why the hell are apple macs so expensive
- Thread starter widdyst
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Thats right I dont want a mac at all. I wasnt here to just bash the mac, I just wanted to know what its pro's were for such a premium price.
I was having a browse in MM and saw somebody selling one for £1700 I think, And I thought to myself wow lot of money for a second hand pc. You couldnt sell a second hand none mac for that could you
Also bear in mind they are laptop components too, which will make them even more expensive. Compared to the likes of Sony all in ones there is very little price difference either (24" Sony allin1's are around £1400-£1500).
However most mac are damn ugly (except the imac which is actually quite pretty).
Unfortunately all apple products have a stigma, they are usually bought by pretentious twits who like to show off (and I say that knidly as I have a couple of friends with them), that's my biggest issue with them, oh and the "just works" and "never crashes" rubbish.
Ok, I'm going to answer this with a non biased post, no doubt people will go "AH YOUR JUST SAYING THAT COS YOU BUM STEVE JOBZZZ"
But here goes anyway...
I've had my Mac Pro for 2 and a half years now, I paid £1700 with the following spec
2 x 2.66ghz c2d XEON cpus
1GB of RAM (later added a further 8GB from Crucial for about £200 I think)
512mb X1900XTX ATI Radeon card
1 x 250gb Sata drive (added my own additional drives later
Bluetooth
Wifi
Now I was fully aware that I could've bought something which owned it spec wise for the money but quite simply I wanted to use OSX, its a lovely operating system which I much prefer over XP, Vista, or 7. So I would say part of the premium is the ability to use OSX.
The other part of the premium is the engineering and build quality put into these things is outstanding, I didn't realise it but when I first took the side panel off to add my hard drives the side panel has a rubber seal on the inner edge to outrule any addition noise, vibrations, or dust. I checked over the inside of the machine and realised in some sense it's a work of art, all the screw heads line up perfectly, so they weren't just rammed in and screwed down, but all done the same so when finished they all line up and look neat and tidy. There is not a single cable visible in the machine, despite the fact it has 4 or more antennas wired around the case for Wifi and Bluetooth. Each hard drive bay is numbered and even the screws in the caddy which everyone who buys one is bound to remove are all lined up as described above.
The RAM trays are on an easy access slide out mechanism so even the thickest of people can upgrade it.
The ONLY, and I really mean this, the only maintenance I ever have to do to it is once every few months is take the side panel off, remove the graphics card and blow it out with dust. That, is it.
----------------------
Next main reason why I bought one.....familys....
When I had a windows machine various people from my family would just hop on the net or use the PC when I was at work, which resulted in more often than not, coming home and having to sort the thing out with it being pop ups, adware, whatever. With the Mac it's left unlocked all day, everyday anyone can come on and use it and when I sit back down the most I have to do is maybe close a few windows they have left open.
And finally, which relates to the above, when you work in IT support and spend the whole day fixing annoying problems etc, last thing you want is to come home and use another windows machine, so it's nice to get away from it.
But here goes anyway...
I've had my Mac Pro for 2 and a half years now, I paid £1700 with the following spec
2 x 2.66ghz c2d XEON cpus
1GB of RAM (later added a further 8GB from Crucial for about £200 I think)
512mb X1900XTX ATI Radeon card
1 x 250gb Sata drive (added my own additional drives later
Bluetooth
Wifi
Now I was fully aware that I could've bought something which owned it spec wise for the money but quite simply I wanted to use OSX, its a lovely operating system which I much prefer over XP, Vista, or 7. So I would say part of the premium is the ability to use OSX.
The other part of the premium is the engineering and build quality put into these things is outstanding, I didn't realise it but when I first took the side panel off to add my hard drives the side panel has a rubber seal on the inner edge to outrule any addition noise, vibrations, or dust. I checked over the inside of the machine and realised in some sense it's a work of art, all the screw heads line up perfectly, so they weren't just rammed in and screwed down, but all done the same so when finished they all line up and look neat and tidy. There is not a single cable visible in the machine, despite the fact it has 4 or more antennas wired around the case for Wifi and Bluetooth. Each hard drive bay is numbered and even the screws in the caddy which everyone who buys one is bound to remove are all lined up as described above.
