> People bemoan how expensive iPhones are and brag about how cheap you can get an Android phone. An iPhone is $600 but you can get an Android phone for $100! Th

> People bemoan how expensive iPhones are and brag about how cheap you can get an Android phone. An iPhone is $600 but you can get an Android phone for $100! Then I ask which Android phone I should get and I'm told "Samsung Galaxy S8", which is the same price as an iPhone! I know your being facetious, but the easy answer to that question is the Moto G5 Plus, which you can pick up for $230 in most any Best Buy or Costco in the US. There are many other good choices there too. > I'm told Apple laptops are too expensive, so I ask which Windows laptop I should get and I'm told a Surface, a Thinkpad X1 Carbon, an XPS 13... all of which are exactly comparable in price with a Macbook. I don't think that's true. Apple store is down for WWDC today, but as of yesterday a 13' MacBook Pro is $1,300. The closest matching Dell XPS 13 is only $1,000. It has a lower resolution screen, but a newer gen processor and 10% more battery. ---- Fundamentally, Apple products carry a premium price. Some non-Apple products also carry a premium price (see the Surface Book as a good example). But that doesn't mean the "Apple Tax" (higher margins) aren't real, or that there aren't comparable products without it. Again, the lineup is being refreshed today, so this may all change. But the Mac Pro is the typical perfect example of this -- you can build or buy a more powerful, smaller, faster PC including licensed Windows 10 Pro for much cheaper than a Mac, literally just a small fraction of the Mac Pro's current price.