Overpriced MacBooks Claim 20% of Notebook Market, Foolish Hipsters' Money
Posted 10/01/08 at 12:20:05 PM by Paul Lilly
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By our own admission, MacBooks aren't half bad. In Maximum PC's Apple's Notebooks Take On the PC Competition, Apple's MacBook walked away as best-in-class in the professional segment, much to the dismay of the PC faithful. But that doesn't mean we're willing to squeeze our wallet dry to own one.
On average, you can expect to pay twice as much on an Apple PC versus a Vista computer. And people are doing just that. Windows PCs still dominate the lion's share of the market at 80 percent, but Apple continues to cling to a respectable 20 percent slice of the pie. Making its piece even more savory, Apple's making over 35 percent of the revenue share. Think about that. Despite claiming one-fifth of the market, Apple's cashing in on over a third of the revenue.
These numbers come courtesy of the latest NPD sales information, but some feel that Apple has done as well as it ever will at the current price point. Joe Wilcox from eWeek writes, "What's next? I predict that Apple's grab for dollars has gone about as far as it can, without price cuts. Apple's higher prices buck industry trends."
That may be the case, but can trendy hipsters be expected to buck the trend of overpaying?
Image Credit: Apple
Same old same old
Submitted by Bender2000 on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 6:46pm
Seems the Apple haters are singing the same tune - you can get more for less. In pratical terms that is a no brainer, but raw numbers don't describe half the experience and then there is the subjective. The Asus G50 is a tremendous value, it even has a 56K Modem built in, Apple devalued the MacBooks long ago when they removed them. No one is arguing that Apples pack great value. They do argue that they are better. If you can go to the store on a beat up Dodge but go there in a Prius, or you think you can get the same education online as you can from Harvard because you use the same books is missing the point. SOmetimes its not about the bottom line. Apple is like Lexus. What, really, do they offer that is so compelling to spend more than the alomost identical Toyota? Its the experience, and it is subjective so put the spread sheets away.
I'm not really an apple
Submitted by JPmatt6 on Sat, 10/04/2008 - 10:42am
I'm not really an Apple hater, I just have a budget.
I go to a school that uses almost exclusively Macs, and I like them, it's just that they don't do anything for me other than look cool. It's like a Porsche 911. Overpriced, moderately fast, and you can get faster cars for the same money or less (Lotus Elise, M3, C63 AMG). Yes, the driving experience is great, but it's also great in the other three cars, and you get a choice.
Submitted by JPmatt6 on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 5:31pm
Macbook Pro vs. Asus G50
Now remember, the G50 is $1700.
The Macbook can be had for $2744, just over $1K more.The first is the Macbook Pro and the second is the Asus.
CPU Core 2 Duo @ 2.5GHz vs. Core 2 Duo @ 2.53GHz
RAM 2GB DDR2 vs. 4GB DDR2
GPU Nvidia 8600m GT(512mb) vs. Nvidia 9700m GT(512mb)HDD 250GB 5400rpm vs. 500GB 5400rpm
LCD 15.4" or 17" vs. 15.4" (same resolution as 17" MBP - 1680x1050)
Weight 6.8lbs vs. 6.5lbsWarranty 1yr vs. 2yrsThey both have cameras (though the Asus' is better quality - 2mp) and
microphones, and the Asus has 1 more USB port (4>3), but sacrifices
one Firewire port for an eSATA port (which the MBP does not have).I'll let you figure out the rest.
ug
Submitted by soulliea on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 12:27pm
it would be nice if macs could have their parts replaced but that opens a bunch of garbage apple doesnt want to deal with...
the reason why osx is as stable as it is and as easy for people who know nothing is because there is no need to deal with drivers... they can write an OS that basically is designed for only a few different configurations... unlike windows where microsoft has to not only make things as flexible as possible for all the different configs out there, but they have to make things as backwards compatible as possible to avoid alienating users of older systems...
also with the smaller user base, keeping in mind that vista still lacks drivers for many components, what do you think the odds are that companies are going to write osx drivers for their parts on the off-chance that someone might actually need them? good luck
as a university student, basically everybody i know owns a laptop, and for the most part they can be broken into 2 groups...
1)the people who needed a computer and either went to staples/futureshop/bestbuy because there was a sale on
2)the people that wanted a mac because their friends had macs and didnt care that they were spending 15% more for a laptop that they probably wouldnt know how to use
the second group generally annoys me to no end because they all sing the praises of macbooks... but when it comes down to it, all they use the things for is word processing, internet browsing and msn... you could buy an acer laptop that would do the same things for $600... kills me
oh and just wait, if that apple market share gets up there a little higher, all those mac users out there who know absolutely nothing about computers, will be bombarded with new viruses written just for them... and i bet the vast majority of them wont be able to do anything about it...
Submitted by hogkill on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 2:19pm
" the second group generally annoys me to no end because they all sing
the praises of macbooks... but when it comes down to it, all they use
the things for is word processing, internet browsing and msn... you
could buy an acer laptop that would do the same things for $600...
kills me "Hell you could do more with an Acer. All mac notebooks come with a software limitiation installed. It's called MacOS.
