biggest-risk-UK-s-economy.html
http://news.sky.com/story/bank-of-england-raises-uk-growth-forecast-again-to-2-for-2017-10753130
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/02/bank-of-england-uk-growth-forecast-economy-brexit
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...ead-of-brexit-high-court-verdict-and-bank-of/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...higher-pound-dips-125-investors-eye-eurozone/
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-sterling-idUKKBN15F0VD
As I said, price gouging... if you look at the last reports, the pound had its strongest January against the dollar since 2011 this year, and yet all the prices are going up...
The best example is Apples App Store, it's now increased its pricing so 1 pound equals 1 dollar, even though the pound is worth more. And how does that work out anyway because it's not like they import apps into the UK......
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...e-78-3m-iphones.2030398/page-14#post-24259505
Since you didn't get it the first time, I added notes to the chart.
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Nice, more fud then. Does your graph go back to 2011? Or do you know then the national news and their financial experts?
As I posted the links to, the pound in January 2017 had its strongest ever January against the dollar since 2011. But by all means post more graphs if you want. You'll be telling us we will have an emergency budget next, hmm else was it that said that......
Cannot wait to be out of the EU.
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Add to this list pretty much all of the main camera manufacturers.
http://www.exchangerates.org.uk/GBP-USD-exchange-rate-history-full.html
Facts say otherwise. Highest was on Jul 2, 2014. Lowest was on Jan 15, 2017.
Historical data dating back to 2009.
Well considering none of the doom and gloom predicted by financial experts has happened, I'll believe my facts thank you, considering it was all over the national press.
You've just reminded me of the one good thing the weaker £ has brought me, a slight boost in foreign share holdings. Thanks. Every cloud and all that...
Ah, all this I knew. You sold me "boom". These are revisions upward.
As I said, price gouging... if you look at the last reports, the pound had its strongest January against the dollar since 2011 this year, and yet all the prices are going up...
Since the vote the pound has nose dived, simple facts. I and others have posted the graphs. Yet you're talking about January. January is a step up, Brexit caused a fall down a whole flight of stairs.
I imagine if you had a US company that dealt in the UK you would've just absorbed the 15-25% increased cost of dealing in sterling.
1 dollar plus tax, which varies depending on state. Whereas the pound figure includes VAT of 20%.
These are basic mistakes that lots of people make when comparing UK to US prices.
Not happened? Weekly shops more expensive, imported goods more expensive, Unleaded price per litre Jan 2016 = 102.3p, Jan 2017 = 115.0p, interest rates cut to all time lows (which makes savings accounts even more useless). It goes on and on.
The doom and gloom has already set in for me. And like I said earlier there's very little I can see changing that. But I hope things do improve.
Oh an we're still in the EU at the moment.
Sure you can. When you enter the UK, you pay your 20% VAT, and at that point the price is the same, but you have no consumer rights whatsoever since you didn't buy in Europe. If there is a fault after 12 months and one day, the Apple Store in the UK can tell you to please take your Mac to the store in the USA where you bought it.
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Both Apple and Microsoft do this because the pound crashed. With the price changes and currency changes, Apple gets the same money from a Mac bought in the UK as a year before. Same for Microsoft.
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You know you can leave the EU right now, if any country outside the EU is willing to take you. Think about it. Instead of migrants taking your job away, you could be a migrant and take their job away.
The GBP has been at the lowest it's ever been according to data dating back to 2009. The facts are staring at you in the face and you refuse to believe it.
Your facts aren't facts if it's been disproven. #alternativefacts
It's very interesting what goes on in one's psychology to refuse to believe facts.
The problem is not that certain people don't believe facts. The problem is that no matter what they see, they will claim the alternative facts (previously known as blatant lies) to be true, and hope that someone will believe their lies.
You've just reminded me of the one good thing the weaker £ has brought me, a slight boost in foreign share holdings. Thanks. Every cloud and all that...
Ah, all this I knew. You sold me "boom". These are revisions upward.
Since the vote the pound has nose dived, simple facts. I and others have posted the graphs. Yet you're talking about January. January is a step up, Brexit caused a fall down a whole flight of stairs.
I imagine if you had a US company that dealt in the UK you would've just absorbed the 15-25% increased cost of dealing in sterling.
1 dollar plus tax, which varies depending on state. Whereas the pound figure includes VAT of 20%.
These are basic mistakes that lots of people make when comparing UK to US prices.
Not happened? Weekly shops more expensive, imported goods more expensive, Unleaded price per litre Jan 2016 = 102.3p, Jan 2017 = 115.0p, interest rates cut to all time lows (which makes savings accounts even more useless). It goes on and on.
The doom and gloom has already set in for me. And like I said earlier there's very little I can see changing that. But I hope things do improve.
Oh an we're still in the EU at the moment.
Petrol prices have absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, no idea why you brought that up:
http://www.vox.com/2016/11/30/13792788/crude-oil-prices-opec-cuts
And Tesco told Unilever they would not accept their price rises, in fact this is an interesting write up on it all, and remember the boss of Tesco was the boss of Unliever, he knows what he is talking about and slams anyone raising their prices using Brexit as an excuse:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...-time-for-the-black-friday-rush-a7424781.html
So it's rather confusing how you claim shopping is more expensive now? Mine isn't, perhaps your going to the wrong places?
Has the pound dropped, a bit yes, can corporations EASILY absorb that, of course they can, it goes up and down all the time, it's still price gouging using Brexit as an excuse. And considering all the reports claiming the UK economy is strong with a great outlook, even a Cook was praising the British would be perfectly fine (nothing to do with his 200 billion plus sat on Ireland's shores of course..)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/02/10/apple-boss-tim-cook-british-going-just-fine-brexit/
So you can carry on going on about Brexit if you want, and refuse to accept its price gouging, because it's not like the British consumer ever gets ripped off right? Rip Off Britain doesn't exist right?
And as for the doom and gloom, NO IT HAS NOT HAPPENED!!, do you want me to post all those articles and interviews of all those threats from all those experts, politicians and the Bank Of England about how we would totally collapse and have a Third World War if we voted to leave? In fact the Third World War, Mark Carney claiming utter doom and gloom which was the COMPLETE OPPOSITE to what he now claims, and the emergency hard budget, were my favorite doom mongering things.
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And the FACT is the Pound has just had its strongest January since 2011. So I've no ide why you refuse to accept that either?
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Because it's not a fact. The GBP is the lowest it's ever been according to data from 2009 to 2017.
From 2009 to 2017:
Highest: 1 GBP = 1.7161 USD on 02 Jul 2014
Lowest: 1 GBP = 1.2038 USD on 15 Jan 2017
There's my evidence. Where's yours?
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Petrol is priced in dollars. The pound has fallen sharply against the dollar. Compared with other countries and the effect that OPEC may or may not have on their prices, we are paying a bit more because our pound buys less of commodities priced in dollars.
The slightly mocking Independent article you linked does not exactly give weight to your argument if you read further. Supermarkets have been penny pinching via weight adjustments for some time, giving the illusion that food prices are stable. Supermarkets, like Tesco, do it to their own brand products by introducing 'new and improved' formulations; substituting expensive ingredients with cheaper ones.
You can absorb some currency fluctuations but only very temporarily. 20% is a huge chunk to swallow and the moves by Apple et al show that they have very little faith that the fall is a mere blip. A low pound is here to stay.