Why a Mac costs more than a PC...

[Cranberry2]

I've been very disappointed in my decision to drop 3 grand on an iMac. I thought it was a high quality product that would help me out with my new business. Right now it is costing me money as it is in the shop for the 3rd time in 5 weeks and has delayed the opening of my store. It's a whopping 8 months old.

One time, you suck it up and say "Life happens", but after 3 times ya say "Wow, what a sucky product". My experience has been that Mac is anything but reliable. Mine randomly shuts off and won't restart. Thankfully I have everything saved to a network harddrive, so the crashes haven't affected me in THAT way. But I bought software for the Mac, so I can't do anything with my business files as the rest of the computers in my house are PC and don't have the appropriate software. Anyone want to switch the Mac version of Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Microsoft Office for PC versions? I think I'm going to have to go get a new PC tonight.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. Customer service from the Macmall and Apple has sucked. Quit frankly, the techs at my local shop scare me a little with their inept social skills and icy stare... and lack of "fixing skills" :-(

Someone from Apple was suppose to call back in 15 minutes... that was 90 minutes ago.

 

[iSayuSay]

Mac is no-less just as expensive as well-known branded PC (laptop or desktop) out there such as Dell or HP.

IF Dell or HP build the same spec with build quality as good as Apple, they end up the same price too. The only thing that makes Apple looks so expensive is that people compare it with DIY custom built PC, which cost less to assembly and customizable too, although that kind of PC hardly can look good as Apple or even any branded one.

But Mac is not exactly cheap for what it is. See this:

To upgrade from standard 4GB into 16GB RAM on iMac it cost $600 while it only cost less $100-ish if you can do it alone, the $500 difference for what? Assembly cost? Seriously?

HDD 1TB to 2TB: $100 .. gossh, we should only pay the difference since we don't get back the standard 1TB hdd.

i5 to i7 CPU upgrade: $200 .. while the real difference is $100 on market, we pay double for this, again for what? Assembly cost? Does the i7 twice harder to be plugged into main board than an i5?

1GB to 2GB GPU RAM upgrade: $100.. really? In desktop GPU, the difference is $30-ish between 6970 1GB and 2GB, and this is DESKTOP GPU.

Cheaper? Not really .. but they're just as expensive as any well-known branded PC out there.

 

[toddybody]

Bump*

 

[SidBala]

I have a Macbook Pro 17 Unibody. I run Windows 7 on it exclusively. I bought it from a rich upgrader when it was 6 months old for less than half it's original price.

Best of all worlds.

 

[chriscordell]

My mac is still going... 3 years on!

I bought a MacBook just before going to uni for the first time, I've since graduated, and now studying medicine. I can honestly say the £850 (including apple care and Office) I spent was so worth it.

PC fanboi's just listen to all this. At the same time I bought a windows laptop as well from Dell. It was replaced 3 times as it just over heated for no apparent reason (despite the fact it was doing A LOT less than my MacBook). I ditched it after my first year, it just wasn't worth having!

I STILL use my MacBook and it funds faster and better than most of the PC's bought by my friends at med school to start uni with. As much as I would love a new MacBook Pro I have tuition fees to pay *grumble grumble grumble* but I can honestly say I can actually see this MacBook going for a few years yet! Here's what it hasn't done:

Overheated and fried itself
Cracked
Replaced

The only thing I have had to replace is the audio port but that was done free of charge. So £850/3 years = £284 year^1

That to me seems cheap considering how much abuse this laptop has seen! It's travelled to and from Banff 3 times from the UK, around central Europe in a car full or beer and tents, un, lectures... I could go on but you name it, it's done it. Yet still it looks the tits

 

[MacHamster68]

Mac is no-less just as expensive as well-known branded PC (laptop or desktop) out there such as Dell or HP.

IF Dell or HP build the same spec with build quality as good as Apple, they end up the same price too. The only thing that makes Apple looks so expensive is that people compare it with DIY custom built PC, which cost less to assembly and customizable too, although that kind of PC hardly can look good as Apple or even any branded one.

But Mac is not exactly cheap for what it is. See this:

To upgrade from standard 4GB into 16GB RAM on iMac it cost $600 while it only cost less $100-ish if you can do it alone, the $500 difference for what? Assembly cost? Seriously?

HDD 1TB to 2TB: $100 .. gossh, we should only pay the difference since we don't get back the standard 1TB hdd.

i5 to i7 CPU upgrade: $200 .. while the real difference is $100 on market, we pay double for this, again for what? Assembly cost? Does the i7 twice harder to be plugged into main board than an i5?

