Apple Hardware - how fairly priced?

[paolo]

(Firstly - this isn't meant as platform war. We all have our preferences, and there's definitely no universal "this is best")

I was in the market for a new PC a year or so ago. I'd borked so many Windows machines over the years. Not for them being Windows, but they got bashed, were a plasticky, and all ended up dying.

So I finally switched camp and sunk an OMG level of money into a MacBook.

At the time I thought, well, that's what you pay for buying Apple. But then - after buying - looked at what was available for Windows, similar spec. Metal case, backlit keyboard, SSD, HiDPI display, all that stuff.

I was really surprised. Some equivalent Windows machines were (and still are) more expensive than Apple. My favourite Windows supplier, Sony, bailed. I think Samsung have bailed too, in Europe at least.

I guess my conclusion - but maybe it's wrong - is that for higher end specs on laptops, Apple aren't too bad.

 

[editor]

The MacBook Air is still probably the best laptop you can buy. It's an excellent piece of unified design, that makes most rivals look clunky. But for most people, they could get the job done for a lot less with a laptop that doesn't come with a glowing advert on the back.

My primary laptop is now a £260 Asus Transformer. Fast, powerful and with a 12 hour battery life - and the ability to turn into a tablet - it does everything I need it to do for a fraction of the price of the swishy Sony Windows ultra-thin carbon fibre laptop that is currently gathering dust next to me.

 

[Fez909]

The prices have converged a lot in the past few years. iPhones are just as expensive as they've ever been, but Android phones have got good, now, so they can charge top whack, too.

Apple components are ridiculous. Check the price of RAM compared to buying it from a non-Apple supplier. The laptops are reasonable for bottom of the range MacBooks but when you start putting decent specs on them, the price quickly goes mental.

The MacBook Air is still probably the best laptop you can buy.

What an odd statement. Based on what?

 

[paolo]

The MacBook Air is still probably the best laptop you can buy.

It was a category redefiner when it first appeared. Many other vendors quickly followed suit, and so we now have "Ultrabooks"

(I think it's become a bit long in tooth now though, for Apple... The 13" MacBookPro Retina... almost the same weight, has *that* amazing display which the Air lacks, and almost same battery life.)

But your sentiment still stands... they can make some good kit.

 

[Fez909]

The cheapest MacBook is twice as expensive as an equivalent [spec] Windows laptop.

Of course the design of it will be much different. The MacBook will be lighter, smaller and feel better made, no doubt. But weirdly, even if you do spend the same on a Windows machine, you still won't get as nice a design or even a much better spec than the cheaper model.

This one is near to the MacBook's price and it's got a decent processor, twice the RAM and a bigger HD, but seemingly that's it. You'd think for nearly double you'd at least get an SSD or a better resolution than fucking 1,366 x 768 pixel

 

[paolo]

Apple components are ridiculous. Check the price of RAM compared to buying it from a non-Apple supplier. The laptops are reasonable for bottom of the range MacBooks but when you start putting decent specs on them, the price quickly goes mental.

True in some configs.

But I priced up a metal case Dell the other day... for mid range (256Gb SSD, blah blah) Dell was still, just a bit more expensive than Apple.

 

[Fez909]

True in some configs.

But I priced up a metal case Dell the other day... for mid range (256Gb SSD, blah blah) Dell was still, just a bit more expensive than Apple.

For the same/similar configuration Mac? I'm surprised if that's right!

 

[paolo]

Dell Precision M3800 Workstation

Metal body, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD... Two Grand - SPECIAL OFFER!

(This is a 15", so comparable to the MacBook Pro 15)

 

[paolo]

Normal price, nearer 3 grand. FUCK ME.

 

[Fez909]

It's 'only' £1,500 (+VAT) on dell.co.uk so you're being ripped off wherever you're looking

Let's see how much an equivalent Mac is.

15 inch MacBook pro with slightly slower CPU is £1,599 so it's a bit cheaper than the Dell. But the Dell comes with a dedicated graphics card that looks to be worth about $500 on its own (it's hard to find a true value seeing as it's a mobile GPU and they aren't often sold stand-alone).

What graphics card does a MacBook pro have? It's not listed in the spec on the Apple site.

 

[EastEnder]

(Firstly - this isn't meant as platform war. We all have our preferences, and there's definitely no universal "this is best")

If you're after a calm, rational, pragmatic, polite, & unbiased discussion about Apple versus Non-Apple hardware you've definitely come to the right place...

