What makes apple laptops so expensive?

Question

I want to buy one but why are they much more expensive then other laptops?

Answer 1

I'm not an "expert" but am an Apple convert and will never go back to a PC after having wasted 20+ years constantly fixing PC problems.

Pretty much what it boils down to is that it's a premium product. An Apple is equivalent to a finely tuned European sports car engineered for performance... a PC is a Chevy Cavalier.... it's uninspiring and will be a bumpy ride but will get you there.... eventually.

The Mac OSX is the most stable, secure and user friendly operating system on the market. I've been using it for 7 years and have never once had a single system crash, not one single virus, and not spyware/malware and haven't needed any extraneous software constantly running in the background sucking up my system resources to protect me from these things.

When I switched 7 years ago I could do everything I could do on my PCs, but I could do it better, faster, and in far fewer steps. Every application that I used on a daily basis as a college student was also available for Mac and 9 times out of 10 ran so much better on my Mac than they did on my PC. OSX is written to optimize your system resources and not be a bloated turd like Windows.

Let me give you an example.... my 7 year old PowerMac G4 consistently out performs my wife's 1 year old Dell. My wife hated the fact that I had a Mac when we got married and now I can hardly ever get on my own computer because now she refuses to use her own because it's such a dog. And my 7 year old PowerMac is running the latest version of OSX, MS Office, Adobe CS3 and many other processor intensive applications, and it runs circles around this PC that is 6 years newer and running all the software from last year. Trust me, you wouldn't want to run the latest version of anything on a PC that was 7 years old, partly because you couldn't.

People will say they're overpriced, but I've never had a PC last me 7 years... I've never had one last me more than 2 years. If I were still using PCs I'd have already burned through 3 of them in the time I've had my Mac and be gearing up to but a 4th..... and would have spent exponentially more money on them than I have on my Mac.

Also, you get the best customer service in the industry. Have a problem, go into your local Apple Store, they'll be able to fix it for your more often than not right there while you wait... and more than likely fix it for free. I had one hardware failure in the life of my PowerMac and it was in its 6th year, 3 years after my extended warranty had expired, and they fixed it for free in my local Apple Store. Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway... none of these would have done the same. I used to work for Compaq, and 1 day after your warranty was up you were dirt to them.

Apple's are just hassle free and they just work. An uncle of mine works for one of the biggest names in PC manufacturers and recently tossed all of his PCs from his employer and replaced them all with Macs... why? Because spending time with his family instead of constantly fixing PCs problems was worth the extra money. He even bought his daughter and her husband a Mac to replace their PC becuse he was tired of always having to spend hours troubleshooting problems and fixing them whenever he'd go to visit. Family time was worth more. And from what he's told me this is a growing scenario in his corporation, and others in the same industry as well. Funny how people who make their salary from the sale of PCs don't trust them enough to have them in their own home.

What is your time worth?

After finally switching the only thing that bothers me is that I waited so long. I'll never go back and am praying for the day that my wife's Dell finally tanks... it's just over a year old so it shouldn't be much longer.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Parts and the desire to get as much money out of you as possible. You could spend a lot more to get what you get from an Apple laptop if you want to justify it that way, better video card, better hard drive, better CPU. Then again, you could also say, i got an iPhone therefore my mac will probably work the same. Its why you've seen lots of people get iEverything. And they do get viruses, but they only get like 1 out of a million of them, which makes them relatively safe to go online, since most viruses are designed for Windows because they hate windows.

Answer 4

They make it so that you don't have to buy all the updated software. Like when they have a 2008 Itunes I won't have to go to the store and pay an extra 100 bucks or so. I can just download. My laptop just asks me if I want to upload the new product. Plus they have less tendencies to get viruses. They are smaller and lighter. They are extremely nice for graphic design and stuff like that. They are very nice. They have a 3 year warranty too.

Answer 5

2

Answer 6

Consider the maximum hardware specs that the particular model supports. It's probably more than a typical laptop you may be comparing it to.

Next compare what software you get, stock with your PC laptop of choice. Now add in the price of comparable level software that comes stock on the same Mac. The balance shifts back pretty quickly after taking everything into account.

Remember to compare reliability ratings too (via Consumer Reports, maybe.)

Answer 7

Hey i'm here for the first time. I came across this question and I find the replies really valuable. I am hoping to offer something back to the community and help others too.

Answer 8

Primarily the price.


And because Apple is such a non-competitive product that the price is essentially a fixed number as opposed to the PC which has competition everywhere.

Answer 9

Build quality, design, ease of use and a great OS.

Because Apple designs the hardware and software - it farms out the manufacture to 3rd parties in China and Taiwan, it doesn't have to compete with PC manufacturers on hardware price. Apple doesn't have any problems what gets produced.

Macs are actually the same price as similar specd brand name PCs. Its only the custom built and home built ones that are "cheaper" for the price.

FAQs about Macs
http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20071115/heres-a-mac-faq-if-youre-looking-to-buy-a-computer/
Leopard reviewed
http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-bz.pl.appleaday15nov15,0,3955417.story
and here
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/11/21/47TC-osx-leopard-part1_1.html
and the hardware reviewed here
http://www.trustedreviews.com/apple/review/2007/11/28/Apple-MacBook-Pro-17in/p1
while Vista gets reviewed here
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204203975

and the Apple shopping experience gets reviewed here
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/10/31/the-secret-of-apple-retail-success

Answer 10

It's selling the brand just like over-expensive shoes.

Answer 11

Everyone has their own view, but I don't believe so