1GB to 2GB GPU RAM upgrade: $100.. really? In desktop GPU, the difference is $30-ish between 6970 1GB and 2GB, and this is DESKTOP GPU.

Cheaper? Not really .. but they're just as expensive as any well-known branded PC out there.

Yes but that build quality of Apple is not what one would expect , display problems harddrive problems ... can have all that cheaper too
the only argument for Apple is the design and OSX
and most dont even need a i5 or i7 processor for most thats not more then the sportscar in the garage , show the impressive spec's and live with some quality issues and impracticality

 

[KPOM]

I've been very disappointed in my decision to drop 3 grand on an iMac. I thought it was a high quality product that would help me out with my new business. Right now it is costing me money as it is in the shop for the 3rd time in 5 weeks and has delayed the opening of my store. It's a whopping 8 months old.

One time, you suck it up and say "Life happens", but after 3 times ya say "Wow, what a sucky product". My experience has been that Mac is anything but reliable. Mine randomly shuts off and won't restart. Thankfully I have everything saved to a network harddrive, so the crashes haven't affected me in THAT way. But I bought software for the Mac, so I can't do anything with my business files as the rest of the computers in my house are PC and don't have the appropriate software. Anyone want to switch the Mac version of Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Microsoft Office for PC versions? I think I'm going to have to go get a new PC tonight.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. Customer service from the Macmall and Apple has sucked. Quit frankly, the techs at my local shop scare me a little with their inept social skills and icy stare... and lack of "fixing skills" :-(

Someone from Apple was suppose to call back in 15 minutes... that was 90 minutes ago.

I'd say find a new Apple Store to take it to. Apples have issues at the same rate as other PCs (no surprise since they are all made by Foxconn, who makes a lot of Windows PCs for the big names). However, my experience with their support has been the exact opposite. They have always fixed them and given good service.

I will say that their small business/enterprise support is lacking, though. They don't have a loaner program (which could be critical for a small business). The company is focused on the consumer market.

 

[jmpnop]

Yes but that build quality of Apple is not what one would expect , display problems harddrive problems ... can have all that cheaper too
the only argument for Apple is the design and OSX
and most dont even need a i5 or i7 processor for most thats not more then the sportscar in the garage , show the impressive spec's and live with some quality issues and impracticality

This doesn't answer his point. Apple is nearly charging twice or more for hardware upgrades and that has got nothing to do with Apple's design and OSX. Its a fact that Apple's computers are overpriced but its still worth it because of OSX and build quality. Stop defending the fact.

 

[Interzone]

Its a fact that Apple's computers are overpriced but its still worth it because of OSX and build quality.

I think people underrate the costs that go into the "design" aspect of Macs. Case in point, read the comments by the Corsair rep in this thread regarding the Mac Pro cases.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1586070&page=2

Look here:
http://www.videography.com/uploadedi...Update-1bg.jpg

That's the Mac Pro case. See how the "handles" are one contiguous piece that wraps around the backside of the chassis? Effectively that piece of aluminum by itself probably costs as much to manufacture as the entire 600T case. Possibly more. It looks like one solid piece of cast aluminum. And that piece has no real functionality but to add rigidity to the chassis and act as a handle. Also, look at the screws that mount the interior frame to that handle. Seams are clean, very few screws, no visible rivets. Everything is exceptionally well controlled from a manufacturing standpoint.

In comparison, look here:
http://lian-li.com/v2/tw/product/upl...0/v1020-09.jpg

That's the V1020 from Lian-Li. A great case. Costs about $250 at Newegg, available anodized. But look at the difference in the aluminum alloy, the number of rivets and their placement. Look at the two back to back and the difference is pretty clear where Apple spends their money.

This is not to denigrate Lian-Li, they make fantastic cases and I've owned a few of them in the past. If Corsair didn't make cases, I'd still recommend them to people. They're definitely in the top 3 case manufacturers from a quality standpoint.

In fairness, here's the 800D:
http://www.corsair.com/media/catalog...or-wcovers.png

I think our quality of manufacturing (even though it's steel) is as good as anybody else we compete against and better than most. But even we can't produce something like the Mac Pro chassis for a reasonable price. The 800D costs a LOT to build, and would cost still more if it were aluminum instead of steel.

J

He readily admits that their company can't replicate the Mac Pro cases for under a $1000, which is saying something.

----------

And quite honestly, I don't think there's a huge gap in price between Macs and PCs anymore. A decade ago, yes. Nowadays, the "Apple Tax" isn't really that substantial.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

I've been very disappointed in my decision to drop 3 grand on an iMac. I thought it was a high quality product that would help me out with my new business. Right now it is costing me money as it is in the shop for the 3rd time in 5 weeks and has delayed the opening of my store. It's a whopping 8 months old.

