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Survey Shows Older and Cheaper iPhones and iPads Remain Popular, MacBook Pro is Best-Selling Mac

Anonymous Freak said:
I'm in the "these numbers don't make sense" category.

It seems truly insane that the Mac Pro outsells the Mac Mini.

And that the MacBook Pro outsells the MacBook Air.
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Pro has a more powerful CPU, user upgradeable ram, and 2 user upgradeable hard drive bays.

I have a 13" MBP, with 16 gig of ram, 256 gig SSD, and 1 TB HDD. MBA is not even an option for me. My boot time is 18 seconds, I have 400 gigs of work files, over 100 gig of games (must stop giving steam money in the sales).

Total cost to replace with the latest would be $1000 student price on the pro, $160 for the SSD, $100 for the HDD (with an optibay), and $80 for the ram. $1340 total. How much is an Air with over a terabyte of internal storage? Oh right, it doesn't exist. Not to mention that performance-wise, my machine will blow the air out of the water on photoshop performance which is critical to me.

The fact that I have an Ethernet port just seems to be kicking the air when it's down.

Basically my pro, as I have it configured, suits my needs perfectly and if I needed a computer I'd buy a non-retina pro tomorrow (and a Haswell pro will be hard to resist later this year), but if my only choices were an air or retina, I'd switch to windows first.

Anecdotes don't count for much but I talked a friend into buying a pro a few months ago, she has a business doing court transcription and the recordings are provided to her on CD. She uses her optical drive almost daily and not having one was a complete deal-breaker for her. She loves the computer, she's a total Apple convert, but she'd have to switch back if she couldn't get a small laptop with an optical drive. So there is some demand. And based on the numbers here, we're in the majority.
 
13" Macbook Pro is upgradeable

bassfingers said:
I don't understand.

The air is faster, more reliable and lighter. It has a better battery life and a higher resolution display. External storage is cheap, and external cd drives do the job just fine. There are very few valid reasons to buy a 13" MBP
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I have the 13" macbook pro. I like it because I can put two drives in it. I have a SSD in the main drive, and my 500GB HDD in an optical drive caddy. That way, I can partition my HDD for a dual boot, plus have a drive for internal backups. If I need more battery, I can just unmount my HDD and then mount it when I need it. I also have 8GB of RAM in it.

I would however switch because of the new PCIe SSD's.
 
thogin said:
I'm not buying those Mac mini numbers. The mini rocks! Especially since I just bought one. :)
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I really like the mini, I have a 2009 C2D 2.26 GHz which has been a fantastic machine and I wouldn't mind buying a new one to replace it. The only thing is every time I think about it, I also figure for $420 more, I get a keyboard, trackpad, 13" internal screen, optical drive, 6 hour UPS, and $100 iTunes gift card if I buy a cMBP.

I've had 2 MBP's since my last mini and I actually intended to buy the mini last time but just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger and got the laptop instead.
 
Yes, but ...

This survey just lumped all Macbook Pros together, so we don't know how many of the sales were for that 13" model. My guess is, not a whole heck of a lot -- because it's the 13" MBP you see everyone discounting right now. (Best Buy was taking $200 off on them as a "back to school sale", for example. The local Micro Center put it on sale as well.)

I will say though, it's debatable about the Air being "more reliable". My workplace issued out quite a few of them, after already having quite a few Macbook Pros in circulation -- and we've had more problems with Airs failing on us in one way or another. Many had video issues on the motherboards, for example. They're generally a great little notebook, but I doubt they rank real high in Apple's list of most dependable/reliable systems ever built.

They're also less attractive with the non-upgradable RAM and the fact they tend to only come with 4GB. Yes, they have an 8GB version, but it's always a custom/special order and costs more than it should.


bassfingers said:
I don't understand.

The air is faster, more reliable and lighter. It has a better battery life and a higher resolution display. External storage is cheap, and external cd drives do the job just fine. There are very few valid reasons to buy a 13" MBP
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buckers said:
I'm surprised the Mac Pro has been out-selling the Mac Mini
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Last iteration of computer upgrades at work, I asked for a Mini instead if the (same priced) PC. It's a great little computer! I've been very happy with it as my desktop machine.

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scottsjack said:
That's no surprise to me. My oldest Mac is a late 2008 MBP and I am still using an iPhone 3GS 32GB.
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The only reason I replaced my 3GS was I wanted a better camera. Otherwise I was perfectly content with it.

That 3GS is now serving as our "home phone" (my wife didn't want to give up the number we've had for 20+ years, and thanks to T-Mobile its only costing us $10/month). It's still a fine phone.
 
Mac mini sales are in the toilet. Might we suggest twice the height, put in 4 memory slots and include a PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot?

I'd bet you the models would fly off the shelf.
 
bassfingers said:
I don't understand.

The air is faster, more reliable and lighter. It has a better battery life and a higher resolution display. External storage is cheap, and external cd drives do the job just fine. There are very few valid reasons to buy a 13" MBP
Click to expand...

After reading so many responses to your quote nobody looked at the actual consumer only the prosumer. From all my friends in college that just need a simple laptop to write papers the number one reason why they got the mbp over the MBA was the disc drive. And when I asked them when the last time they used the disk drive was they all said it didn't matter because now they have it just incase.
 
Oracle1729 said:
Pro has a more powerful CPU, user upgradeable ram, and 2 user upgradeable hard drive bays.
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Oh, I know fully well that the Pro series systems are much more powerful than the non-Pros (both MacBook and Mac,) but the numbers still feel wrong. Maybe if those numbers are "dollars" instead of "raw numbers"...

I know in my local Apple Store, I see far more MacBook Airs coming in and going out than Pros (both conventional and Retina.) And I'm not sure I've seen more than one Mac Pro come or go.

