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Why is the 15 inch MacBook Pro so expensive?

I think it can be summed up thus:

Go play with a macbook in the store
Go play with an equivalent PC

Pay attention to the screen, the keyboard the trackpad and how sturdy the machine feels.

Even better. Find a friend with a 3-5 year old macbook, and play with that.

Play with a 3-5 year old PC laptop.



You'll see the difference.


For most people doing "stuff" these days on-paper spec is secondary - most machines are "good enough" in terms of CPU/RAM/etc.
 
I learned all of this the hard way. MSI is a perfect example of what the previous 2 posters are talking about. They offer some pretty impressive specc'ed PC notebooks for the price on paper (just look at the graphics cards in their $1500 notebooks), but the fact of the matter is (at least in my case) it's truly a matter of you get what you pay for.

I currently have a 2 yo MSI notebook (GX660 originally bought for $1,299 USD, you can look up the specs) that is starting to break down. The Wifi card is a poor quality single band 2.4 GHz card that, while it meets the specs you are looking for on paper, it has weak signal strength, slow download speeds, and is normally kicked off of my network when more than 4 devices connect to it.

It features 2 USB 3.0 ports but if you benchmark them their throughput is slower than comparable notebooks. What's worse is that one of them has become wonky and will sometimes not recognize devices attached to it.

The optical drive also has a mind of it's own. Sometimes it will read DVDs, but often I have to eject and re-insert the disc just to get it to read. After 3-5 tries these discs will eventually load up.

Bear in mind this notebook has never been abused. It has spent it's entire life sitting on a desk, with an occasional road trip and handled with kid gloves. The bottom line is that -- while on paper the specs look good, the actual product's quality is certainly not up to my expectations for a 2 year old notebook. And I haven't even mentioned the subpar LCD display and the cheap plastic housing on this notebook.

This all said, having bought its replacement, a rMBP, the quality is like night and day. The WiFi card in the MBP is dual band, and amazing. whereas I was pulling maybe 3 Mbps on my MSI, the Macbook is averaging 5.6 Mbps. The display is light years ahead of the MSI. And the construction and build quality is heads and shoulders superior to any PC notebook I've owned previously.

So to answer your question "why is the 15 inch MacBook Pro so expensive", as mentioned above all you really have to do is physically compare the build quality between an Apple and most any other PC manufacturer out there. Compare the quality of the screens, the fit and finish. And definitely play around with OSX at an Apple store. It's no contest. The MBP is definitely worth it.
 
swerve147 said:
I learned all of this the hard way. MSI is a perfect example of what the previous 2 posters are talking about. They offer some pretty impressive specc'ed PC notebooks for the price on paper (just look at the graphics cards in their $1500 notebooks), but the fact of the matter is (at least in my case) it's truly a matter of you get what you pay for.

I currently have a 2 yo MSI notebook (GX660 originally bought for $1,299 USD, you can look up the specs) that is starting to break down. The Wifi card is a poor quality single band 2.4 GHz card that, while it meets the specs you are looking for on paper, it has weak signal strength, slow download speeds, and is normally kicked off of my network when more than 4 devices connect to it.

It features 2 USB 3.0 ports but if you benchmark them their throughput is slower than comparable notebooks. What's worse is that one of them has become wonky and will sometimes not recognize devices attached to it.

The optical drive also has a mind of it's own. Sometimes it will read DVDs, but often I have to eject and re-insert the disc just to get it to read. After 3-5 tries these discs will eventually load up.

Bear in mind this notebook has never been abused. It has spent it's entire life sitting on a desk, with an occasional road trip and handled with kid gloves. The bottom line is that -- while on paper the specs look good, the actual product's quality is certainly not up to my expectations for a 2 year old notebook. And I haven't even mentioned the subpar LCD display and the cheap plastic housing on this notebook.

This all said, having bought its replacement, a rMBP, the quality is like night and day. The WiFi card in the MBP is dual band, and amazing. whereas I was pulling maybe 3 Mbps on my MSI, the Macbook is averaging 5.6 Mbps. The display is light years ahead of the MSI. And the construction and build quality is heads and shoulders superior to any PC notebook I've owned previously.

So to answer your question "why is the 15 inch MacBook Pro so expensive", as mentioned above all you really have to do is physically compare the build quality between an Apple and most any other PC manufacturer out there. Compare the quality of the screens, the fit and finish. And definitely play around with OSX at an Apple store. It's no contest. The MBP is definitely worth it.
Click to expand...

So you're comparing a 2y.o computer with a newly bought rMBP? Of course it's no contest. It's also not a fair comparison. Not praising PC-laptops, I much prefer MBP/rMBP. Just saying that you're comparing something old vs something new, in almost every case the "something new" will win.
 