 

[sim667]

It's 'only' £1,500 (+VAT) on dell.co.uk so you're being ripped off wherever you're looking

Let's see how much an equivalent Mac is.

15 inch MacBook pro with slightly slower CPU is £1,599 so it's a bit cheaper than the Dell. But the Dell comes with a dedicated graphics card that looks to be worth about $500 on its own (it's hard to find a true value seeing as it's a mobile GPU and they aren't often sold stand-alone).

What graphics card does a MacBook pro have? It's not listed in the spec on the Apple site.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2GB GDDR5 memory for the 15" £1999 model

Its probably the same with windows, but OSX can rededicate its memory off the video card to operating functions when the video card isn't being used intensively, so thats woth bearing in mind.

Personally the build quality of macs wins every time for me, but they've started doing some stuff I'm not so happy with, such as soldering ram to the motherboard as it saves them 0.00001 mm of space. One thing I've noticed when using freinds 6month old PC laptops is it feels like they're 5 years old already, painfully slow and full of shitty little background processes etc.

Its all about personal preference really though isn't it.

 

[editor]

It's clearly a bit daft to suggest that it's even slightly normal for high end Windows laptop to feel "5 years old" after 6 months use, and when it comes to build quality, well, some swear by the ThinkPad which I think is the one I'd take if I was going out in the wilds for years on end. They're used on the Space Station after all!

But, of course, Apple makes great hardware.

 

[snadge]

Well about 5 years ago I was in the market for a new computer and happened upon an ex demo 27" iMac for £1100 in pcworld, resolution of 2560*1440 so snapped it up, was my 1st mac, I still have it, working perfectly albeit as a overpriced monitor for my windows gaming machine.

Thing was, at the time the cheapest monitor with that resolution was around £1400.

 

[sim667]

It's clearly a bit daft to suggest that it's even slightly normal for high end Windows laptop to feel "5 years old" after 6 months use, and when it comes to build quality, well, some swear by the ThinkPad which I think is the one I'd take if I was going out in the wilds for years on end. They're used on the Space Station after all!

But, of course, Apple makes great hardware.

I borrowed a PC laptop that my freind uses for his dj'ing/production just last saturday, he bought it six months ago, and it was hugely more painful to use than my 2011 macbook pro........ I would even go as far as to say it was on a par with my 2008 mac pro that has had the absolute shit beaten out of it.

I don't think its a hardware thing, I think its just bloatware in the OS, it'd probably run beautifully with ubuntu on it.

 

[editor]

I borrowed a PC laptop that my freind uses for his dj'ing/production just last saturday, he bought it six months ago, and it was hugely more painful to use than my 2011 macbook pro........ I would even go as far as to say it was on a par with my 2008 mac pro that has had the absolute shit beaten out of it.

Did the laptop cost over a £1,000?

 

[sim667]

Did the laptop cost over a £1,000?

Not far off I think, £850 ish.....

I only spent £939 on my macbook, so similar price bracket.

 

[editor]

Not far off I think, £850 ish.....

I only spent £939 on my macbook, so similar price bracket.

But it''s a pretty meaningless comparison unless you know what he's been doing with his laptop, and to try and draw any inferences that all Windows laptops would act the same would be very, very silly indeed.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Comparing raw specs between different OS platforms isn't really that helpful though.

 

[sim667]

But it''s a pretty meaningless comparison unless you know what he's been doing with his laptop, and to try and draw any inferences that all Windows laptops would act the same would be very, very silly indeed.

He does pretty much exactly the same as me, Ableton, Traktor (he's a serato user)...... He does have steam and RPG games, and he probably uses it for porn neither of which I do on my macbook, hence I said I think it might be the bloatware

The only inference I'm drawing is that Windows seems to get bogged down a lot more with background processes from what I can tell, I don't think thats an unfair comment, and in my experience quite well known amongst IT types who have experience of OS's other than windows.

