It is no secret that Apple has been gouging us on price for the last several years, across its product line. I think this has been most acute in the MacBook space, and has certainly alienated a lot of customers along the way.
And the reason was, until this week, if you wanted the
proper MacBook Pro, you were looking at spending upwards of $1799 plus tax. The price of entry for a MacBook Pro - the model that is meant to be the mainstream of the consumer premium computer market - was for many people breaching two grand. Just too much.
But this week, the
proper MacBook Pro became $1299. This is the
same price as the 2015 Retina Pro was that everyone loved, before the butterfly keyboards came along, and this doesn't seem to be getting the attention it deserves.
The reason the $1299 Pro is now the proper one is because it is, to the average user, indistinguishable from the $1799 model. Normally, for a ~$500, or ~30%, discount, you would expect Apple to really strip it down. But these models are now the same in so many ways:
- They both have the Touch Bar. Like it or not, this is a premium, luxury feature that will certainly add to the bill of materials.
- They both have Touch ID.
- They both have the T2 chip.
- They both have quad core processors, which, incredibly, benchmark similarly. Of course in real world use the lower TDP chip in the $1299 model will be slower, but not night and day.
- They both have fast flash.
- They both have the same great screen.
The only real differences are the processor class, 128GB vs. 256GB, and two ports vs. four. For $500. They could so easily have left out the Touch Bar, Touch ID, T2 chip, and just put these new processors in and called it a day.
So thank you, Apple, for returning the proper MacBook to the affordable premium market. I think I will enjoy this machine more knowing that I feel it is a better value.
