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Merkava_4

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 4, 2010
727
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California
Outlandish question, I know. It's almost as if Apple is trying to coerce people into buying a 13 inch. I would have priced the 16 inch maybe $300 more than a 13 inch; not double.
 
Coerce? You are under no threat or intimidation to purchase a 16-inch or a 13-inch laptop from Apple.

It's a case of the 16-inch MBP's market size. It's a large enough market that Apple must support but not large enough to drive down costs in scale. Add to it that the 16-inch market demands better internal specs and you've arrived at about double the price.
 
But doesn't the 13 inch have the vastly superior M1 chip?
Its faster but it has limitations. You can get 64GB RAM in a 16" MacBook Pro. The max for M1 computers is 16GB right now. The GPU is also better, plus it supports external GPUs and more thunderbolt ports.

Right now its a bit of a weird time but the 16" does have some things going for it.
 
I presume you’re looking for a more intelligent answer other than



Smaller market size and had its own R&D team most likely. Also price per performance doesn’t scale linearly with computers.
 
The same reason a Ferrari is a quarter of a million dollars...because people will pay it and it is a price where Apple is satisfied with the profit they make after factoring in the costs of designing, building, shipping, and selling it. I purchased one with the 5600M HBM2 GPU, which was an $800 upgrade over the base GPU--that's fricking insane! Literally that GPU upgrade cost more than my M1 Mini. And yet I paid it before M1, and I would still pay it if I had to do it over. I'm satisfied that the money I paid was a sufficient investment towards my future productivity and Apple is satisfied that the money they charged yields them sufficient profit.

Will their pricing structure in the future change? Probably.

TLDR; like every other product, because people will pay it.
 
But doesn't the 13 inch have the vastly superior M1 chip?

It did not 5 weeks ago and the 16" prices were set 2 years ago.

Apple will not drop them quickly since it will have a 16" with M1zz/M2 chip next year and wants to sell those for close to the prices of the Intel 16". The Intel 16" is likely more expensive to build than Apple Silicon since Apple has to buy chips for Intel and AMD. So, being able to hold the old price will increase Apple's profit margin on the 16". And as an Apple stockholder I approve.
 
Keep in mind that the 13" M1 replaced the "low-end" two TB3 port MBP. There is still the four TB3 port 13" MBP that is running Intel.

The base Intel 13" MBP runs i5 chips, the base 16" runs faster i7 chips with more cores. The base 16" is 30% more than the base 13" ($2400 compared to $1800).
 
Outlandish question, I know. It's almost as if Apple is trying to coerce people into buying a 13 inch. I would have priced the 16 inch maybe $300 more than a 13 inch; not double.

It's double because:
1. The CPU is still at least as fast as M1. Maybe slightly slower, but not significantly worse.
2. The GPU is 3-4x faster than M1.
3. It comes with 16GB RAM by default vs only 8GB in the base M1 Pro.
4. It comes with 512GB storage by default vs only 256GB in the base M1 Pro.
5. The display is larger with higher resolution.
6. The battery is much larger (100WHr vs 60WHr in the M1 Pro).
7. The speakers are much better (has subwoofers on both sides).

So there are numerous reasons why it's twice the price of M1. The only things M1 has over the 16" MacBook Pro are... weight, thermal and battery life. Otherwise, performance-wise, the 16" is still very competitive.
 
It's double because:
1. The CPU is still at least as fast as M1. Maybe slightly slower, but not significantly worse.
2. The GPU is 3-4x faster than M1.
3. It comes with 16GB RAM by default vs only 8GB in the base M1 Pro.
4. It comes with 512GB storage by default vs only 256GB in the base M1 Pro.
5. The display is larger with higher resolution.
6. The battery is much larger (100WHr vs 60WHr in the M1 Pro).
7. The speakers are much better (has subwoofers on both sides).

So there are numerous reasons why it's twice the price of M1. The only things M1 has over the 16" MacBook Pro are... weight, thermal and battery life. Otherwise, performance-wise, the 16" is still very competitive.
So then I should not sell my 16" MBP. I love the screen size. 13" seems too small.
 
I had a 13” years ago and promptly sent it back. Just too small to get any serious work done. Perhaps these small machines are meant for 20 somethings. I’m loving my 16” screen.
 
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Same here I might keep my 16" MBP until the new one comes out next year then trade in the old one not to Apple as I heard horror stories about that but to one of the trade in sites recommended here.
 
Because the stuff inside is very different from what the Intel 13 inch model has.

You get a 45W 6 or 8 core chip instead of a 15-25W 4 core chip, dedicated GPU instead of an iGPU, a battery twice the size, larger display, better speakers, double the memory and storage (on the base models) and so on. That all costs way, way more than $300.
 
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So there are numerous reasons why it's twice the price of M1. The only things M1 has over the 16" MacBook Pro are... weight, thermal and battery life. Otherwise, performance-wise, the 16" is still very competitive.

Being competitive performance-wise should mean 2x performance as 2x the price.
1.2x the performance for 3x the price, not so much.
 
Being competitive performance-wise should mean 2x performance as 2x the price.
1.2x the performance for 3x the price, not so much.

The M1 MacBook Pro is $1,700 (16GB/512SSD) and $1,900 (16GB/1024SSD) to the MacBook Pro's $2,400 (6C/5300/512SSD) or $2,800 (8C/5500/1024SSD). That isn't three times as much.
 
But doesn't the 13 inch have the vastly superior M1 chip?
Of course not. The M1 just was released LOL... The larger MacBooks were always more expensive. This isn't a new thing. More expensive components and larger screen. Do not buy any Intel Mac. You would be crazy to buy any Intel Mac now unless you have a specific need for it. When the 16" M1 MacBook comes out expect the price to be similar to what the larger MacBooks cost.
 
Being competitive performance-wise should mean 2x performance as 2x the price.
1.2x the performance for 3x the price, not so much.
That's not how things work with computers. Have you checked out the price of a Nvidia RTX 3080 vs a 3090? I could probably come up with dozens of examples but price does not go on the same line as performance.
 
That's not how things work with computers. Have you checked out the price of a Nvidia RTX 3080 vs a 3090? I could probably come up with dozens of examples but price does not go on the same line as performance.

Bad analogy IMO. The 3090 is way more of a niche product than a 16" MBP. It's more like the Mac Pro desktop or XDR 32" display of the nVidia lineup.
The thread asks why is the 16" sold as double price compared to the 13", and the answer is simple.
It has to be that price in order to guard that spot in the lineup, even if it's based on outdated technology.
And also because it's still more expensive to make, since Apple has to get the CPU from Intel and the GPU from AMD.
And yes, it still makes little sense to get a 16" today from an end-user standpoint.
I'm suffering from the reduced screen space but still this transition made all the sense in the world.
 
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Bad analogy IMO. The 3090 is way more of a niche product than a 16" MBP. It's more like the Mac Pro desktop or XDR 32" display of the nVidia lineup.
The thread asks why is the 16" sold as double price compared to the 13", and the answer is simple.
It has to be that price in order to guard that spot in the lineup, even if it's based on outdated technology.
And also because it's still more expensive to make, since Apple has to get the CPU from Intel and the GPU from AMD.
And yes, it still makes little sense to get a 16" today from an end-user standpoint.
I'm suffering from the reduced screen space but still this transition made all the sense in the world.

Its not double the price from high end 13 to low end 16.

AU3600 I7 13” AU $3800 I7 16”. WTF is this thread about exactly?

And the 16” makes a lot of sense still to me. A 13” is unusable on a desk for my use.
 
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