The RAM trays are on an easy access slide out mechanism so even the thickest of people can upgrade it.
The ONLY, and I really mean this, the only maintenance I ever have to do to it is once every few months is take the side panel off, remove the graphics card and blow it out with dust. That, is it.
----------------------
Next main reason why I bought one.....familys....
When I had a windows machine various people from my family would just hop on the net or use the PC when I was at work, which resulted in more often than not, coming home and having to sort the thing out with it being pop ups, adware, whatever. With the Mac it's left unlocked all day, everyday anyone can come on and use it and when I sit back down the most I have to do is maybe close a few windows they have left open.
And finally, which relates to the above, when you work in IT support and spend the whole day fixing annoying problems etc, last thing you want is to come home and use another windows machine, so it's nice to get away from it.
I really don't think most Mac owners are professional image artists.
I'm continuously telling people off at work who want to buy a mac because they look nice
they moan about upgrading from Office 2003 to 2007 because it's different 
The only people I recommend macs to are the art students because i feel guilty recommending users spend that much on such a low bang for buck when they just use basic documents.
MW
I dont think most PC users are hardcore gamers, that really wasn't his point he was just stating on of the markets that is targeted by Apple.
I think you might be right
I'm sorry but a Mac is a PC with a different OP.
Windows isn't aimed at Hardcore gamers.
You see thats the whole thing for me , I agree not all pc users are hardcore gamers So there machines probably cost £400 - £500.
But those people who arent professional art editors etc still pay top wack for their mac
Haha "top wack for your mac"
Yes whats your point, that has no bearing on anything I've posted :/
Your saying gamers are not a target market for Microsoft?
http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-US/index.aspx
Please.....
Games for windows live is better at stopping people playing games then making them play games
While I agree that they may be very well built you can buy normal cases that do similar things... However they are expensive (£140 for my Lian Li for example and even that's not their top of the range case), and you have to build the machine itself.
As for your maintenence I haven't had to do any at all since transfering my components into my new case about a year ago so that's a non argument really.
It's also hitting on one of the standard arguments that mac users use, the whole not needing to touch or upgrade anything "unlike" "PC's" (I think they mean windows machines with their PC rubbish...). That's obviously rubbish as well, you don't "have" to upgrade your PC, most people don't, but there is much more of a culture around upgrading a windows machine than a mac, you can uprade both just as much as the other but one is all about power (usually) and the other more form it seems to me. So what does it matter if it runs a little slow, it looks nice...----------------------
Because there is so little software out there for macs?
A lot are though, especially when it comes to videography, there is a sort of brain washing that it makes your productivity faster using a less powerful mac with the same software (for photographers lightroom and Photoshop)...
Soldato
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Well, if it helps separate me from those posting some of the moronic things in this thread then I'd say it's money well spent!
They're damn good machines, with a damn good OS on it. Windows is a clunky mess compared to it (although I appreciate its place in the market); I set up a new laptop recently that came with Windows 7. Ouch.
They're damn good machines, with a damn good OS on it. Windows is a clunky mess compared to it (although I appreciate its place in the market); I set up a new laptop recently that came with Windows 7. Ouch.
Soldato
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Lol, these debates.
Spec up a dual processor PC and see what price you get. Don't forget you'll be paying for server grade hardware i.e. Xeon CPU's, not ASUS XXX High End Elite Gaming Edition Mobo.
Spec up a dual processor PC and see what price you get. Don't forget you'll be paying for server grade hardware i.e. Xeon CPU's, not ASUS XXX High End Elite Gaming Edition Mobo.
Associate
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Try going on Dell's site and designing a similar dual proc machine, then compare prices.
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