Apple dropping prices...

asininity

Someone should tell the BBC that before apple sue!

Its all about the brand, all must be converted.

Marty_J

Jaffa. wrote: »

I think it's more about the brand of Apple, I mean look at the sansa fuze and the iPod shuffle, same price (ish at £50) yet the sansa's much better by a long shot. There's even more proof that it's all about the brand when Apple bundle Apple stickers with their goods.

You're comparing two totally different products. You pay more for the Shuffle because it's tiny. I mean, it's really really small:



It's a marvel of design actually. Personally, I think they've gone a bit too far, and I prefer the 2nd gen Shuffle (which can be had for around £30).

The Sansa Fuze is more comparable in terms of features to the iPod Nano.

Marty_J

asininity wrote: »

Search for one.

The only vaguely comparable thing I can find is the Dell Adamo, which is quite a bit more than Apple's MacBook Air, and not as well spec'd.

You pay more for good design no matter who it is. If Dell, the king of budget box-shifters, can't make a computer like that without charging a premium for it, I don't see how Apple can be expected to.

Simon_B_2

Marty_J wrote: »

The only vaguely comparable thing I can find is the Dell Adamo, which is quite a bit more than Apple's MacBook Air, and not as well spec'd.

You pay more for good design no matter who it is. If Dell, the king of budget box-shifters, can't make a computer like that without charging a premium for it, I don't see how Apple can be expected to.

In terms of fashionable functional pieces of kit they are good, the air and ipods are really impressive, i have a classic ipod with the carkit and its an essential bit of travel kit for me. But i nipped into a apple store yesterday, ready to be impressed and possibly pick one up! had a chat with the friendly apple people about the lowest speced imac and mac mini and couldn't get over the prices and the fact that they don't do any more for me than a standard pc.
So will probably end up buying an ACER quadcore desktop and a 22" inch samsung lcd screen from pcworld for £478 all in still a little more shopping around to do to bring the price down yet though but still worth the saving.

asininity

Marty_J wrote: »

The only vaguely comparable thing I can find is the Dell Adamo, which is quite a bit more than Apple's MacBook Air, and not as well spec'd.

You pay more for good design no matter who it is. If Dell, the king of budget box-shifters, can't make a computer like that without charging a premium for it, I don't see how Apple can be expected to.

Maybe we're just after different things. I'm actually in the market for a 15' laptop.

Now software aside as we both know I'll put linux on a windows laptop which is more secure and faster at booting than even OSX; not to mention with a few tweeks which are getting easier to do will do all the eyecandy OSX can do and more.

Now I went onto apples website and priced up a laptop; 15', C2D at 2.4ghz, 320gb HD at 7200rpm, 4GB Ram at 1066mhz. The price is about £1550. That comes with the back lit keyboard and the precision aluminium case. I'm assuming it comes with n draft wifi and camera.

For half that price I could get an acer travelmate 6593g; 15', C2D at 2.5ghz, 320gb HD at 7200rpm, 4GB Ram at 1066mhz also comes with n draft wifi and camera. The price about £832. Now I'm not being funny I'm not paying 800 quid for a back lit keyboard and aluminium case.

For 1650 quid I could get and alienware laptop; 17', Quadcore at 2ghz, 500gb HD at 7200rpm, 4GB Ram at 1066mhz comes with is own dedicated graphics HD3870, and audio. The cases aint that good to look at but it'll play some good games and why not if you have the money.

I'm not saying they're not well built but why pay more if you don't have to.

almillar

wakandem - Please let us know what second hand Macs you have for sale that you're unable to shift - I'll give you a bad price for one!

M4RKM

asininity wrote: »

Maybe we're just after different things. I'm actually in the market for a 15' laptop.

Now software aside as.......


I'm not saying they're not well built but why pay more if you don't have to.

but this is not a like for like comparison though.. you're going to get rid of any software you get with the machine, so you're paying for software you don't need.

If you want to keep the software on the machines then you'll find quite a lot if differences with what you can/can't do out of the box, and this all adds up..

so, if you're gonna get a box, and just put linux on it, a box is always going to be cheaper... bear in mind too that the acer has a lower spec graphics card, whereas the mac has 2 graphics cards.. but with the acer you do get a dial up 56k modem....


M

asininity

markymoo wrote: »

but this is not a like for like comparison though.. you're going to get rid of any software you get with the machine, so you're paying for software you don't need.