Tanax said:
So you're comparing a 2y.o computer with a newly bought rMBP? Of course it's no contest. It's also not a fair comparison. Not praising PC-laptops, I much prefer MBP/rMBP. Just saying that you're comparing something old vs something new, in almost every case the "something new" will win.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. But if you've never owned an MSI laptop (and its hard to without either actually buying one or knowing someone who owns one as its not generally available in the retail channel in the US, mail order only), you haven't truly witnessed the build quality. Trust me on this, even when I bought my MSI new the build quality was/is nowhere even close to the MBP. And yeah, it's 2 years old but I made no performance comparisons to the MBP, just hardware comments.

I have a fairly good feeling my MBPs USB ports won't become wonky or my WiFi will flake out on me in 2 years. If they do I'll certainly eat my words.
 
swerve147 said:
Fair enough. But if you've never owned an MSI laptop (and its hard to without either actually buying one or knowing someone who owns one as its not generally available in the retail channel in the US, mail order only), you haven't truly witnessed the build quality. Trust me on this, even when I bought my MSI new the build quality was/is nowhere even close to the MBP. And yeah, it's 2 years old but I made no performance comparisons to the MBP, just hardware comments.

I have a fairly good feeling my MBPs USB ports won't become wonky or my WiFi will flake out on me in 2 years. If they do I'll certainly eat my words.
Click to expand...

I had an old Sony Vaio back in 2007~ up until I bought my current MBP in '09. I know exactly what you're talking about, plastic PC-laptops truly suck. However, I do believe they've gotten a lot better, look at some of the ultrabooks by Samsung, they look aluminium and quite decent build-quality.

I still prefer Apple but still 🙂
 
Tanax said:
So you're comparing a 2y.o computer with a newly bought rMBP? Of course it's no contest. It's also not a fair comparison. Not praising PC-laptops, I much prefer MBP/rMBP. Just saying that you're comparing something old vs something new, in almost every case the "something new" will win.
Click to expand...

My 2011 MBP has none of those issues. It also has MIMO 5ghz wifi.

Also why i suggested to compare a 3-5 year old mac to a 3-5 year old PC - so you can see how they handle wear and tear.


My 2011 MBP looks brand new, keyboard, trackpad, etc all feel brand new, as well.

The 6 month old HP on my desk at work is already showing signs of wear on teh keys and trackpad, and i try to avoid using the trackpad as much as possible because it sucks.

PC laptops = carry mouse around with you (the trackpads suck). NO need with the mac.


....And the elitebook i'm comparing to was not even a cheap bottom of the range PC (elitebook 8560p). It was equivalent price to the most similarly specced Macbook Pro.



But seriously... go compare some 3-5 year old PCs and Macs. We can talk about it all day but seeing is believing. 7-8 years ago i used to bitch about price vs spec also... then i gradually started buying apple gear - the airport express was my entry product and i was very impressed with the range and "just works" setup.... iphone came next, then the mac mini and then i was sold. I spent more time using the mac mini than my way higher spec PC at the time as it was virtually dead silent and the OS was less annoying...


And.... the mac mini still works perfectly, and have just sold it to a friend of a friend for 250 bucks including a keyboard and mouse... in 2 days (put it up on a non-computing forum's for-sale section and it was sold that quick).

Try selling an old PC 🙂
 
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my gf's sony vaio i3 based machine, which honestly felt like a rocketship when we got it, is a complete dogpile now. forget about the crappy OS (win7 64 bit) - the trackpad barely works, some of the keys are wonky, sometimes it doesnt know if its shutting down etc.. Also, the exterior finish which was beautiful upon purchase scratched easily and looks rather awul.

i have no doubt nuking it and putting ubuntu on it will breathe new life into it from a software point of view, but the hardware (which sony usually does a good job on) really hasn't aged well.

I dont think the MBP is an expensive item. If you think you'll get 4 years use out of it, or more, amortize your purchase price over that amount of time so it's easier to think about 🙂

YMMV
 
Before my macbook pro I also owned a series of PC laptops. Each one was more problematic than the last -- my last Sony Vaio in the end I couldn't play youtube videos without it shutting down from overheating, and I had to use an external mouse. Most of the time it didn't read USB drives. Chrome got this awful virus that caused these weird black wholes in the middle of the screen. Total nightmare.

I stuck with it because at that time I was excessed from my teaching position and subbing from day to day. Vowed that the day I got a permanent position I'd treat myself to a macbook pro. Best decision I've ever made.

For one -- no need to hook up the mouse to the laptop. Trackpad works like magic. It fits perfectly in my bag, I just love its thin but sturdy build. Machine flies after installing 16 GB of RAM and 500 GB SSD Samsung 840.

