Why do macs cost so much money?

I just don't understand it, never have with apple. Apple builds great stuff but how can a macbook or any other apple device be so expensive. Is there magic it or does it come with lifetime warranty please help me understand. I thought since they when intel prices would not be outragous but they still are.

I only buy dell's and pcs because I can understand the pricing with apple i just don't understand. Is it that apple knows it can it's customers and they will beg for more or is it something else.

 

Because, Apple makes/ assembles it's own hardware, and doesn't license it's OS for other OEM's.

 

I think Apple invests a lot of money in their research and development, and their manufacturing process. Looking at their financial reports, their profit margins are actually quite low.

 

not quite they do most of the design but Foxconn and Quanta actually do the assembly, from mostly off the shelf components.

most of it is its a prestige item and has OSX

I will have to dig up the 2008 public financials for Apple, If I remember correctly their R and D wasnt actually that high but markting was close to 30% of gross expense.

 

very interesting. but it makes sense. when you're small, you have to do more to stay relevant and in the public consciousness.

 

Exactly.


Apple has almost NEVER manufactured it's own products. Man, the misinformation that their legions pass on about Apple products is mind-boggling.

The extra money is to pay for OSX, "prestige", the HUGE marketing costs associated with making Apple cool and most importantly the right to act smug.

 

Like I said. Their engineering department must feel like a midget next to their marketing department.

I think companies like MSI need to hire some more marketing folks. Nobody has even heard of MSI notebooks! Yet they silently push out these 5.9lb things with HD 5850s in them.

 

MSI, Clevo and ASUS all should.

 

As consumers we don't want that. We'd see it reflected in their prices unfortunately.

 

Sigh, that'd be true. Better for them to be a whole company of geeky engineers delivering top notch equipment while stressing out everyday about why their profit isn't paying the bills

 

Because people will buy it almost regardless of the price.

1. They have a monopoly on systems running OS X.
2. They actually make very good hardware.
3. If Steve Jobs says you will need something, you go out and buy it immediately.

And no, they don't manufacture their own hardware. Quanta makes their laptops. Quanta makes laptops for Sony, HP, Acer, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and tons of other companies. Apple designed it, like how other companies design their laptops, but Quanta actually makes them.

 

Exactly. Not only advertisements but the cost of R&D when maintaining a proprietary operating system is huge. Microsoft spends about 13billion on R&D a year maintaining windows, as an example. Apple also has one of the most powerful brand images of any company, that and the amount they spend on advertising and product placement is shown in their prices. Maintaining apple stores is also very expensive, although is the reason why they are rated so high for consumer support. Because of all these costs, Apple needs to entertain a niche market where then can make high margins off their computers.

And, its about supply and demand, people obviously buy it at that price, and Apple doesn't think lower their prices would increase sales enough to make up for the loss in profit.

 

Advertising and looks. My iPod Touch died on me after less than a year (even though I took very good care of it, much like my laptops), so I had to go get it fixed. First, that whole Apple Genius thing seemed way too luxurious and ... well. Anyway. Walked into an Apple store that had a huge open showroom with pearly white tables, silver walls, not a single shelf in sight, everything being hidden behind panels. And I recalled thinking, damn, how much of the money for the iPod went into paying for all this? If you provide me excellent service, which you do, that's great. I'll pay for that. But to keep that kind of a showroom... my goodness. Made me self conscious.

 

lets not forget, when you call into Apple, you get to speak with people from your native country.

nothing quite like hearing an American on the other end of the phone in this day and age.

as much as I love my HP, Sony and Dell machines, the language barrier sometimes resulted in wrong diagnosis, wrong hardware replacement parts ordered, etc.

 

Mac's are more expensive because they don't want poor people to be able to afford them, we don't want the average under class citizen using a Mac, it makes the rest of us look bad, we like to feel elite with our Mac's and if poor people have them, people won't look at us as superior then everyone else. Mac's being expensive weeds out the people we don't want to make us look bad.

 

The sad thing is that you probably actually think that way.

 

Still Apple pays for it.

 

What if Apple isn't overpricing, but everyone else is underpricing?

 

they pay for it but they handle most of the design and outsource the rest, it all comes from the same plants that churn out Dell, HP, Toshiba, Acer etc.

the only manufacturers that actually assemble their own stuff are Panasonic, ASUS and I believe the high end Sony machines, their lower end is made bu Quanta and Compal.

 

I checked under a Macbook Pro last week at work. It says "Designed by Apple in California, Assembled in China"

Btw, Fujitsu also builds their own stuff in Japan.

 

Except that Macs are not the most expensive laptops, only the most overpriced laptops. A decked out dual GPU Clevo could easily be twice the price of a MBP 17.

