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Macs - Price vs. Performance
I was having this discussion with a friend of mine, but I've never really bothered looking into it too much. Are they really any more expensive than a Windows (or non-Apple rather) based PC? I've always been told that the reason Apple products cost more is simply because Apple gets away with it (or something along the lines of trendy people are willing to pay more for it). I was looking at the Macbook Pro's and the lowest priced one is $1.2k with:
2.4GHz dual-core
Intel Core i5
4GB 1333MHz
500GB 5400-rpm1
Intel HD Graphics 3000
I then went to Dell.com to look for products with similar hardware, and using their 'Shop and Compare' side panel (selecting 11-14 inch screen, 4GB RAM, core i5) it droped down to two products, the Alienware M11x and M14x ($1k and $1.1k).
These Alienware laptops are both cheaper and offer what seems to me to be superior hardware (the HDD's and GPU's). Does this mean that non-Alienware laptops with similar/the same or even better hardware would be cheaper or evenly priced (again, assuming that Alienware is also another product that you pay more for the look)?
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Comments
What's it really cost to get better internal hardware than that? Not much, actually:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215258
That will get you a real quad core processor, integrated graphics that are massively better, the same amount of memory, an equivalent hard drive, and comparable power consumption. If raw performance is all that you care about, it's better than a MacBook Pro that costs more than twice as much.
The MacBook Pro will have a better keyboard, a better monitor, a nicer case, and so forth. But that plus a different (not necessarily better or worse) OS is what you're paying for if you buy from Apple.
Why does no one ever love ASUS. They make the boards for MacBooks
Anyways Alienware is a bit overpriced. If your looking for a hardware match for the same price take a look at the link posted below.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230214
I have this model and I had my friend by the same one. Great quality, Screen and Performance.
As for your question about apples pricing, they are PC's they have been since early 2005 with the implementation of x86 (Intel Based Processors) the only difference is the mac uses a EFI chip and uses its kernal to inhibit anyones attempts to run it on hardware that does not have this chip.
If you actually go through and match up all the miscellaneous options that an Apple tends to have, they come out a bit more favorable, and there are a lot of unique options that only Apple has that you can't really cross-compare (like the uniframe chassis). But there is still no getting away from the Apple Luxury Tax. Apple charges as much as they can get away with, because they can get away with it - whether that's unreasonable or not depends on who you are and what you are trying to accomplish with your computer.
If you are talking about Price vs Performance, Apple doesn't even come into that conversation. Apple is not a "Performance" vendor, even though they will try to tell you that their hardware is all about performance. It just isn't: it's all about performing just well enough to run OS X and keep it relatively competitive, and then on top of that it's about integrating all the features and gizmos in such a way to be non obtrusive and ubiquitous; to make the Apple computer a unique "experience" rather than a product. If Apple thought they could get away with it, they wouldn't even bother telling you what the hardware was inside, they stress that it isn't a part of the experience - using the computer is what matters, not what is under the hood making it work (although the techies and geeks and such love to know).
There are plenty of faster laptops than an entry level MacBook Pro, for a lot cheaper. But there's only one Apple.
That's going in a different direction from what I linked, but still a nice comparison. The Asus laptop there has a much faster processor (basically four cores instead of two, and about the same cores), a much faster video card than even the top end $2500 MacBook Pro, double the system memory (which Apple will match for $200), a much faster hard drive, and a larger monitor with probably a higher resolution except that Apple won't say the resolution on the MacBook Pro. And it will also have a lot nicer build quality than the Acer that I linked, though it may or may not catch the Apple.
But it's a different class of product entirely. To get a lot more powerful hardware, you add a lot more weight. For some purposes, that's good. For others, you'd rather compare it to slower, more portable (but still cheaper!) laptops.
Once I got in an argument with a Apple fanboy who argued that Apple is actually a great value for the money because they give you a bunch of software that you don't want, and if you wanted to buy a professional version of equivalent software for a PC, you'd have to pay several hundred dollars. I somewhat expect that Apple fanboys will next pick up on the stupidly overpriced "ultrabooks" and claim that they're the only PCs that can be compared to Apple laptops on a price/performance basis. And then when AMD launches Trinity-based ultrathins that are a lot nicer for a lot cheaper, Apple fanboys will have to claim that's not comparable at all. Even if Apple itself decides to adopt Trinity (which may or may not happen).
Apple's business model is mid-range hardware with a high end price tag. The reasons that is problematic on a price/performance basis are obvious. But it sure beats low end hardware, and my guess is that a siginficant fraction of Apple fanboys think Apple is so awesome in part because Apple's mid-range hardware really is vastly better the low-end hardware that they previously got in PCs because they didn't know any better.
Apple does tell the screen resolution, it's just not in bold print on the front page because for most people, they don't care so long as it looks good (Remember, this is Apple, they know what is best for you).
17" is 1920x1200 (glossy or matte), 15" is either 1440x900 (standard, glossy) or 1680x1050 (either glossy or matte), and the 13" is 1280x800 (glossy).
It's in the technical specifications for the different models. The selection is made as a BTO option on the 17 and 15" models. You just have to know where to look.