One time, you suck it up and say "Life happens", but after 3 times ya say "Wow, what a sucky product". My experience has been that Mac is anything but reliable. Mine randomly shuts off and won't restart. Thankfully I have everything saved to a network harddrive, so the crashes haven't affected me in THAT way. But I bought software for the Mac, so I can't do anything with my business files as the rest of the computers in my house are PC and don't have the appropriate software. Anyone want to switch the Mac version of Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Microsoft Office for PC versions? I think I'm going to have to go get a new PC tonight.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. Customer service from the Macmall and Apple has sucked. Quit frankly, the techs at my local shop scare me a little with their inept social skills and icy stare... and lack of "fixing skills" :-(

Someone from Apple was suppose to call back in 15 minutes... that was 90 minutes ago.

Apple has a lot of qt issues now days. My 2008 iMac with 2 g of ram was 2 grand. Never will I but another iMac.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

This doesn't answer his point. Apple is nearly charging twice or more for hardware upgrades and that has got nothing to do with Apple's design and OSX. Its a fact that Apple's computers are overpriced but its still worth it because of OSX and build quality. Stop defending the fact.

A 320 gig HDD is almost $350 installed.

 

[jmpnop]

A 320 gig hd is almost $350 installed.

You mean SSD? HDD doesn't cost that much...

Well look at RAM and CPU. Crucial 8GB RAM costs around $50 while Apple's upgrade from 4GB costs $200. Thats just ridiculous.

 

[gslrider]

I've been very disappointed in my decision to drop 3 grand on an iMac. I thought it was a high quality product that would help me out with my new business. Right now it is costing me money as it is in the shop for the 3rd time in 5 weeks and has delayed the opening of my store. It's a whopping 8 months old.

One time, you suck it up and say "Life happens", but after 3 times ya say "Wow, what a sucky product". My experience has been that Mac is anything but reliable. Mine randomly shuts off and won't restart. Thankfully I have everything saved to a network harddrive, so the crashes haven't affected me in THAT way. But I bought software for the Mac, so I can't do anything with my business files as the rest of the computers in my house are PC and don't have the appropriate software. Anyone want to switch the Mac version of Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Microsoft Office for PC versions? I think I'm going to have to go get a new PC tonight.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. Customer service from the Macmall and Apple has sucked. Quit frankly, the techs at my local shop scare me a little with their inept social skills and icy stare... and lack of "fixing skills" :-(

Someone from Apple was suppose to call back in 15 minutes... that was 90 minutes ago.

That sucks. I have to agree that Apple service isn't what it used to be. I feel for you, experienced it when I finally bit the bullet and got myself an iPhone 3GS a year and a half ago. It was the first time I actually ever had to deal with Apple techs. In regards to all my Macs, I've learned to troubleshoot and fix issues on my own. As little as they were. What is wrong with your iMac? What have they told you? What are you doing at the time when it crashes? In my experience 90% of the time, it's all software, and that's easily fixed. The rare occasion, it's hardware and more often than not it needs to be replaced. If this is the case for you, and you've sent it in 3 times already, you should demand for a replacement. You are still covered under 1 year warranty. If you have an Apple Care extended warranty, even better. Apple tends to p@55y foot around these days. But if you make a stink, they'll replace it for you. I went through four 3GS replacements (after iOS 4 update), before they finally upgraded me to the iPhone 4. Doesn't hurt to "bitch". ;-)

 

[gslrider]

You mean SSD? HDD doesn't cost that much...

Well look at RAM and CPU. Crucial 8GB RAM costs around $50 while Apple's upgrade from 4GB costs $200. Thats just ridiculous.

I think he meant HDD. Sounds like over priced service charge. $80 drive, $270 labor. Sounds about right. lol That's why I've learned to fix my own issues, do my own upgrades. All depends on the ram as well. I use third party ram on my Mac Pro. The last 4GB ram upgrade (2x2GB Kingston) cost me $150 (that was about 2 years ago) as oppose to $300 using Apple approved ram. But since the ram I use now isn't readily available anymore, a 4GB upgrade would end up now costing me about $250-$275, and I have to special order it.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

You mean SSD? HDD doesn't cost that much...

Well look at RAM and CPU. Crucial 8GB RAM costs around $50 while Apple's upgrade from 4GB costs $200. Thats just ridiculous.

A HDD at the Apple store cost me just under $350 installed.

