Why are the new MacBooks Pro's so expensive?

[jerryk]

Unfortunately, I can't afford to be an Apple shareholder

Given how well the stock has done, how can you afford not to be. Just forgo a few nights out and buy a couple of shares. Especially if you are young, stock investing is your best way to make money over the long run.

 

[Audit13]

Given how well the stock has done, how can you afford not to be. Just forgo a few nights out and buy a couple of shares. Especially if you are young, stock investing is your best way to make money over the long run.

I'm getting ready to retire in a couple of years so I'm definitely not young anymore lol.

 

[vaugha]

As a PE and a P.Eng. in USA and Canada myself, I will say that laptop machines are getting more and more complex which require more engineering which equates to increased costs. Coupled that w/ apple's hiring practice that they only hire the most talented and the best people they can find, it is inherent that their laptops are very very expensive. They're probably the only company that can get away w/ charging so much money on a laptop and people will still buy them.

I don't work in hardware design or electronics or even software engineering but it is very conspicuous to me why their machines are so expensive. The other ridiculous thing I find is the amount of money that they charge for upgrades which is money grab but then again, it's apple we're talking about and people will gladly pay for ridiculous upgrade charges b/c it's sold by apple.

 

[RickTaylor]

So I've been in the market for a new MacBook for a while now and decided to wait for the new ones to arrive. I was looking at the 2017 13' model priced at roughly 1300 euros (about 1500 dollars). Today, Apple finally announced the new Pro line-up and I was shocked when I saw the prices! They ask 2000 euros (2230 dollars!) for the base model 13 inch!

Why are the new ones so expensive! I can't afford to buy it, like I'm just a student and I need the money for books as well. The MacBook 12'' is too underpowered for me and the Air totally sucks because it has no retina display. I don't want to buy the older Pro's since they have a lot of issues...

Of course the MacBook Air's screen isn't nearly as nice as the retina, but I wouldn't say it totally sucks. I find it to be perfectly serviceable for getting work done.

 

[Erasmus]

While the 970 pro is mlc the cheaper 970 Evo is tlc.

Where is the 4tb option for the 970 Pro or the cheaper 970 Evo? How about a 2 tb version for the 970 Pro?

Oh wait they don’t exist.

And the 1TB PRO, with MLC, is less than AU$760. Not the AU$1280 that Apple charges.

You are also assuming that Apple only use one SSD chip per computer, which they don't. Tear-downs of the previous versions clearly show 4 chips, 2 on each side of the motherboard. There is no reason why Apple couldn't put another 4 on the 2018 model as well if they really had to.

Why is it so hard for you to see that Apple's prices for SSD upgrades are around 70% more expensive than an equivalent m.2?

 

[dgdosen]

Random Touchbar Thoughts

- Why is Apple forcing Macbook Pro users to buy them and no others? The fact that the iMac Pro doesn't consider them is inconsistent at best.
- If Apple is going to force users to pay an extra $200 for, what is now a gimmick, why not give us a fully programmable keyboard - a la QMK? That way, we can handle escape the way we want. And better yet - ship two keys where the one space bar is - like most 40% keyboards.
- If Apple is moving to Face ID - why introduce Touch ID on a Touch Bar? It's already obsolete.
- People will have more problems with "Hey Siri" - Not only will siri get get confused and start to think of an answer on a watch, phone, ipad and homepod, Apple is going to add your laptop to the mix, so you can get the wrong answer from five different places.

Apple, address these issues, and maybe NTB buyers/waiters might change their minds.

 

[Queen6]

What Dave says.
Hardware isn’t actually expensive for a business, as there are tax advantages to invest.
However a student shouldn’t be looking at these. Look at cheaper pc’s or second hand as others suggest, if you are buying yourself.
After tax, for me the top end MBP is 2 coffees a day to pay off in a year. It would really pay for itself multiple times.

Another here. Very much agree that as a student the very last thing you should be considering is such an expensive notebook, especially if this results in incurring debt.

These Mac's are aimed at those who the purchase price does not intimidate and thouse who use them as professional tools which pay for themselves.

Q-6
[doublepost=1531549434][/doublepost]

Why do you need a touchbar if you are a student?

And why do students who suppsosedly have little money buy expensive laptops like Macbook pro's by the way?

When I was a student, I was doing it on a $500 laptop (which still works in 2018)

Peer pressure, few really need Mac's, equally many desire to own one...

