Computer Advice needed, please.

Sandtree

@arciere  not much change from £33k (net)

arciere

That's a lot of money even for Apple. Then what do you do if when need support? You take it to the geniuses at the Apple store?
There's no point in comparing a £33k device. I could show you a Dell VRTX spec'ed with double performance at a similar price range.

We were discussing about Apple computers for the average user. Show me a £1,000 Mac if you want to make a real comparison.

Sandtree

arciere said:

That's a lot of money even for Apple. Then what do you do if when need support? You take it to the geniuses at the Apple store?
There's no point in comparing a £33k device. I could show you a Dell VRTX spec'ed with double performance at a similar price range.

We were discussing about Apple computers for the average user. Show me a £1,000 Mac if you want to make a real comparison.

Unsurprisingly in a company thats buying £33k computers they have their own IT people. Happy to see your Dell with double the performance at the same price @arciere . Our Dell representative came up with a Precision Workstation with almost identical specs but it was circa £36k 

Right now a £1k Apple machine is hard to compare given the M1 processor it will come with. Up until last year you were absolutely correct... want metal case ultra thin laptop then a lot of budget is going into that irrespective what brand it is. Happy to take plastic case, bigger dimensions etc then for the same budget it will obviously be faster. Apple only sell the former so you could always get more bang for your buck elsewhere.

Even if you do want to compare with the M1 chip you've got to settle the debate on if you should only compare things that natively run on it and natively run on the Win10 machine you'll be proposing or if you should inc non-native apps going through Rosetta given that will be the reality for a while until developers recode for the new architecture 

If you want to compare Apples and Apples, pun intended, the M1 MacBook Pro's are getting higher geekbench etc scores than the current Intel MacBook Pros that are almost double the price or more. 

arciere

Yeah, I have been working on the field for ages, I can guarantee you that no IT department will consider a Mac as a first choice unless it's for a very specific task. IT departments are not there to do the manufacturer's work. And I can also tell you that "power and performance" is a low priority when talking about expensive IT infrastructure in a corporate environment.

Back to the OP's question, come back with a £500-£1,000 Mac and we can discuss if it's really worth it. Until then, you are talking about very specific scenarios that only apply to you 

Sandtree

arciere said:

Yeah, I have been working on the field for ages, I can guarantee you that no IT department will consider a Mac as a first choice unless it's for a very specific task. IT departments are not there to do the manufacturer's work. And I can also tell you that "power and performance" is a low priority when talking about expensive IT infrastructure in a corporate environment.

Back to the OP's question, come back with a £500-£1,000 Mac and we can discuss if it's really worth it. Until then, you are talking about very specific scenarios that only apply to you 

You seem to have very selective reading @arciere but yes, most people in the office have a win10 HP ProBook with an i7 processor... exact model depends on how long you've been with the company but those are still near a grand in price (gross list) and the Mac Pro and the other workstations are for those doing very specific tasks. 

So even in a corporate environment some value has been attached to the small light weight metal laptop where as clearly more pure performance could have been gained with chunkier plastic laptops. 

If you are dying to consider the value of a modern mac, as you seem to be, then the Mac Mini with M1 and 16gb of unified memory... £899 ignoring the readily available discounts.