 

yea but like 5 times as powerful, lol.

 

No, the Dell Adamo and the Asus Lamborghini line are the most overpriced laptops

 

LOL I got to second that Asus one. I remember the days they stuck a low end GPU in there and called it the best multimedia experience money can buy, and slapped a $3k pricetag on it. Too bad Asus' notebook marketing department is so bad they can't even get their actually good value notebooks recognized, never mind build hype about their "Lamborghini".

 

1. The Apple style/design
2. Great screen

 

If you got to ask, then you can't afford it.

 

there are better screens. but it is good.

 

It's not about affording it, it's about getting ripped off. I will never buy an apple product because they overprice everything and it's not worth it to me. I just wanted to understand incase apple does some kind of magic or something.

 

I think you just wanted to troll.

 

Many well-off people aren't into buying overpriced products while many people who actually buy these same products are broke.

To each its own really.

 

Adamo starts at $999 w/ 128GB SSD (not on employee pricing+coupons)...not exactly gold plated pricing there. MB Air is $500 more w/ 120GB iPod hard drive. Bit more processor/GPU on the Mac but a 9400 ain't exactly a screamer. Thinkpad Edge is priced at $800 for 1.3Ghz/320GB traditional hd and mostly plastic construction. HP dm3t is probably the cheapest in class at about $700 w/ Core2 but still closer in price to the Dell than the MB Air.

 

Well if you know you're getting ripped off then why even consider purchasing it? It's like going to Store#1 and you see bubble gum X for 1.79 and you know that store#2 has a 3pack of bubble gum Z for 1.79 then you would obviously go to store #2. But let's say bubble gum x is only sold by store #1..... wait im too drunk to do this.
Say you have jeans.... Express charges $69.99 and Walmart charges $14.99.... now you buy express ..... wait no. thats not right
okay lets try this.....
Some software only works on OSX and others work on Windows (but they crash).... wait lets say you buy a toyota... and you drive... but you hit the brakes, but you're still "moving forward" into a busy intersection... so you CRASH... thats what windows is... but then they say we're sorry we worked on windows 7 and now we fixed the brakes and accelerator, so you wont crash.
Man this is really hard. go on you toube and check out mac vs pc transformers
BAM THAT JUST HAPPENED!
see its not about the bees and cees. its about needs vs wants. see you want a ferrari f430, but you just need a prius to get from a to b.
Wwait... why is there no hole in this wall

 

Adamo starts at 2199$ here so my example still works.

And you didn't reply to my Asus one so it's obviously correct

 

Lol your right but both those companies have other laptop lines. The Lamborghini is a joke to any of Asus' true fan base, they just wanted to get in to the "style" market, same with the adamo. Think is most macbook users use macbooks for OS X, and some users need OS X. In this way a consumer could feel ripped of by having no other options.

 

I'm a graduate sutdent being SW developer as well. So, I can get the Macbook Pro 15 with i7-620 Model only $1,759 (Retail $2199)

 

hahahahahaha, you must be drunk if you think osx programs never crash.

 

Is this a joke? Lol... I love the Toyota metaphor.

 

Except that Adamo is not really that overpriced considering that it sports a SSD when the SSD technology was still new, meaning, the SSD is worth tons just by itself.

 

In my opinion Apple isn't that expensive when you consider the materials used and the quality of the display.

To get the same quality materials and display PC you'd need a Sony Z or HP Envy, which costs similar.

It's too bad though Apple is still using the Core 2 Duo in the 13". I find buying old technology at premium prices hard to justify.

 

Not to exacerbate the fanboy-on-fanboy clusterhump here, but I don't think you quite appreciate what trolling is.

 

how are you pulling that? the student discount is ~$200? is there another discount I'm not aware of?

 

This true, the macbook is pretty unique as it offers both a good screen and great portability. It does suffer from very outdated hardware, but also caters to the nitche os x market. It definently doesn't do any one thing better than a PC that's created to do that one thing but is a pretty good all around notebook. There are better all around PC's like the Vail z but they are actually more expensive. The only thing that flat beats macbooks practicality wise are business notebooks like thinkpads and elitebooks, but they dont match the stlye of the macbooks or run OS x.

The reason macbooks are expensive (relatively by hardware) is because its made by apple but more importantly it runs OS x. A lot of consumers value OS x which makes it worth it, some don't. To people who want to pay extra for OS x or need OS x, the macbook is worth the money. Otherwise no one would buy them.