Q-6

 

[JamesMay82]

Not that its BAD to be a broke student but you have a certain reality you must face. That luxury products, especially high tech and those literally just released, are going to be expensive, something a typical college student isn't meant for. Like would you walk into a Mercedes dealer and tell them that their luxury cars are too high for you because you're a student? Its just weird reasoning.

There are great deals for the 2017 or 2016 and second hand pros, don't know why that is not good enough for a broke college student. When I was broke, I would've taken anything that performed consistently.

100% agree. Every time apple updates their line ups of any product people compare them to windows and say how expensive they are.

there are always cheaper examples in life that do the same job/purpose but I never hear people get as outraged as they do with apple.. some examples its cheaper to shop at Aldi, cheaper to buy a Kia, generic clothing etc.

 

[dgdosen]

Sorry to sound gruff, but I would love to buy and own a 2019 Bentley Continental GT without financing one. It's a pipe dream. Apple products have been expensive from day one. Nothing new here. I paid in excess of $3000 for my MBP 8 years ago. I paid $4000 for my iMac Pro at Micro Center just a few months ago. Yeah it's money. But honestly anything under $15K for a computer system is doable - at least for me. Everyone's situation is different. Apple prices their MBP's not in the same category as a $399 Google netbook. Are Apple products worth their price? I leave that for you to decide.

So here's why I have the dissonance -

Sure, I also bought a couple of Powerbooks back in the early aughts - and I think I paid 2,100 for a 12" and 2,600 for 15"... And I was fine with it back then. But that was then, this is now.

Hardware prices have been dropping for a decade and a half because of competition, commoditization and economies of scale. In fact that happened at Apple as well - as my early teen 13" MBP was around 1,500 nicely equipped.

Now, Apple, as is their decision, is pushing those prices higher again. The underlying hardware components have stayed relatively low - CPUs, GPUs and memory are sill commoditized, but the price difference for Apple gear is increasing, so they're spending (even more?) on design and innovation(?).

With their market strength, Apple seems to be using that strength push us around a bit. While I like that they experiment with innovative features - like mag safe, dropping the DVD drive or touch id, they seem to be forcing mobile users to adopt a touch bar, with suspect value (as of yet) and they're not rolling it out on other products. They're raising the Apple tax.

Sure that's their choice - but my dissonance level has gone up and I'm licking my chops for something Crostini-like. With Apple pushing relative prices up ($2,200 for a 16/512 laptop ), they're giving Google (or MS) a wider space to aim for with a nicely equipped dev flavored laptop. Come get me.

 

[macintoshmac]

I've often read this kind of statement and it really puzzles me. I bought a 2017 MacBook Pro some six months ago, and one feature that I use constantly is the Touch Bar. It saves me a great deal of time in writing, spelling, and spacing.

I write, too. Do tell how you use the Touch Bar and which apps.

 

[johannnn]

- If Apple is moving to Face ID - why introduce Touch ID on a Touch Bar? It's already obsolete.

When on earth did Touch ID become obsolete?
They remove it on their handhelds in order to have a larger display-to-screen ratio. This is clearly not a problem for devices with a physical keyboard.
One uses state-of-the-art fingerprint authentication, one uses state-of-the-art face authentication. They are both industry leading in their respective field. They both use the LocalAuthentication framework and developers don't need to worry which authentication is used.
[doublepost=1531598279][/doublepost]

With Apple pushing relative prices up ($2,200 for a 16/512 laptop [...]

A computer is much more than the amount of GHz/GB ram etc.
For example, people complain about the cost of the SSD, but forget to notice that the MBP SSD is +6x (!) as fast as other laptops (https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/2018-macbook-pro-benchmarks).

 

[dgdosen]

A computer is much more than the amount of GHz/GB ram etc.
For example, people complain about the cost of the SSD, but forget to notice that the MBP SSD is +6x (!) as fast as other laptops (https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/2018-macbook-pro-benchmarks).

I agree that Macs are much more than those components - that's why Apple charges a premium, for which I'll gladly pay. They are true innovators. I'm arguing they've gone too far.

And correct me if I'm wrong, did Apple invent the NVMe spec? They're one of the first to market with insanely fast SSDs - but make no mistake, those are a commodity. In fact, if there was some proprietary standard over that spec - we wouldn't have those fast SSDs.

[doublepost=1531599210][/doublepost]

When on earth did Touch ID become obsolete?

