I know I'm beating a dead horse here and you must forgive me. I still can't help myself so I'll say it.
Apple must be totally oblivious to the market and truly not care how they've priced their systems because now they are incredibly out of tune with the rest of the world.
My wife and I desperately would like to get a Mac laptop. She likes the Mac, I like the Mac, both of us think it would be fun to have and be a bit easier to use down the road. We're both willing to suffer through the transition to OSX given we have no Mac software and for a while, we'll probably run Parallels or Fusion so we can run some Windows apps.
While that sounds fine, in practice it is going to pretty hard to justify the price premium now on the MacBook Pro (the preference since the MacBook has a substandard video card). Apple set their prices quite a while back and when the MacBook Pro premiered, it was on parity with the rest of the laptop world. This isn't true any longer. Not by a long shot.
I configured two Dell Inspiron laptops today that are comparable to the "low end" of the 15" and 17" MacBook Pro. Imagine my shock when, after configuring nearly identical systems, the 15" was $1000 cheaper and the 17" was $1300 cheaper. That doesn't even include the $200 Gift Card Dell is throwing in now with that same purchase so depending on how you view it, you could knock another $200 off those Dell prices.
To be fair, these prices used a $500 off coupon that Dell has out right now. You could exclude that but it would still be a far cry from the Apple prices. The problem is, Dell ALWAYS has these kinds of coupons so I figure you have to factor that in.
Is OSX really worth the price premium being charged? That is basically what you are paying for plus, I'll argue, a more elegant looking design. The MacBook is simply a more attractive notebook PC.
We've hashed out he merits of the price difference before (see here) of which there are arguments the used market helps eliminate the price gap and the features and benefits of OSX add to the value and Apple doesn't care to sell a whole lot of notebooks. I'll agree but $1000 and $1300 difference??? You are talking, in both cases, nearly double the price. In the case of the $1000 Dell vs $2000 Mac, we could hypothetically figure that I'll get $200 for the Dell used in 3 years and $1000 used for the Mac (optimistic I think) and that still puts the Dell at a better deal.
So where is the Apple Holiday Special? Do we have to wait until Black Friday to hear about it. Is there even going to be one?
My mind and soul want to say Apple but my wallet wants to say Dell (or some other cheaper alternative). I sure wish Apple would make this easier.
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3 comments:
Simple, Dude. Just wait until January.
You're never going to get a particularly inexpensive MacBook Pro but when Apple updates or releases something new, etc. they will sell a 1600-2000 dollar portable that will be on par with other 1600-200 dollar portables for a few months at least.
I'm in a similar boat. I'm still running my (get this) G4 tower. And I use it every day for work. It's getting crotchety.
I want to replace it, but the prices on Mac towers are downright painful. First I was waiting for Leopard, to save myself the cost of buying the upgrade separately. Now I'm waiting for prices to come down. After that I'll be waiting for clients to actually pay me enough to afford even the reduced prices.
Hopefully January will be the month when new stuff is announced. Unfortunately, it probably won't be any cheaper.
Good luck getting paid by clients. They love to ask for stuff ASAP but for some reason can never find the time to write a check ASAP. Funny how that works.
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