 

Well, just my opinion, Apple is expensive because of their integrated package of hardware and software, hardware design, build quality, and of course, brand prestige

When Microsoft makes an OS, install it to computers with billions hardware combinations, it is very hard to avoid a crash at all (sometimes a cheap hardware from unknown brand is incompatible, sometimes hardwares conflict with each other, etc). There are billions of drivers out there and microsoft had to work hard to make them all run well without crashing.
When Apple makes an OS, they have "controlled" hardware configurations as the hardwares were configured all by them, so they can tweak so all supported hardwares will work well. It is easier for Apple to avoid hardware conflicts and unsupported hardware issues. This will of course create a more stable machine, and I'm guessing why Apple is not releasing their OS to non-apple hardware.

Hardware-wise, it is hard to deny they are one of the most attractive notebooks on the market today. Design-wise, they are also innovative, they are the first to have glowing apple logo behind the screen, the ergonomics of the laptop is well-thought of (placement of the ports, say when everything is plugged in, the cables won't get in the way when you need to insert DVD for example - and this is sometimes still an issue to some notebooks)
Build quality wise, even they are all made by Quanta, is better than most laptops on the market today. From the reviews I have read online, even the envy can't match the sturdiness of unibody MBPs. (I can't verify this as I never touch an Envy yet, no computer sellers have them in stock as they are priced rather crazy here). Better build quality means more money paid to Quanta, just like Hp surely had to pay more to produce their envy line than the pavillion line.
One of Apple biggest selling point is battery life. They now advertise 10 hours of battery life, which is hard to achieve on other PC manufacturers with relatively the same spec. (Yes in real life usage it may not reach 10 hours, but so is others who claims to have 3 hours battery life, it may not touch 3 hours)

Lastly is the brand prestige (this is why apple spent 30% on marketing, I say money well spent if the outcome is like this - that whatever they make, it will sell well).
They may not compare well spec to spec and cost to cost with windows notebooks, but look at it this way. A Mercedes S600 cost about $130k, using V12 5.5 liters engine, it has night vision, radar guided cruise control, blind spot assist, lane departure warning, and now even has crosswind detection (yes i'm a car geek also). A Rolls Royce Phantom cost about $350k, also using V12 6.0 liters engine from BMW, and has none of the toys the Mercedes has.
What I'm trying to say is, brand prestige is still have a role even some people think otherwise. Yes, computer geeks (like me even) may prefer higher spec with less price as maybe we use our computer for specific task that requires powerful CPU/GPU.
For most consumer-class users who only use their computer for taking notes, doing paper, browsing, e-mail, light gaming, specs on mac is enough, and they will choose mac like people choose rolls royce over the top of the line mercedes. They want others to go wooo haaa over their laptops when they take it out. Of course this is not the only reason why people choose mac, many people need OS X and they *had* to choose mac, and don't care about the brand prestige at all.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a hardcore apple fanboy, I use both Windows and Mac for my work and they all have their advantages and disadvantages (Mac OS X do have disadvantages in real world usage, but i won't get into that here).
All these are just my opinion though, feel free to agree or disagree

 

I know a guy that picked up a 15" today.

his battery died after 8 hours. so the listings are legit.

just an fyi.

 

I completely agree with "mklasse".
I never own a macbook & waiting for a refresh mbp for 6 months.
and now I am going to buy a 15" mbp as soon as possible. I think I'll be satisfied which apple give me.

 

I would hope apple is the first company to have a glowing apple logo behind the screen. Would be pretty hilarious if another company beat them to the punch.

 

Sorry, i meant glowing company logo Now Asus G series also have glowing ROG logo on the screen lid and other manufacturers also have glowing company logo but not on the screen lid.

 

I know as of at least 2003, alienware had glowing company logo on the back of their screen lid, but probably earlier. I'm not sure when Apple first started, but I hardly think glowing logos are a feature. I actually wish they didn't have that.

 

Apple doesn't usually lie about that, they use it as a big selling factor, but there are the people that run only on the dedicated GPU (for last gen models) blue tooth on, screen on full, back lite on and then they complain that it only got 3 hours or so.

 

I agree, and even though I used to dislike Macbooks for having weak graphics, the 13 inch MBP actually has graphics with which I can live, considering that it has 10 hours of battery life. Who needs a 1899€ sony vaio Z with a better gpu when your battery dies after already 4-5 hours? There's nothing worse than dragging an adaptar all day with you, fighting with other students for the only electric plug in the entire class.
Also, I think that those core2duo's are still more than powerfull enough for most users. If you buy one of the current asus ul3 series to have long battery life (7-8 hours) you have to endure a 1.3 ghz core2duo. Apple offers a much stronger cpu, a way better graphics chip and still has great battery life. And all that for a louzy 1150€? I don't call that overpriced.