Now that there's Face ID (or unlock via watch) There's really no need for touch id. There's only a need to put it somewhere (like a touch bar). Are you implying it's better to use Touch ID over Face ID? I'd think Apple would migrate to Face ID everywhere it can.

 

[Painter2002]

Random Touchbar Thoughts

- Why is Apple forcing Macbook Pro users to buy them and no others? The fact that the iMac Pro doesn't consider them is inconsistent at best.
- If Apple is going to force users to pay an extra $200 for, what is now a gimmick, why not give us a fully programmable keyboard - a la QMK? That way, we can handle escape the way we want. And better yet - ship two keys where the one space bar is - like most 40% keyboards.
- If Apple is moving to Face ID - why introduce Touch ID on a Touch Bar? It's already obsolete.
- People will have more problems with "Hey Siri" - Not only will siri get get confused and start to think of an answer on a watch, phone, ipad and homepod, Apple is going to add your laptop to the mix, so you can get the wrong answer from five different places.

Apple, address these issues, and maybe NTB buyers/waiters might change their minds.

So I get a kick out of whenever people argue that the Touchbar isn’t on the iMac pro keyboard so it’s not a pro tool, but the real reason Apple hasn’t added it to that keyboard is it would require a lot of extra hardware and a more robust battery system in the keyboard to match the current battery life of the bluetooth Apple keyboards. Apple hasn’t been able to accomplish all that and keep the same form factor otherwise they would have added it to the iMac pro and tacked on an extra $100-200 to the total sale price.

Second, Touch ID might be obsolete on the iPhone lineup, but they haven’t added it to the MacBook Pro lineup because, again, this would require them to design a thicker monitor to accommodate for the camera hardware FaceID uses and we all know how Apple feels about making products thicker than they already are. I personally am a fan of Touch ID on the MacBook Pro (even though my Apple watch usually unlocks it for me anyways).

To your point on “hey Siri” now being on the MacBook Pro, I actually completely agree. It is very irritating to try and summon Siri on an Apple watch, only to have it pop up on your phone 10 feet away. Personally I don’t even use Siri on my Mac at all, and mainly use it to set timers and set destinations while driving using my watch. I don’t need “Hey Siri” functionality on the MacBook Pro.

 

[andrewbee]

So I've been in the market for a new MacBook for a while now and decided to wait for the new ones to arrive. I was looking at the 2017 13' model priced at roughly 1300 euros (about 1500 dollars). Today, Apple finally announced the new Pro line-up and I was shocked when I saw the prices! They ask 2000 euros (2230 dollars!) for the base model 13 inch!

Why are the new ones so expensive! I can't afford to buy it, like I'm just a student and I need the money for books as well. The MacBook 12'' is too underpowered for me and the Air totally sucks because it has no retina display. I don't want to buy the older Pro's since they have a lot of issues...


I just don't know how they could raise the price by 700 euros (820 dollars)...

Apple is a Luxury Brand. They are in the same league as burberry, Louis Vuitton, Porsche, bentley, etc. The sooner you start thinking of them this way, the better you will be able to make your purchasing decisions.

I find it funny that people can still think or expect a reasonable priced product from Apple. Apple doesn't care about you like that. They are a company and only really care about their image, shareholders and profit margins.

There was a short time in history during Steve Jobs era when Apple products were somewhat affordable but that time is gone and will never be returning. You have to think of Apple as that ‘cool kid’ in high school who has so many adoring fans(you), who would probably kill to go on a date with Apple. Steve Jobs was that 'best friend' to Apple who occasionally will speak with Apple about giving you a chance or at least flirting with you. Now Steve Jobs has transferred and Apple is 'more narcissistic’ than a ‘social media millennial’, interested in only just how much you can prove and boost their worth.

Nothing wrong in this as its been reported you do get a great date just as long as you don't mind paying for the experience.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

To me they are too expansive as well. I just need a 15“ for typing papers. I use only Mac since 2002 but really thinking about getting a Windows or Linux Laptop just for this task of writing scientific papers.

BTW - any suggestions for a great 15“ laptop with good screen, keyboard and trackpad are appreciated. Any will do as long as it has an SSD.

 

[The Mercurian]

Apple is a Luxury Brand. They are in the same league as burberry, Louis Vuitton, Porsche, bentley, etc. The sooner you start thinking of them this way, the better you will be able to make your purchasing decisions.

