Why do Apple laptop upgrades cost 200% more than Dell's?

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39029450,49297849,00.htm

Everybody knows Apple laptops are pricey. You know it, Crave knows it, Steve Jobs knows it. We also have a fair idea that its PC-selling counterpart, Dell, is relatively cheap. But have you ever stopped to examine just how much more you pay for Apple upgrades than you do for Dell? We have.

Having trawled the online configurator tools of both laptop makers, we've detailed just how much Apple takes the biscuit with its pricing. Base configurations look pretty similar on the surface, but when you start upgrading with faster internal components, Apple charges through the nose.

We can understand why Apple can justify charging more for its superbly designed chassis, or its excellent operating systems -- they're bespoke, and you pay more for premium designs. Fine. But we can't fathom why Apple charges so much more than Dell for simple components.

If you're thinking of buying a Mac or a Dell, or have just bought one, you should definitely check out the next page to see exactly how these two computing behemoths compare. -Rory Reid

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pwjohnston

For all you Americans, remember every British Pound is equal to about 2 US Dollars.

dynamik

Because people are willing to pay for it.

JDMurray

dynamik wrote:

Because people are willing to pay for it.

+1

There are millions of Apple fan-boys (and fan-girls) who are willing to pay top-dollar for Apple products and services. It's a cult of technology and Steve Jobs is the Maharishi.

astorrs

Yeah they're like a bunch of cult followers...

P.S. Please send all flames to macaholics@tellsomeonewhocares.com so they can be promptly discarded of.

tiersten

I believe you need official parts to actually have it all covered under warranty otherwise you need to yank your 3rd party components before you ship it back to them. 3rd party components don't invalidate the warranty but they can complain about it.

People pay stupid prices for upgrade components because they either don't know any better or don't want the hassle of getting and installing it themselves. Computer manufacturers get a big profit from these upgrades.

Kasor

That is Apple Business Objective. If you can afford to buy Apple ibook, then you can afford to buy the upgrade. A simple B2B objective that Apple believe will keep them on the move.

jryantech

I love people who have Windows on their Mac

Oh, and I get this all the time from fellow college students "Macs are just so much safer then PCs, Microsoft just sucks at stopping viruses compared to Apple"

Yah because for every Mac there is 100 PCs... As a hacker I would defiantly target 3% of computers out there.

JDMurray

jryantech wrote:

I love people who have Windows on their Mac

Oh, and I get this all the time from fellow college students "Macs are just so much safer then PCs, Microsoft just sucks at stopping viruses compared to Apple"

Yah because for every Mac there is 100 PCs... As a hacker I would defiantly target 3% of computers out there.

There have been quite a few Trojans released for OS X in the past two years. The latest Trojan targets the OS X Remote Desk Top. Because Mac owners tend to have bigger bank accounts they are juicy marks, so safe Web surfing habits apply to OS X users as well.

Daniel333

Apple is a premium brand.

They are focused on profit, not market share. There are lot of people out there who will pay more for a brand name. I'd state a few examples, but I'd end up insulting someone. But I am sure you can think of a few.

Just realize some people are sold on a brand alone and will follow it to hell and back.

Anyway, they have some cute stuff if you have the extra cash.

ally_uk

Have Apple ever targeted the lower end of the market or is it not worth going after because of the market being saturated,

I'm thinking about them creating a Cheap mac book with a lightweight version of Mac OS 10 I like apple products but I can't afford to keep up with there prices

Pash

Daniel333 wrote:

Apple is a premium brand.

They are focused on profit, not market share. There are lot of people out there who will pay more for a brand name. I'd state a few examples, but I'd end up insulting someone. But I am sure you can think of a few.

Just realize some people are sold on a brand alone and will follow it to hell and back.

Anyway, they have some cute stuff if you have the extra cash.

This is pretty much spot on.

Personally I don't see what the fuss is about, ive been setting up MAC's in a 50/50 environment for a new customer for last few weeks. Sure the nice brushed alluminimum mac book pro looks and feels expensive but for half the price you can get a laptop than can do everything this one can but with not quiet as many bells and whistles....

hypnotoad

Apple costs more to upgrade because if it breaks, there's no way to troubleshoot it, since it doesn't give you any error messages except maybe a question mark or a sad face, and the documentation totally sucks.

jryantech

nl wrote:

Apple costs more to upgrade because if it breaks, there's no way to troubleshoot it, since it doesn't give you any error messages except maybe a question mark or a sad face, and the documentation totally sucks.

Haha! A question mark or a sad face

I remember seeing this years ago: http://youtube.com/watch?v=MVwbhsqEyNI

RTmarc

JDMurray wrote:

jryantech wrote:

I love people who have Windows on their Mac

Oh, and I get this all the time from fellow college students "Macs are just so much safer then PCs, Microsoft just sucks at stopping viruses compared to Apple"

Yah because for every Mac there is 100 PCs... As a hacker I would defiantly target 3% of computers out there.

There have been quite a few Trojans released for OS X in the past two years. The latest Trojan targets the OS X Remote Desk Top. Because Mac owners tend to have bigger bank accounts they are juicy marks, so safe Web surfing habits apply to OS X users as well.

What makes me chuckle is that a lot of these 'Macs are safer comments' are going to be put to the test soon. As the Mac market share increases, so will the number of attacks. If the current Mac response time for getting security patches out there remains the same, well, it's going to be interesting to watch unfold.

I'm going to have to dig up that article I read a while back talking about security vulnerability response times. Microsoft was, by far, the fastest reaction time which wasn't too shocking. Unix, if I remember correctly, was the worst.

hypnotoad

jryantech wrote:

nl wrote:

Apple costs more to upgrade because if it breaks, there's no way to troubleshoot it, since it doesn't give you any error messages except maybe a question mark or a sad face, and the documentation totally sucks.