 

[Young Spade]

A HDD at the Apple store cost me just under $350 installed.

Which is why it behooves you to be an educated consumer and not blindly spend when you don't have to.

Americans have a big problem of doing that: just going by what people SAY and not doing the research on your own time.

I have never walked into a store and bought off the shelf without having done extensive research. Not one thing. And I'm a 19 year old sophomore in college.

Not to sound harsh because I'm making an obvious sweeping generalization about Americans, but yes, people need to read.

If everybody who bought a MBP or whatever actually did research, Apple would switch those upgrade prices around by the end of the week.

But because I feel like getting off the soap box; another example is Aperture. They used to (don't see the option now) charge 200 to preinstall it when you could simply download it yourself FROM the App Store for less than half of that.

They milk the consumer because they KNOW that their target audience (Americans with money who don't know how to do research) will just spend it. It's very sad.

 

[r0k]

I bought an Ooma box in Best Buy for $250. I got ripped. But my landline was down and I needed to fix the phones. I couldn't wait for mail order which would have been cheaper. I didn't want to join Costco which would also have been cheaper. Sometimes if people spend more money on stuff, it doesn't necessarily make them stupid. Buying extra RAM at the Apple store may be worth it if you would have to break out the putty knives to install your own. A couple of years ago, my G4 Mac mini was under Applecare and Apple would have broken out the putty knives and installed the RAM I needed to go to Leopard for free... if I bought the RAM from Apple for about 8x what Crucial wanted. I was rather new at it and wound up bleeding a bit to get the RAM installed. Maybe that's why they wanted to charge so much at the time.

I had to upgrade RAM in three of our minis to install Lion. I bought some mail order and some in the store at Microcenter. None came from Apple. But I had to take apart early Intel Minis which required two putty knives and a lot of force. I installed SSD drives and RAM for under $200 a machine. I know this would have cost me really big bucks at an Apple store. But it's not like they are incompetent or won't do it right. They are just expensive. If I didn't want to do it myself, I would either do without or consider letting Apple have extra money for it.

Another example is buying used Apple gear at the local mom and pop computer shop. They have a no refund exchange only policy. I'd rather save my money until I can afford buying new or refurb gear directly from Apple.

My daughter wants a replacement laptop. I am faced with either shelling out close to $1K for a Macbook, Macbook Air or Macbook Pro (at Microcenter) or a mere $250 for some pathetic Windows box. The thing is she has a $2000 HP Elitebook that is a piece of excrement. It is literally the worse computer I have ever seen in my life. If I wanted a Windows notebook, I'd at least consider Lenovo. And you know what? With Lenovo I'm once again looking at the same prices I'd pay for Apple gear. So I'm going to bide my time and get her a Mac rather than go for the "deal" on some netbook that won't last the 2 years the elitebook lasted. BTW, my Macbook cost roughly half what the elitebook cost and has lasted almost twice as long. When the time comes, I'll get the base memory and storage and a couple of years down the road I can pop in more myself if I want to (if I can do it without risking damage to her Mac).

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Which is why it behooves you to be an educated consumer and not blindly spend when you don't have to.

Americans have a big problem of doing that: just going by what people SAY and not doing the research on your own time.

I have never walked into a store and bought off the shelf without having done extensive research. Not one thing. And I'm a 19 year old sophomore in college.

Not to sound harsh because I'm making an obvious sweeping generalization about Americans, but yes, people need to read.

If everybody who bought a MBP or whatever actually did research, Apple would switch those upgrade prices around by the end of the week.

But because I feel like getting off the soap box; another example is Aperture. They used to (don't see the option now) charge 200 to preinstall it when you could simply download it yourself FROM the App Store for less than half of that.

They milk the consumer because they KNOW that their target audience (Americans with money who don't know how to do research) will just spend it. It's very sad.

I could have purchased the HDD and installed it myself or have a third party store install it, but I chose not to go that route.

 

[Young Spade]

I could have purchased the HDD and installed it myself or have a third party store install it, but I chose not to go that rout.

Of course; the tradeoff is that you saved what, 30 minutes and spent an extra couple hundred.

You could say the same about changing the oil in the car or any number of other things.

Of course, it's all an opinion and that in no way is a "bad" thing, nor was I saying anything negative about YOU (not making assumptions, just stating here)

I was just saying that, personally, I think we would be a lot better off if we just read more. Educated ourselves. There's no reason why we should have to refer to the "average consumer" as an idiot who just goes into Best Buy and buys something. No reason.

But that's just how it is. And it makes no sense to me. It literally takes 5 minutes to get a bearing of what you want or what you'd like, simply by reading what is already out there. It then takes a few hours, depending on what it is, to find out exactly what you need or want.

