[peoplefromibiza]

well, truth is Apple MacBook Air 13 with 16 GB of RAM is listed at € 1.429 on the Italian Apple web site.

My sister bought a Lenovo thinkbook with a Ryzen 7, 16 GB of RAM (upgradable up to 32) for € 729

My 3D artist friend an Asus ROG 14 with an NVidia GPU and 32GB of RAM for € 1.780 and he's using it to render complex scenes.

Does the increase in performance justify the ridiculous price?

It doesn't, in my opinion.

Also, Apple doesn't want to be a mainstream company, their market is never gonna be huge, premium prices are only justifiable if the product is somewhat exclusive.

[dagw]

My company has Lenovo Thinkpads as their standard laptops, and they cost basically the same as MacBooks. So it's not like Apple are charging uniquely high prices for their laptops

[cruano]

So your 3D artist friend got a 1-pound-heavier machine with a plastic build that still gets beat in a single-core CPU benchmark, and he payed extra for that privilege. Let me know how it goes when he drops it.

Not to mention the unusable trackpad and keyboard, and the lack of video camera. Or even the fact that this machine gets super hot and loud, while an air doesn't even have fans.

[peoplefromibiza]

it's not plastic.

M1 Macs can't do what that laptops does.

Simple as that.

People are not stupid, that might surprise you, but people use their money for the best, usually.

> Not to mention the unusable trackpad and keyboard

Have you ever heard of a device called "mouse"?

My friend uses another device entirely, it's called "WACOM CINTIQ PRO TOUCH 32"

because he cares about eronomics in his job, specific to his job, he doesn't need to show off with his friends.

> and the lack of video camera

are you familiar with the concept of a working machine?

> Or even the fact that this machine gets super hot and loud

have you ever thought that people don't care about it, because they are working and their job is not making less noise possible?

that's a feature only if your job requires absolute silence, rendering at X minutes per frame is not one of them.

People just don't care.

It's like saying that your washing machine is noisy.

Do you stare at it while it washes your underwear?

[cruano]

> M1 Macs can't do what that laptops does

And vice versa. Try using it for hours just on battery.

>Have you ever heard of a device called "mouse"?

Then you can't use it on your lap, need a bigger desk, etc.

>are you familiar with the concept of a working machine?

Are you familiar with the concept of online meetings ? Or do you work as a hermit ?

>because they are working and their job is not making less noise possible?

Not to mention audio people that do require that, but I'm sure your coworkers wouldn't appreciate the fan noise blasting each time you unmute

>Do you stare at it while it washes your underwear?

Do you leave the room when using your computer ?

[dijit]

The price seems to be comparable to premium lines of PC's.

Dell XPS and HP Elitebooks often meet or exceed the price of comparable MacBooks.

[stjohnswarts]

I find the hardware in the more "elite" laptops lasts longer. In 2015 I bought an Asus ROG middle of the road priced computer and have had to replace the hard drive in it and two keyboards. I have a macbook from the same year and 0 problems, and use it more than the Asus.

[peoplefromibiza]

> The price seems to be comparable to premium lines of PC's.

How many times people said that the Air is the "entry level" "low budget" Mac?

Which one is true?

Is it a luxury product or an entry level one?

I can quote many comments saying both things in the same thread.

Anyway, no company pays Lenovo full price and their discount policies are far more aggressive than Apple's.

There's a reason: Apple doesn't undersell, they don't care.

Lenovo, Dell, HP make volumes, they don't care to be a luxury brand.

The X1 carbon, paid full price, is for people who have money to waste.

[dijit]

> Is it a luxury product or an entry level one?

Obviously: Both.

The absolute "entry" point is the Mac mini.

The MacBook Air a low spec "luxury" quality device for people who want a well built laptop (that has decent battery life and a good screen) but do not have heavy demands on performance.

If your argument is discounts then I don't support that pricing model (unpredictable frenetic oscillation) anyway.

And, yah, if you're a company you get a flat rate discount based on volume with Apple products.

[stjohnswarts]

I bet the hardware will be working 10 years from now as well. Apples tends to use great hardware even if it is sometimes a little underperformative compared to PCs at the same price point.

[dijit]

I hesitate to say such a thing given the keyboard fiasco and the time nvidia sold them a batch of GPUs that got so hot they desoldered themselves.

I have a MacBook from 2011 that works perfectly well (almost as good as the day I got it, save the battery and a few bits of corrosion on the edge of the front where your palms rest). I’ve definitely cycled through other laptops much faster than that.

[peoplefromibiza]

my 3 Mac laptops sitting on a shelf because the batteries gave up multiple times are laughing at you.

I spent on them a fortune in total, and they broke, pathetically.

I tried, believe me.

Mac HW quality is just another myth.

[simonh]

Why can’t a luxury product range have entry level models? Even Ferrari has cars ranging in price from $220k up to $1m. Search for “Ferrari entry-level” and you’ll get plenty of hits using that phrase for various Portofino, Spider and Roma configurations.

[peoplefromibiza]

That's not what they say: they say it's cheap.

Luxury is never cheap.

An M1 can't be both entry level and better than high end models at the same price tag, at the same time (that's what they say).

They are not in fact.

Please leave Ferrari alone, they actually make cars that last for decades.

Apple doesn't.

[dijit]

I can’t make this comment without seeming condescending, but please understand me when I say that I don’t intend it that way.

You’re having an emotional reaction to a brand and a product, and this is not ideal.

I struggle to deal with people who are emotional about brands, both love and hate because I find that there’s no room for objectivity or discussion. There are circumstances where interacting with a brand can be wholly toxic (Oracle) or largely good (Linux, if you can call it a brand). But when you only respond in an emotional way it prevents an intellectually curious discussion.

Stop thinking of these as “Apple” computers and instead look at them as.. computers.

It makes the trade offs a lot more obvious when you remove the emotive element.

[simonh]

I’d love to see a reference where Apple or anyone else says their products are cheap. It might be possible to argue they are good value for various reasons such as long product lifetimes, but that’s not the same thing as cheap.

> An M1 can't be both entry level and better than high end models at the same price tag, at the same time (that's what they say).

I have no idea what you’re referring to. Apple has some laptop models that are less expensive, I might even say cheaper, than others. That’s just comparing them relative to other Apple products though. The MacBook Air is cheaper than a MacBook Pro, that’s not the same thing as saying it’s objectively cheap relative to laptops generally. These are the entry level products in the MacBook product range.

You can get capabilities from even the low end M1 MacBooks that you can’t get from even very expensive notebooks from other manufacturers. You can get faster notebooks elsewhere, or lighter notebooks, or… actually no, you can’t get notebooks with better battery life anywhere else. However you can’t get the combination of lightness power and battery duration of even a low end M1 MacBook anywhere else at any price. That can absolutely make it better than more expensive models from other manufacturers in ways some people find very important.

[dmitriid]

> An M1 can't be both entry level and better than high end models at the same price tag, at the same time

Yes. Yes they can. Because that's their new entry model in the new line-up. And can be both entry level and better than high-end models from the previous line-up.

These are entry models for Apple products. So no sense comparing them with entry models for other products (which could be shoddy plastic netbooks for all those brands care)

[stjohnswarts]

There is a middle path here...

[stjohnswarts]

Not everyone has the same end user needs as your friends, so they're choices are just as valid.

[peoplefromibiza]

And who said they are not valid?