I'll laugh at all the idiots
Submitted by avanish11 on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 1:36pm
I'll laugh at all the idiots who say "macs are so secure, they don't need AV software," when they get bombarded with crap.
Submitted by ferds7 on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 11:50am
I do not see how people can think OSX is elegant or has a better user interface. I've given it several years worth of daily attempts to grow on me and I do not find it visually pleasing or as productive as Windows. I will take my organized Windows start menu any day over having a bunch of my applications on the bottom of my screen and having to dig through the mess to find which one I want. Plus when it comes to default mouses you receive with the computer... Well I best not get started on the "Mighty" mouse. Blah... Mac pain in my eyes.
Can anyone please tell me what is so elegant about the Mac? Their main style is friggen white with rounded edges. How clever...
Submitted by dentaku on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 11:41am
The problem with the article you guys did a while ago where you tested out several laptops is that the MacBook had a nice clean install of Vista that Maximum PC installed but the Dell XPS seemed to have been tested exactly the way it came from the factory, full of useless shovelware that criples most OEM systems. It's like they want to sabotage their own machines before the consumer even buys it.
It would be nice to compare them both with clean OSes and no extra junk messing them up.
Only Twice?
Submitted by nmanguy on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 11:11am
The Air is almost four times as much as an MSI wind and it's only added features are a slightly faster processor and an extra gig of ram.
Submitted by Bender2000 on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 11:11am
Lets face it, Macs are no more or no less practical than other brands, but they are more elegant. The OS is nifty and you COULD put Vista on it if you had to. Antihero doesn't know much about the MacBook Air, comparing it to a $600 lump, but he is correct that there is a severe diminish in return for your $$ with ultra portables.
You can't talk about Apple without considering their whole ecosystem with the Apple Store and their Genius bar. Who can compete with that? If you break your Voodoo or Lenovo laptop, you bring it to whom for an initial look? If you want a Lenovo Ideapad Y510 you have to go through a zillion configurations online or go to a store and pray they have one, but you're stuck with the config they have in stock. Apples simplified lineup makes it easier to choose. But they ain't cheap, they are absolutely raping you for extra memory! But if you pay them to put it in rather than getting it done yourself, which is like falling off a log, then shame on you.
Everything i said came from
Submitted by AntiHero on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 1:46pm
Everything i said came from the standpoint of an IT tech. I do not send my personal belongings to anyone else to get repaired unless necessary, interchangable/replacable parts is something i value, what if one day i came across a nice solid state drive?(which would help cool that hot metal sheet you call a macbook, because the lack of moving parts would prevent friction) With a mac, i cannot get it, since everything for mac is built by or for Apple. My friend had a macbook, battery fried, was going to cost him 300 dollars to repair a battery. With an OEM like Dell, you could order a battery and pop it in yourself, it's not rocket science.
Submitted by sdcat on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 10:49am
People buy apple computer products because of its OSX. Basically it will not get infected or easy been attacked from internet. If we look at Microsoft OS, it goes the other direction.
Therefore if paying more could get a peace of mind, why not?
I still don't understand
Submitted by atomaweapon on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 10:34am
I still don't understand why you guys rated the macbook so highly. Sure it's a nice little piece of equipment, but there are cheaper notebooks with comparable speeds out there. You guys are advertising that voodoo notebook right now which is faster than the macbok at 2000 bucks.
actually, you can buy
Submitted by XSV DBLs on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 10:33am
actually, you can buy replacement parts for ipods, like a new battery for example, is only around 20 bucks.
Submitted by AntiHero on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 10:10am
The macbook Air is a prime example of overcharging. A leisurely stroll through BestBuy looking for a mouse one day led me to notice that after 4 months of being out the MacBook air was nearly 2500 dollars. Further inspection led me to notice the components inside of it were the identical match to a laptop my girlfriend has, she paid 600 dollars for hers. Are people really paying 10x more for the OSX? Really, the components are something along the lines of a radeon x1150, along with 1 gig of ram and a single core 2.5ghz cpu (the one i came across at least) and it was garbage. Looked at some videos of people opening them, and realized it's a bunch of ribbon cables in a fancy package. No ingenuity, just marketing to the idiot trendy crowd who go "ooohhh it's so small, and shiny" The thing was hot, hence why laptops should be made of something other than metals. Picked and poked around at some ebay prices, it was going for 2k used, used being the fact that people disliked em. To add to this, it's components are hard to replace, making repairs virtually impossible. If the 2k machine dies out, you're either A) buying a new one or B) paying the hefty fee to replace peices out of warranty. (if it's been long enough or you didn't bother with a warranty) Trendy as Apple can be, the iPhone was garbage in a shiny package, iPods break all the time, i've never had one last more than a year, and all parts are irreplacable. One thing that they could do to boost sales of the MacOS is to make it so that you can change parts within the machines.
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