non-techie people expecting a "good" computer/laptop for £100-200

[terley]

Bit of a rant if anything and maybe a question as to how society got this way..

People are walking around rocking £800-1200 mobile phones, yet time and time again i see sellers trying to shift laptops/computers with 10 year old hardware for exorbitant prices claiming that they are top of the line.. One guy recently on Facebook claimed that the laptop he was selling had a "top of line line world class SSD, super fast performance processor etc etc..." it was a mid-range SSD in a 2nd gen i3 laptop.

Below is an example of what i mean, this guy genuinely trying to get a "macbook" of all things (dunno why he specifically needs a Mac) for peanuts.. Is the average person so out of touch with technology that they genuinely have no idea how much things should cost anymore?

I dont know if its just me, but i always get the "Hey pete u know lots about PCs, what laptop would you reccomend? i've got £300.. i want to be able to play world of warcraft and overwatch.."

 

[dowie]

He might well get lucky if some scally has recently robbed one, location is Manchester after all!

 

[Akagi]

You can get a laptop that most general users would consider "good" for that sort of money. Probably not a Macbook though.

I have an HP something something with an i3 dual core, 6GB DDR3, and a 120GB SSD. Its very snappy for general usage, desktop publishing, internet browsing, etc. Its probably not worth £150.

 

[asim18]

how much things should cost anymore?

Yeah Apple stuff "should" cost about 50% less than they want, and it's worth is about 30-40% of what they ask tbh. I thought everyone knew that half of the purchase price is just buzzwords and air, nothing of actual electronic substance.

 

[Scania]

Depends on your definition of good, I got one for under £50 from the MM.

It’s good for my uses - watching films in the truck, web browsing etc.

Crap if I want to game on it etc....

Ultimately anybody placing an ad looking for a “MacBook Loptop” is obviously a cretin and deserve whatever crap they have palmed off on them.

 

[Efour]

He might well get lucky if some scally has recently robbed one, location is Manchester after all!

Lol exactly my thought.
Maybe thats the target supplier.

 

[Tefal]

Yeah Apple stuff "should" cost about 50% less than they want, and it's worth is about 30-40% of what they ask tbh. I thought everyone knew that half of the purchase price is just buzzwords and air, nothing of actual electronic substance.

On Apple laptops its not the electronics your paying for its the metal work.

The chassis on those things are amazing and will cost a lot to make

 

[Hades]

My quad core i7, 16gb SSD Thinkpad probably isnt worth much more than £200 to £250. So a lesser specced laptop would be achievable for £100. A very old Macbook could probably be bought for that around manny too.

 

[theone8181]

I genuinly think people don't realise how much things like phones cost as it so spread out, £40 a month seems fine, but trying to buy a pc typically means a big amount in one go, even if its less people see it as costing more.

 

[Sparky__H]

I honestly wouldn't worry about it. People like this have always existed it's just the Internet has given them a wider audience for their selfish stupidity.

 

[200sols]

I honestly wouldn't worry about it. People like this have always existed it's just the Internet has given them a wider audience for their selfish stupidity.

The real stupidity is buying a macbook at full price

 

[Stretch]

I have a 7 year old Mac book air, and a 6 month old Mac book pro. I prefer the air tbh. Newer = better isn’t what it used to be.

 

[Raymond Lin]

I will take one of those £100 laptops to run windows from time to time ! lol

 

[wolfie138]

People are walking around rocking £800-1200 mobile phones,

why are they rocking them, does it make them work better?

 

[stockhausen]

why are they rocking them, does it make them work better?

LOL. Maybe they are "techie"?

 

[robfosters]

People who don’t really know about these things, don’t differentiate MacBooks from laptops, they’re all one and the same to them and they probably want one because it looks cool and they’ve played on one in an Apple store or something, so they think they can get them for second hand laptop money.

My cousins daughter recently showed that. She wanted a laptop and liked the look of the MacBook. So when Christmas came round she asked for a MacBook pro like it was something you could pick up from Currys for £3-400. Her mum phoned me asking for advice on what one to get and was shocked when I told her how much they was. She actually said “ why are they so much, it’s just a laptop. Mine was £500 from PC World”. Funny thing was, is that I couldn’t really explain why they were so much more expensive. “Coz it’s Apple innit” was about the strength of my reply lol.

The girl lucked out though as that summer she had done her gcse’s and got straight A’s. Her parents were so proud they got her one anyway as a special present for doing so well.

 

[Semple]

People who don’t really know about these things, don’t differentiate MacBooks from laptops, they’re all one and the same to them and they probably want one because it looks cool and they’ve played on one in an Apple store or something, so they think they can get them for second hand laptop money.

Hmm see i say "non-techie's" do differentiate between Macbooks and other manufacturers laptops, and that's purely down to Apple's marketing and how they've lured the crowd into buying practically the same iphone on each release. So their perception is that Apple is a good and respected brand, and hence they'd rather have one over anything else.

Tefal's point is a good one regarding the externals of the actual laptop, something that other manufacturers are now paying more attention to, but whilst still offering budget lines with a basic plastic chassis. Apple don't really do this, so it is just a case of if you want one, you've gotta stump up the cash for one.

 

[DaleTheWhale]

Just go onto reddit and check /r/ChoosingBeggars, it's a gold-mine for stuff like this.

 

[MrRockliffe]

dunno why he specifically needs a Mac

So he can say he has one

I prefer the air tbh

Your opinion is wrong. The new Macbook Pro is 80% more Pro, while being 70% less of a laptop. It's the best non pro pro laptop we've made.

- Apple




I shudder at the thought of using a pre retina pro Really don't know how they got away with using a 720p TN display on a 1K+ device....

 

[adolf hamster]

the one that gets me is when you hear people complaining about poor performance and you look to see a million programs running at startup in the background, something that no tesco special laptop is built to handle, it's amazing really how even neat freaks in the real world just seem to accept that a desktop full of random links/documents and a pc full of unused software is just fine, and that any drop in performance is "because it's old".