OSX is not without its flaws, normally to do with compatibilities, for example not being able to instal the libogg libraries for native flac support on mavericks and above, or inability to run legacy software etc, but those tend to be problems for people who want to do specific tasks rather than everyday usage..... Things like java and flash issues are everyday problems though on OSX

 

[peterkro]

You pays your money and takes your choice.
I've got two 17" Apple laptops,one early 2009 one Powerbook about 2004.The older one is underpowered but its taken a kicking and keeps on ticking.
Buy what ever you want it's your choice,but I'm happy I slung Windows and went with the reality distortion field.You may think I'm an idiot and that's fair but it works for me.(by the way Thinkpads great laptops but still run Windows)

 

[editor]

You pays your money and takes your choice.
I've got two 17" Apple laptops,one early 2009 one Powerbook about 2004.The older one is underpowered but its taken a kicking and keeps on ticking.
Buy what ever you want it's your choice,but I'm happy I slung Windows and went with the reality distortion field.You may think I'm an idiot and that's fair but it works for me.(by the way Thinkpads great laptops but still run Windows)

A large chunk of the world runs on Windows and most of those folks get by just fine with what they've got. I've no idea why you're assuming that I might think you an 'idiot' for buying an Apple laptop. They make excellent, albeit expensive, laptops.

 

[sim667]

You pays your money and takes your choice.
I've got two 17" Apple laptops,one early 2009 one Powerbook about 2004.The older one is underpowered but its taken a kicking and keeps on ticking.
Buy what ever you want it's your choice,but I'm happy I slung Windows and went with the reality distortion field.You may think I'm an idiot and that's fair but it works for me.(by the way Thinkpads great laptops but still run Windows)

I'd echo that, my 2003 17" powerbook is still kicking, (except the battery, it lasts about 10 mins when not plugged in, but I've never replaced it). That said when I did first buy it it had to go back 3 times because of a dodgy screen, and in the end they replace it with a 1.67 PPC / 2GB Ram model (I'd bought a 1.4 PPC/ 512 mb ram originally).

I don't think apple hardware now is as good as it was then though, the late PPC stuff was very good, as was the early intel stuff..... But in later incarnations I've know of people have failing logic boards etc.

 

[peterkro]

I'd echo that, my 2003 17" powerbook is still kicking, (except the battery, it lasts about 10 mins when not plugged in, but I've never replaced it). That said when I did first buy it it had to go back 3 times because of a dodgy screen, and in the end they replace it with a 1.67 PPC / 2GB Ram model (I'd bought a 1.4 PPC/ 512 mb ram originally).

I don't think apple hardware now is as good as it was then though, the late PPC stuff was very good, as was the early intel stuff..... But in later incarnations I've know of people have failing logic boards etc.

Mine dies immediately when disconnected from the mains,but that hasn't stopped it being a server for years, all my backups go via the powerbook to a Drobo and all my torrents come down to the Drobo and viewed over the network via the powerbook.Admittedly it cost about £4000 over 11 years but I dropped that on shit computers in the decade before.

 

[paolo]

If you're after a calm, rational, pragmatic, polite, & unbiased discussion about Apple versus Non-Apple hardware you've definitely come to the right place...

I know, what was I thinking... But...
Amazingly, the peace is just about holding

 

[paolo]

Personally the build quality of macs wins every time for me, but they've started doing some stuff I'm not so happy with, such as soldering ram to the motherboard as it saves them 0.00001 mm of space. processes etc.

I recently looked at some dismantle videos for my MBP retina 13... OMG. iFixit rate it 1/10 for self serviceability. I saw why. *how many* screws?

Years ago, in desktop form, was the IIcx.

It was one of the best bits of design I've ever seen, from that standpoint. There was *one* screw. Everything else snapped into place. Me and a colleague had a little race - we could fully dismantle a IIcx in 45 seconds. All component parts laid out on the workbench. And the *one* screw.

 

[quiquaquo]

Dismantled a dead G4 iBook recently to recover the drive for a friend. Very poor construction wise, worse than a Dell netbook. Convinced me never to touch Apple hardware ever.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

<snip> What graphics card does a MacBook pro have? It's not listed in the spec on the Apple site.

My late 2013 Macbook 13" Retina has an Intel Iris 1536 MB (which I think is the 5200). Not sure what the newer ones have.

I wouldn't try to play the latest games on it (although I did get Skyrim running in a VM last year just to see if I could) but it's fine for everything else I might want to do. Gets a bit hot if I do something really CPU and/or GPU intensive though.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

There was a period in which Apple construction standards went down. The laptop that I got to replace my old 17" PPC machine (hugely solid and reliable) when it was stolen was distinctly inferior - it fails to work now when I have really historical iBooks that are fine. OTOH my MacBook Air 2nd gen is still absolutely usable despite being 5+ years old, and everything in the last few years has been the same from what I can see.

 

[chilango]

I use a Mac that was set on fire. Literally set on fire. The plastic Apple logo on the back is all melted, the metal is all scorched and charred.

It works perfectly.