Haha! A question mark or a sad face

I remember seeing this years ago: http://youtube.com/watch?v=MVwbhsqEyNI

Yeah I'm serious man. You go to boot off your OS X DVD (hopefully you're not trying to use the G5 one on your Intel Mac) and it won't freakin boot!

It just gives you a ? And you don't know if it booted off the DVD or the pooched OS X install on the hard drive (it gives you no feedback the DVD is in use), because they do the same thing....just give you a ?

And then you realize what you did and you go to eject the DVD and it gets stuck half-way out of the drive. And you take the whole freakin iMac apart and finally force it out and put in the right one. Reboot...

So Apple/random idiots on message boards found by google tell you to hold down the shift key when booting. And you do. And you reboot 10 times and it does nothing -- still boots the hard drive. And you google around some more and finally you go get a USB keyboard because you figure your bluetooth keyboard is not working.

And then you accidentally reboot while holding the RIGHT shift key, and suddenly it works!

But don't try to back up anything to your NTFS formatted USB drive -- it's read only in a Mac. So you battle that one for a while.

Finally...

So you reload your Mac, after going through 2 DVDs and installing Garage Band, iDvd, other random crap we'll never use (who says windows is bloated?), and you realize you forgot to back up the fonts folder. Apparently, graphic design people need those fonts!

Of course, you didn't bother making an image of the HD in the disk util because you formatted your USB drive in a 32 gigabyte FAT32 partition (the largest available size) to get read/write access to it in the damn Mac and you have more than 32 gigs to back up.

tiersten

Mac troubleshooting consists of resetting the PMU and then repairing file permissions. Repeat until it works or you give up and take it in to be fixed by a technician.

JDMurray

RTmarc wrote:

If the current Mac response time for getting security patches out there remains the same, well, it's going to be interesting to watch unfold.

And let's not forget all of the attacks that are "operating system agnostic," such as email attachments, spam, phishing, spear phishing, etc. Has Apple increase its efforts to educate its customers and users against these types of security threats?

Vogon Poet

Apple's business structure is designed to control both hardware, software, and services. Always has been. This can be very effective in the short run, but ruinous in the long run. The ipod (and some hip and timely product placement ads) have moved the company away from what looked like certain financial disaster. In an attempt to monopolize the market (and you thought MS was bad), their products will not integrate as well and may be price prohibitive. They will need to keep producing new and exciting products in order to beat the competition to the punch (since their strategy is not head-to-head competition). Expect them to miss the boat in a lot of areas, but continue to have devotees in technologies that they develop and keep doing well. Ironically, I know some Apple devotees that don't like MS's "arrogant attempt at monopolizing the market." (really?)

eMeS

pwjohnston wrote:

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39029450,49297849,00.htm

Everybody knows Apple laptops are pricey. You know it, Crave knows it, Steve Jobs knows it. We also have a fair idea that its PC-selling counterpart, Dell, is relatively cheap. But have you ever stopped to examine just how much more you pay for Apple upgrades than you do for Dell? We have.

Having trawled the online configurator tools of both laptop makers, we've detailed just how much Apple takes the biscuit with its pricing. Base configurations look pretty similar on the surface, but when you start upgrading with faster internal components, Apple charges through the nose.

We can understand why Apple can justify charging more for its superbly designed chassis, or its excellent operating systems -- they're bespoke, and you pay more for premium designs. Fine. But we can't fathom why Apple charges so much more than Dell for simple components.

If you're thinking of buying a Mac or a Dell, or have just bought one, you should definitely check out the next page to see exactly how these two computing behemoths compare. -Rory Reid

I'm going to take a contrarian view here. Please keep in mind I own both Apple and WinTel machines. I prefer the Apple, but I'm not specifically averse to anything that is Microsoft. When working with customers I advise them to use what is right for their business needs (I do not automatically recommend any equipment or software over any other).

I think they answer to your question has two possible answers:

1) Because Apple laptops are 400% superior to Dell's laptops. You said it well in your paragraph about bespoke designs. Adding thoughts specifically about the native OS, I'll also take something that is fully POSIX compliant (Leopard) over something that I have to add-on POSIX compliance (Windows) any day (I guess you could get some form of POSIX compliance OS installed on a Dell).

Apple, like any other for profit business, is in business to earn profits. If they offer something to a market segment that provides value, then they will be compensated accordingly for the value that they add.

or

2) They're not: I purchased a MacBook Pro 2.4ghz with 2gb RAM, 250 GB HD, and superdrive for $1539 (no tax). Yes, that's ~$460 less than list. And it is a new (not refurbished) item. There are ways to get Apple products for much less than list. Although I didn't look into too much, I would estimate that to get comparable laptop from a big name manufacturer I would be in a similar price range. Add to this the rebate I got for buying an iPod Touch with my MacBook and my cost for what I purchased was $1539 - $299 = $1240. (I sold the iPod on eBay for what I paid, since I already owned one).

$1240 - What would I pay for a comparable laptop from Dell? I just did a quick calculation for the M1330 discussed in the article outfitted comparably to my MacBook Pro. The final price I arrived at was $1998.

I guess some people are paying those full prices (from either vendor). IMO I got a superior device for less cost than an equivalent Dell, and I don't ever have to deal with Dell's notoriously crappy customer service.

MS

Darthn3ss

whered you get a macbook pro for $1300-$1500? very interested.

eMeS

Darthn3ss wrote:

whered you get a macbook pro for $1300-$1500? very interested.

Through an affiliation with a university.

In all fairness I likely could have gotten a good deal on a similar WinTel machine, but with Apple's current rebate program in place I didn't even bother looking.

MS