I find it funny that people can still think or expect a reasonable priced product from Apple. Apple doesn't care about you like that. They are a company and only really care about their image, shareholders and profit margins.

There was a short time in history during Steve Jobs era when Apple products were somewhat affordable but that time is gone and will never be returning. You have to think of Apple as that ‘cool kid’ in high school who has so many adoring fans(you), who would probably kill to go on a date with Apple. Steve Jobs was that 'best friend' to Apple who occasionally will speak with Apple about giving you a chance or at least flirting with you. Now Steve Jobs has transferred and Apple is 'more narcissistic’ than a ‘social media millennial’, interested in only just how much you can prove and boost their worth.

Nothing wrong in this as its been reported you do get a great date just as long as you don't mind paying for the experience.

I'm sorry but this is nonsense. They were permium but affordable up until the 2016 model. Since then the pricing is ridiculous. Right now I can buy a Dell 15" AND a 13" for the same price as a MBP 15" with specs matched to the Dell

 

[maflynn]

Apple is a Luxury Brand. They are in the same league as burberry, Louis Vuitton, Porsche, bentley, etc

Premium brand, yes, in the same league as Porches and Bentely's? No, I don't think so, those people are in a different stratosphere. If Apple was on the same level, we wouldn't have had the issues with their premium keyboard from 2016 through 2018. Premium brands don't sell products for years that have design flaws - at least that's my opinion.

Apple bills itself as a premium brand, no question, and for computers they are very expensive, but for a brand to be premium, I want a premium experience and Apple's track record with the MBP is not all that stellar when you look back. 2009 (2008?) through 2011, high volume of GPU failures, culminating to the debacle of the 2011 model where nearly every 2011 15" MBP will fail. Screengate where 2012 through 2015 displays will have its coating flaking off. 2016, 2017 (and hopefully not 2018) has the defective keyboard.

Do you think a $200,000 car is going to have 10 years of significant defects in its design and/or function?
[doublepost=1531651785][/doublepost]Let me add, that I do think Apple machines are well built and have great craftsmanship, in some ways the best in the industry, but the issues I delineated are frustrating at best, work-stopping for owners at worst. I've said so many times that my 2012 machine was the best laptop I've ever owned and its still going. But I think we need an honest look at what Apple is, and their track record. You cannot put them in the same category as a 200,000 dollar car made by hand.

 

[Lennyvalentin]

- Why is Apple forcing Macbook Pro users to buy them and no others? The fact that the iMac Pro doesn't consider them is inconsistent at best.

You'd need a HUGE battery to run the touchbar and its associated hardware wirelessly for any reasonable length of time. It might not even be technically feasible, considering screen updates are generated on the Mac and then downloaded to the touchbar from what I understand; bluetooth is not particularly fast, nor super reliable for large scale data transfers.

Yes you could easily hook up via wired USB instead, but Apple's doubling down on wireless everything these days so it seems forever doomed to not happen.

- If Apple is moving to Face ID - why introduce Touch ID on a Touch Bar? It's already obsolete.

You have a funny definition of the word "obsolete" - as in inconsistent with basically all of the rest of the universe. Touch ID is not obsolete, Apple is still selling a ton of products that use it, while selling only 1 product that uses face ID.

That's pretty much as far from obsolete as you can get I'd say.

- People will have more problems with "Hey Siri"

Maybe. I plan on turning it off first thing I do. I don't need to talk to my gadgets, nor having my gadgets talk back to me.

For example, people complain about the cost of the SSD, but forget to notice that the MBP SSD is +6x (!) as fast as other laptops (https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/2018-macbook-pro-benchmarks).

That's not an accurate real-world disk benchmark, it also compares the Apple laptop against PC laptops with (fairly slow!) SATA SSDs, when there's plenty PC laptops with M.2 PCIe drives available for comparison.

Apple is a Luxury Brand. They are in the same league as burberry, Louis Vuitton, Porsche, bentley, etc.

Apple is more an upscale but still affordable type brand. Think Volvo rather than Bentley, and so on. If a Macbook was a Bentley it would cost $10k instead of $2k. It would also have walnut trim and a full leather interior...

