Agreed, that's kind of how I value my rMBP, or equivalent windows laptops around $1500. I'll use it for 4 years, sell it for 25% the price (this is sadly where

Agreed, that's kind of how I value my rMBP, or equivalent windows laptops around $1500. I'll use it for 4 years, sell it for 25% the price (this is sadly where windows loses some value that's often not justified, resell market for Apple is great, resell market for top (not crappy but top) windows hardware seems to really undervalue the remaining quality). Got my MBP for about €1400, aim to sell it for at least about €400 a few years down the road. That leaves a cost of about 20 euros per month. Then I look at the fact that as an independent developer I'm earning a few thousand a month and this device basically like 90% of my office. It means a device that costs $100 or $1000 or even $5000 doesn't really make a huge difference. It's like a writer's pencil costs $1 or $10 or $100, when it's a tiny percentage of his costs and a gigantic percentage of his usage. That having been said, whether a purchase is justified in and of its own ignores the fact whether it's justified vs other purchases. After all, spending money supremely is a game of opportunity cost. And here spending an additional $500 starts to break down, and now we'd have to weigh the marginal benefit. Does a MBP vs a MBA for say a web developer who has a career in SEO, or say CSS, add much? Often the answer would be no, and compared to say $500 on a year at the gym, a romantic weekend, charity, is hard to defend. And with cheap phones hitting the essentials more and more (messaging, calls, basic snapshots, directions, quick info, a game of poker, dating etc), I'm already personally getting disinterested with new iterations of phones. The latest giants' 6 versions (samsung, apple) did nothing for me in terms of purchasing desire, despite thinking they're awesome devices.