Dont get me started with this, have you tried getting a laptop other than a netbook with linux preinstalled? Ever tried to get a refund for the software (windows) you dont want?

So basically what you're saying is the machine is even cheaper!

If you want to keep the software on the machines then you'll find quite a lot if differences with what you can/can't do out of the box, and this all adds up..

Even if I did keep windows it would take me 1 hour to be able to do everything I need to do from movie editing to editing pictures. All I'd need is an internet connection, the free software abounds.

so, if you're gonna get a box, and just put linux on it, a box is always going to be cheaper... bear in mind too that the acer has a lower spec graphics card, whereas the mac has 2 graphics cards.. but with the acer you do get a dial up 56k modem....


M

So the extra 800 is for a couple of gfx cards, aluminium case and backlit keyboard. Still not convinced.

I spent five minutes on ebuyer finding a similar spec'ed laptop I'm sure if I looked hard enough I'd find one still cheaper with better specs than the mac.

trets77

Personally i'm glad Mac's are more expensive .
the fact the price puts people off like Simon_B means that we don't have Viruses or Malware to worry about .

My MacBook cost nearly £1000 and i could have quite easily have got a similar spec PC for about half the price . But now i have had it for a few months i know it was worth the extra . running as fast as the day it came out the box , which means it runs rings around a windows PC . it's the little things that make me love it , like when i turn it on i don't have to wait 3 mins to get onto the internet , or getting the dreaded " program is not responding" every ten mins like my windows Laptop .

i will never have a PC again , and i fully expect My Mac to be running several years from now , i bet if i had purchased a PC i would have to be getting a new after 3 years.

Marty_J

asininity wrote: »

Maybe we're just after different things. I'm actually in the market for a 15' laptop.

Now software aside as we both know I'll put linux on a windows laptop which is more secure and faster at booting than even OSX; not to mention with a few tweeks which are getting easier to do will do all the eyecandy OSX can do and more.

Well, lol, I think that's a pretty simplistic over-view. There's no such thing as "Linux" insofar as there are many many different distros. Pick any one of them and Mac OS X will be better in some ways and not as good in others. It's pretty silly trying to pretend that Linux is all-powerful and OS X is a nice try but somehow flawed.

But, I do have to say that I'm yet to hear the "wow!" from people switching from Windows to Linux that I hear from people switching from Windows to a Mac.

Now I went onto apples website and priced up a laptop; 15', C2D at 2.4ghz, 320gb HD at 7200rpm, 4GB Ram at 1066mhz. The price is about £1550. That comes with the back lit keyboard and the precision aluminium case. I'm assuming it comes with n draft wifi and camera.

Ah, that's the very laptop that came top in Consumer Reports' 14 - 16 inch laptop category.

Of course, Apple frequently appear at the top of such things, so that's hardly surprising.

For half that price I could get an acer travelmate 6593g; 15', C2D at 2.5ghz, 320gb HD at 7200rpm, 4GB Ram at 1066mhz also comes with n draft wifi and camera. The price about £832. Now I'm not being funny I'm not paying 800 quid for a back lit keyboard and aluminium case.

How is its screen resolution and Brightness? Does it have an LED backlight? Hows its graphics card? What's its battery life like? How easy is it to scratch/break/dent? Can you trip over its power cable? How comfortable is it to type on the keyboard? What size is the trackpad? Does it have a multi-touch trackpad? What's the build quality like? How does it close? Is it held shut magnetically, or does it have a horrible little clasp?

Does it have any FireWire ports? How about an optical-out? What size and weight is it? Is it a centimetre thicker and half a kilogram heavier? What about customer support? How much will you get if you decide to sell it and upgrade in 3 years? How about bundled software? I take it that it includes Vista Ultimate (as you get the full version of OS X with a Mac)?

For 1650 quid I could get and alienware laptop; 17', Quadcore at 2ghz, 500gb HD at 7200rpm, 4GB Ram at 1066mhz comes with is own dedicated graphics HD3870, and audio. The cases aint that good to look at but it'll play some good games and why not if you have the money.

Well why not indeed. If it makes you feel any better, I wouldn't buy a Mac if I was after something to play games on. Well, unless I won the lottery, in which case it would be a maxed out Mac Pro.

I'm not saying they're not well built but why pay more if you don't have to.

Because when you pay less, you don't get more.

Try the Apple Refurb Store if you want a few hundred off the price.