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What makes an Apple Macbook more costly than the normal Laptop

I am still using my MacBook5,1 as a main machine and it works better than ever. It will be 11 years old this October. I am not too proud to admit that it took me 10 years to open it up and clean the dust from the fan, not to mention replacing the thermal compound. Even with such poor maintenance it never missed the beat. I am wondering how many people out there are still using their 11 year old PC laptops with great pride(and can say that they work better than ever)?
 
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Reactions: vaugha, radiologyman, Sword86 and 1 other person
To me what makes me stay with  is primarily the OS. That and the quality feel and look of Apple MBPs.
It’s coming up on 10 years since I’ve owned a Windows machine, so I have to qualify that I don’t even know where they’re at now. I hated that I had to be a bloody IT guy to keep them working. I also used Windows at work up until last summer and the experience was still bad IMO. I would talk to co-workers what they did on their weekend, and as often as not, got the “I had to reformat my drive cause it got messed up” story, or “I had to take my PC in because it died.....and they said it’ll be two weeks” What is your time worth anyway? I don’t want to be spending my time off messing with my computer and I sure as h*** don’t want to be without it.
I’ve also seen friends and family members replace any number of Windows laptops in the same period of time I’ve had my 13” Late 2008 MB. My kid used to call me an  snob, then she clued in after about 3 Sony laptops and has never looked back. Why mess with 3 or 4 $500 laptops and put up with Windows all those years when you can buy ONE MB over the same period of time for the same $$$.
I have decided I will buy a new 13 MBP in the coming new year. I won’t even look at anything else. I’ll buy the fastest one at the time with a ton of Ram and likely go a larger SSD than I feel I need. Whatever it costs. S
 
OS, apps, support ... no one can offer such a package.
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sub150 said:
Of course. You can always config something crazy. But for the products selling the most (near base configs), Apple is higher and it's due to profit margin, not cost. You can verify this with financials as Apple margin blows everyone out of the water, thus their COGS must be roughly equal with a much higher ASP.

I would guess Apple markup is double or triple PC markup on COGS. So if Dell is selling something at 30% markup for 23% gross margin Apple is probably around 75% markup for 43% gross margin.

Apple could lower their margin and move a lot more than product and increase revenue, but the margin would be whacked and that is bad for the enterprise value. They could make more revenue and more net income but really hurt their stock price due to a lower gross/net income margin.
Click to expand...
Apple gross margin is about 30%.
 
FlyingDutch said:
OS, apps, support ... no one can offer such a package.
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Apple gross margin is about 30%.
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May want to double check that number. It's been above 37%+ since Q3 2008. Been in the 40's a bunch.
 
Didn't read the previous responses but I'd say that build quality is one of them, not that others aren't catching up, and also their software.

macOS may have "free" updates, but I have a sneaking suspicion that part of the price in the MacBook is for the continual updating of macOS software.
 
aFlockaCgulz said:
Didn't read the previous responses but I'd say that build quality is one of them, not that others aren't catching up, and also their software.

macOS may have "free" updates, but I have a sneaking suspicion that part of the price in the MacBook is for the continual updating of macOS software.
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Of course it is. Apple is required to do the appropriate accounting for the software updates.
 
AppleHaterLover said:
it absolutely sucks ass. And Office on the Mac is jaw-droppingly awful. Mine is the supposedly latest version and I've lost work more than 5 times due to random crashes.

Macs are not for basic office productivity.
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Use mine for work everyday and even log into a Remote Desktop that runs windows 7. I use almost all of Microsoft’s apps for Mac everyday. No issues whatsoever.

Not to mention I use Microsoft’s software across multiple Apple products with no issues. I have Outlook on my phone, laptop and desktop. Syncs with no issues. YMMV
 
avz said:
I am still using my MacBook5,1 as a main machine and it works better than ever. It will be 11 years old this October. I am not too proud to admit that it took me 10 years to open it up and clean the dust from the fan, not to mention replacing the thermal compound. Even with such poor maintenance it never missed the beat. I am wondering how many people out there are still using their 11 year old PC laptops with great pride(and can say that they work better than ever)?
Click to expand...

This sums it up for me.
 
I'm a new user. Just got my first macbook pro last week. Been pc user forever. To try out, I also ordered a Dell xps to compare. Just got it today. It's got an i7 vs i5 in the mac and rest of specs are the same, but man does it look cheap compared to this macbook. "Cheesy" looking for the keyboard and palm rest area is first word that came to mind.

Now I'm having some difficulty learning ins and outs of macos, but getting there.
 
sub150 said:
It was an example to illustrate the difference in markup. You took it way too seriously and you look dumb.
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it was a wrong example and you look incompetent.
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Jmgilliam18 said:
I'm a new user. Just got my first macbook pro last week. Been pc user forever. To try out, I also ordered a Dell xps to compare. Just got it today. It's got an i7 vs i5 in the mac and rest of specs are the same, but man does it look cheap compared to this macbook. "Cheesy" looking for the keyboard and palm rest area is first word that came to mind.

Now I'm having some difficulty learning ins and outs of macos, but getting there.
Click to expand...
A MBP hardly is the best notebook you could buy, spec wise, but surely is the best when you use it.
 
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