 

[Strider64]

There are people speculating that Apple will eventually do away with the non-Pro Mac lineup and just focus on the PRO lineup (macBook Pro, iMac Pro, Mac Pro). They say Apple wants the average consumer to buy iPads to use as their everyday computer. Sadly I think they will be mostly right about this, but I think Apple will leave one (maybe two) traditional computers for the non-Pro market. That way they can say "We're not totally abandoning you!". From Apple's perspective it does make sense not to put much effort in this area, for they don't really make the money like they do on their iPhones and iPads. Apple still has to support the Pro side, because otherwise there would be no development for the iPhone or iPad. There are still a lot of professionals who use the computer for video and photography work that would also feel abandon if Apple didn't support the pro lineup.

Professionals for the most part can afford to pay higher prices. It sucks for people who still want to use laptop/computer, but are not professionals. Maybe the people (and I) who are speculating this is Apple's intentions are wrong and Apple will continue to support the non-pro Mac lineup, but every thing Apple has done lately doesn't point to that. Just my .02 cents.

 

[bruinsrme]

Yeah but they removed the non-touchbar version, which means the base Pro model is now starting at 2000 euros (2230 dollar)...

In 2018, Apple stopped selling the 2015 model.
People had nearly three years to buy it.

 

[DjanSeriyAnaplian]

I'm sorry but this is nonsense. They were permium but affordable up until the 2016 model. Since then the pricing is ridiculous. Right now I can buy a Dell 15" AND a 13" for the same price as a MBP 15" with specs matched to the Dell

Ikr, it's quite funny that he perceives Apple - one of the most ubiquitous brands on the planet - as luxury. Premium sure, but evidently Apple's marketing is working on some.

 

[dgdosen]

We can stop debating - I'll agree to disagree. Just adding some final thoughts:

You'd need a HUGE battery to run the touchbar and its associated hardware wirelessly for any reasonable length of time. It might not even be technically feasible, considering screen updates are generated on the Mac and then downloaded to the touchbar from what I understand; bluetooth is not particularly fast, nor super reliable for large scale data transfers.

Huge? say an iPhone battery size to run for a few days? Because that's what we're looking at. Is that so big? You need to weight the cost of the potential lack of vendor support for the Touchbar when it's not 'committed' to by Apple, among the other reasons we've been debating.

You have a funny definition of the word "obsolete" - as in inconsistent with basically all of the rest of the universe. Touch ID is not obsolete, Apple is still selling a ton of products that use it, while selling only 1 product that uses face ID.

That's pretty much as far from obsolete as you can get I'd say.

Touch ID is certainly not 'old' technology - but it's obsolete in that it doesn't do anything that Face ID doesn't do, does it? Face ID is Apple's newer tech and Apple has already made the investment in the technology, so it's a sunk cost. It's a competitive advantage and it works. Moving forward, why would Apple choose to use Touch ID over Face ID?

So yes, that's obsolete. In the case of a laptop - Apple already has cameras on their laptops - It's reasonable that Face ID technology could fit in about that same size bezel. After all - the laptop is much larger than a phone. If I were Johnny Ive - I'd ask "Why are we taking up valuable space and adding a fingerprint sensor if we don't need it?"

 

[dr34mc4st3r]

I'm sorry but this is nonsense. They were permium but affordable up until the 2016 model. Since then the pricing is ridiculous. Right now I can buy a Dell 15" AND a 13" for the same price as a MBP 15" with specs matched to the Dell

Same specs doesn't mean same experience ... I will gladly pay the premium for Apple hardware and support. You can enjoy your Dells and we can all be happy with our respective purchases.

 

[The Mercurian]

Same specs doesn't mean same experience ... I will gladly pay the premium for Apple hardware and support. You can enjoy your Dells and we can all be happy with our respective purchases.

I'm not particularly happy. I'm an Apple fan for a long time and I've had many of them. I'll happily pay an Apple premium of 10-15%, maybe 20% for a really great machine that ticks all my boxes. But the current machines are at an 57% premium vs Dell with same specs for the machine I wanted. That I'm not happy to pay.

 

[maflynn]

I will gladly pay the premium for Apple hardware and support.

To a point, but I think for many people, we're not getting that premium support that we constantly hear about, for instance what about those folks who bought a 2016 MBP (w/o applecare) and had to pay for a repair in 2017, on a poorly designed keyboard.

You can enjoy your Dells and we can all be happy with our respective purchases.

Dell has been rated #2 behind apple. I can't comment on first hand experience, since I've not owned a Dell in many years. I will say all of my interactions with Apple have been top notch