Back when i was in the high end audio hobby, (Headphones, IEMs, Source/amps, etc.) I would read for HOURS on each item before I made my final purchase, as IEMs ranging over 200 have very different sound signatures and nuances that make them better or worse depending on a myriad of variables.

Not going to continue because this is practically derailing the topic... which in itself isn't of much importance, but... yea.

 

[kbfr08]

Of course; the tradeoff is that you saved what, 30 minutes and spent an extra couple hundred.

You could say the same about changing the oil in the car or any number of other things.

Of course, it's all an opinion and that in no way is a "bad" thing, nor was I saying anything negative about YOU (not making assumptions, just stating here)

I was just saying that, personally, I think we would be a lot better off if we just read more. Educated ourselves. There's no reason why we should have to refer to the "average consumer" as an idiot who just goes into Best Buy and buys something. No reason.

But that's just how it is. And it makes no sense to me. It literally takes 5 minutes to get a bearing of what you want or what you'd like, simply by reading what is already out there. It then takes a few hours, depending on what it is, to find out exactly what you need or want.

Back when i was in the high end audio hobby, (Headphones, IEMs, Source/amps, etc.) I would read for HOURS on each item before I made my final purchase, as IEMs ranging over 200 have very different sound signatures and nuances that make them better or worse depending on a myriad of variables.

Not going to continue because this is practically derailing the topic... which in itself isn't of much importance, but... yea.

I'm going to assume he has an iMac (that's in his sig), so in all fairness, the iMac HDD is hidden under the LCD, so it was probably a good idea to have apple do it. The silicon roller that they use to remove dust from the lcd and glass when reassembling it costs just under $100, the labor is a bitch, and a lot of people have broken LCD cables when doing this repair (from the iMac's I've seen). Labor (with installing & cloning the disk) can be from 1-3 hours depending on what services they do. Regardless, $350 is a bit steep, but if he didn't want to spend half of a day figuring out how to tear apart an iMac, then I think it was an ok deal.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

I'm going to assume he has an iMac (that's in his sig), so in all fairness, the iMac HDD is hidden under the LCD, so it was probably a good idea to have apple do it. The silicon roller that they use to remove dust from the lcd and glass when reassembling it costs just under $100, the labor is a bitch, and a lot of people have broken LCD cables when doing this repair (from the iMac's I've seen). Labor (with installing & cloning the disk) can be from 1-3 hours depending on what services they do. Regardless, $350 is a bit steep, but if he didn't want to spend half of a day figuring out how to tear apart an iMac, then I think it was an ok deal.

I took the safe route for very good reasons. It Apple screws up, issues are unlikely.

 

[walterwhite]

I took the same route for very good reasons. It Apple screws up, issues are unlikely.

The roller really isn't needed if you just work in a clean area.. have some canned air to get rid of any that falls on it. The PDF files are all available and really isn't that tough. Just go slow and it all works.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I'm going to assume he has an iMac (that's in his sig), so in all fairness, the iMac HDD is hidden under the LCD, so it was probably a good idea to have apple do it. The silicon roller that they use to remove dust from the lcd and glass when reassembling it costs just under $100, the labor is a bitch, and a lot of people have broken LCD cables when doing this repair (from the iMac's I've seen). Labor (with installing & cloning the disk) can be from 1-3 hours depending on what services they do. Regardless, $350 is a bit steep, but if he didn't want to spend half of a day figuring out how to tear apart an iMac, then I think it was an ok deal.

What are you talking about? I replaced the hard drive on my parents mac for $85 (the cost of a 1tb HDD at the time), in our living room. We had a carpet, a shaggy cat, and if I did smudge the back of the screen, I would have used a $4 bottle of Windex. It took me less than an hour of my time, and I pulled that LCD cable pretty hard, it didn't break.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

What are you talking about? I replaced the hard drive on my parents mac for $85 (the cost of a 1tb HDD at the time), in our living room. We had a carpet, a shaggy cat, and if I did smudge the back of the screen, I would have used a $4 bottle of Windex. It took me less than an hour of my time, and I pulled that LCD cable pretty hard, it didn't break.

This was more than a year ago and I could not be bothered with the Best Buy 2-3 week turnaround time. Now I would do the job myself, but i'm in the market for a mac Pro.

 

[piatti]

I have a Macbook Pro 17 Unibody. I run Windows 7 on it exclusively. I bought it from a rich upgrader when it was 6 months old for less than half it's original price.

Best of all worlds.

How did you get such a good deal?