And you'd expect the MacBook Pro to be wildly popular over the Air in corporate environments. That was true for a long time - but I now see more corporate users with Airs than Pros. At my company (I'm not in IT, but I sit right next to them,) we're now bringing in nearly twice as many Airs as Pros - and we give employees the choice! We don't have a single Mac Pro in the house, but plenty of iMacs and Minis. Even among our software developers. (Again, they're given the choice - they use the Linux boxes in the data farm for the big compiling jobs, and use their lower-end systems for the "little daily compiles". Although it helps that our software is almost all Java, so not much actual compiling to do - and the major non-Java part is outsourced.)
 
mdriftmeyer said:
Mac mini sales are in the toilet. Might we suggest twice the height, put in 4 memory slots and include a PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot?

I'd bet you the models would fly off the shelf.
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I did not buy because of the HDMI (crushed whites etc). May buy a MacPro instead...
 
Jaredly said:
And when I asked them when the last time they used the disk drive was they all said it didn't matter because now they have it just incase.
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A good point and the same principle probably applies to the HDD for a lot of buyers for that cheap Macbook Pro 13" non-Retina. Even if they do not need all the space, many of them probably feel like they want to have the space just in case and do not really know or care how slow it is compared to an SSD, and they'll gladly sacrifice the resolution for the cheap price tag. The resiliency of the old Macbook Pro 13" model is an interesting case study in how a "safe" product can really satisfice a certain buying segment.
 
Jaredly said:
After reading so many responses to your quote nobody looked at the actual consumer only the prosumer. From all my friends in college that just need a simple laptop to write papers the number one reason why they got the mbp over the MBA was the disc drive. And when I asked them when the last time they used the disk drive was they all said it didn't matter because now they have it just incase.
Click to expand...

Valid reason, plus it does have more power. Of course if they have other computers, televisions etc... it is or getting to where there would be no real use for an optical drive while on the go.
 
lehoffboss said:
How does someone not know what kind of iPhone/iPad/Macbook they have???
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Going to guess the same person that picks up a blu-ray and does not know it is a blu-ray. It is one thing to not know every detail about something and another to not even know the name that is printed on the device.
 
bassfingers said:
Notice I said 13" MBP.

The air is faster than the 2+ ghz processors in the entry level MBP. It's not all about clock speeds. That's even before considering the improvements the new PCIe.

I get so frustrated when friends buy a fat MBP just because they're scared of not having the word 'pro' in the name
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And having half the RAM?
 
bassfingers said:
I don't understand.

The air is faster, more reliable and lighter. It has a better battery life and a higher resolution display. External storage is cheap, and external cd drives do the job just fine. There are very few valid reasons to buy a 13" MBP
Click to expand...

Not everyone wants to carry an external device around. My reasons for picking a mbp 13 over an air is I like have my storage built in. Also I use cd/dvds a lot on my job so it made sense to get a laptop with built in drive.

also I don't like the silver border around the air's screen. I prefer a black border.

most importantly mbp are upgradable. Unlike the airs and mbp retinas.
 
This is what i was hoping for.....

My prays have been answered..

An aticle showing these older devicices/Macbook Pro are popular..

I may actually keep mine now was a while longer i stead if getting tne new Air.

I'm glad the 4s is still in. But i niw have two usb cables, since i don't like the new screen of the 5. It just looks it should be a resolution, plus i need new case, (that's not gonna happen)

I'm kina suprised since i thought tne*new* stuff like Haswell on the Air wuld be popular, i thought people would be buying these up like hotcakes.

No ???
 
I find the breakdown between storage capacity to be very interesting. It would appear that more people are finding that 16GB isn't enough. I would be curious to know how many of those surveyed are on their second iOS device.

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Tech198 said:
I'm kina suprised since i thought tne*new* stuff like Haswell on the Air wuld be popular, i thought people would be buying these up like hotcakes.

No ???
Click to expand...

I believe that more and more people are finding that the previous generation, or two, of technology is "good enough" for their needs.
 
bassfingers said:
I don't understand.

The air is faster, more reliable and lighter. It has a better battery life and a higher resolution display. External storage is cheap, and external cd drives do the job just fine. There are very few valid reasons to buy a 13" MBP
Click to expand...

this is surprising to me... didn't Apple say the MacBook Air was the best selling notebook computer they have ever had? how can this be true if it's being outsold by the MacBook Pro?

i think this survey is BS.
 
Xiroteus said:
Valid reason, plus it does have more power. Of course if they have other computers, televisions etc... it is or getting to where there would be no real use for an optical drive while on the go.
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At its current state, the 13" MBP does not have any more power. The end user experience as far as processor power is either going to be the same or lean towards the air
 
Xiroteus said:
Many people prefer having half their computer in their computer.
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yeah!

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nia820 said:
Not everyone wants to carry an external device around. My reasons for picking a mbp 13 over an air is I like have my storage built in. Also I use cd/dvds a lot on my job so it made sense to get a laptop with built in drive.

also I don't like the silver border around the air's screen. I prefer a black border.

most importantly mbp are upgradable. Unlike the airs and mbp retinas.
Click to expand...

exactly!
 
Shaun said:
If they replaced the 13" MBP with a 17" model so we had 11" & 13" MBA and 15" & 17" MBP, the sales distribution would be more even between MBA and MBP. The 13" MBP is simply cannibalising sales of the 13" MBA.
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why would they want to replace their best selling laptop with one that sold the least?
 
bassfingers said:
At its current state, the 13" MBP does not have any more power. The end user experience as far as processor power is either going to be the same or lean towards the air
Click to expand...

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You sure about that? Only if you upgrade the MBA to the high end CPU do you come close or occasionally beat the MBP 13 2.5ghz base CPU. The 2.9ghz CPU will take out the MBA completely....
 
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