I do wish for a more high-res screen but I have an ipad for reading books and playing games and so I get my retina fix there. But no doubt about it -- if you want a basic, old-fashioned laptop, the cmbp is the best there is, and I'll be sad to see it killed off.
 
SAIRUS said:
I have 16 gig memory on my 15" rMBP. You can't ask for the memory upgrade on the 13" rMBP. It is no where on Apple's site, and I'm pretty sure the ram is not user replaceable.
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Correct, it's not user upgradable. I'm sure it COULD be upgraded by Apples engineers, there is probably no technical reason not to, but more likely an issue of logistics and supply chain as the 13" model sits a little more in the consumer side, those who want 16GB of RAM are more likely to go with the beefier 15" model (unless you're odd like me).

But the original question wasn't about the retina model.
 
check out the asus zenbook prime or the samsung series 9. now those things truly do compete. they are sexy as ****

but ! windows really does start to look lackluster once you see how quickly you can do things in OSX. so what i did was have a gaming desktop PC (gaming on a laptop never made sense) and have my mac for school and such. and since im not an idiot and got the 15inch instead of the 13 i can still game on the go ! Trine 2 and guild wars play maxed out. I'm in music class and i get to hear youtube clips with the 15 inch nice stereo speakers.

battery last crap tons better then my old samsung laptop. they really are catching up to apple tho. the new hybrid laptops are also something to consider. lenovo is pushing out some really innovative stuff
 
isephmusic said:
check out the asus zenbook prime or the samsung series 9. now those things truly do compete. they are sexy as ****

but ! windows really does start to look lackluster once you see how quickly you can do things in OSX. so what i did was have a gaming desktop PC (gaming on a laptop never made sense) and have my mac for school and such. and since im not an idiot and got the 15inch instead of the 13 i can still game on the go ! Trine 2 and guild wars play maxed out. I'm in music class and i get to hear youtube clips with the 15 inch nice stereo speakers.

battery last crap tons better then my old samsung laptop. they really are catching up to apple tho. the new hybrid laptops are also something to consider. lenovo is pushing out some really innovative stuff
Click to expand...

I agree completely. I'm in the same boat as you. I'm amazed how the more I use my Mac, the clunkier and slower my Windows gaming PC feels, even though it seriously out-spec's it. Windows is just not a great OS. Windows has been afraid to ditch old technologies (registry, DLL's, etc.). Apple is not afraid to make major transitions to keep on the top of the line (68k to PPC to Intel; Mac OS to Mac OS X, etc.) sometimes meaning gutting and re-writing the OS completely!
 
Basically I could sign under most of what you guys have said...
A Windows notebook can be fine and dandy, you can get used to a lot of stuff, like the machine slowing down over time, crashing, losing hours of work, doing the defragmentations, antivirus scans etc etc.
But then when you get to try a Mac there's just no getting back🙂
That was the case with me - after years of using Widnows machines during high school and college I got my 1st job, where I had to work on a Mac and after the Windows>OSX transition period I was hooked - installed OSX on my desktop, a Dock mocking app on my netbook, but then after a while it wasn't enough, so I bought myself a Macbook, since I could finally afford it🙂
I also got a used white Macbook for my girlfriend to replace her 2 year old Acer, that turned into rubbish after a year of using it.
At first she had the same attitude as I had - everything's backwards, where's the "x" that closes the window!?, how do I do this and that... but now she's cursing whenever she has to do some work on the HP notebook from her office - even though that HP is brand new and has a lot better specs (i3, 4GB RAM vs macbook's Core2Duo and 2GB RAM) it still isn't as fast and smooth the white MB from 2006!
But enough about the whole Windows vs Mac.
The thing I would say to someone, who's wondering (or bi*ching🙂 about Mac's prices is a short story:
a couple of months ago we went on a holiday with my girlfriend and noticed that the plastic on her Macbook's back (near the hinge) was cracked. I remember reading that Apple used to replace the casing on white MBs, yet I was certain that they won't do it now, since it's a 5 year old machine. Nevertheless I took it to an Apple reseller and they've replaced the bottom casing and...
• the whole keyboard
• the panel around the keyboard
• the trackpad (with the button)
• and the framing around the display...
all for FREE! Despite the fact that all except the bottom was perfectly fine, apart from being worn out. On a 5 year old machine! Try that with Sony or Toshiba!🙂
 
I didn't expect all these replies and all these informative answers!

After looking into a few rumors, I heard Apple would discontinue the cMBP and replace it with a cheaper rMBP. If this is true, I'm going to bargin the price down on the remaining cMBP. I get a cheaper 15 inch Pro and it's user upgradeable!

Thanks everyone 🙂
 
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