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I call BS. A macbook air might be "cheap" if you decide to limit your comparisons to "thin" notebooks but Best Buy has 40 models of notebooks for $200-$299 and
by greggman 15y ago
I call BS. A macbook air might be "cheap" if you decide to limit your comparisons to "thin" notebooks but Best Buy has 40 models of notebooks for $200-$299 and another 40 models for $300-$399. The $300-$399 aren't bad either. 3-4gig, I3, AMD 6910, DVD player, etc. etc. You can get 3 of them for the price of 1 macbook air. Got 3 kids, how about 3 notebooks instead of 1?
iPad? The competition hasn't really even started yet. It's only a matter of time before the $200-$300 tablets that don't suck start appearing. Will Apple lower the price of the iPad to match? I doubt it.
Phones are a different market. Because almost all phones are bought with contracts there's been very little incentive to make the phones cheaper. Unlike notebooks which you just buy outright.
I'm not saying in any way Apple's products aren't worth it. I have an iPad, 2 Macbook pros, A Mac Mini and an 8 core Mac Pro. But I'm not under any delusion that they are cheap compared to the alternatives. I'll still buy them because I like them but claiming a macbookair is a cheap notebook is like claiming a BWM is cheap car. It's only cheap if you massively restrict the options you are comparing them to.
- lispm 15y ago'cheap' could be the wrong word. But the first MacBook Air was relatively expensive. In a relatively short time Apple was driving the price for it down to $1000 while adding a lot value to it. If you compare items which aim to be small and lightweight, you pay a premium price for the loss of weight. If the product is already relatively light-weight, losing additional grams gets more expensive - unless you are will to sacrifice something like durability. It was quite a bit surprising how Apple slashed the price of the MacBook Air - given that it contains relatively expensive flash 'drives'. The iPad also has a relatively attractive price. The Mac mini feels a bit expensive, though.
- gnaffle 15y agoEven the original MacBook Air was cheap compared to the competition when it was released, from what I recall, about a $1000 cheaper than a similar Fujitsu-Siemens laptop (both non-SSD models). The funny thing, of course, was that many people were comparing the very expensive SSD model to _normal_ laptops and complaining that it was way too expensive for a laptop.
- gnaffle 15y agoThe article does mention that you can find cheaper alternatives. The point is that other manufacturers have problems competing with Apple in the premium market. Will Apple lower the price on the iPad? They will, if they can without compromising on quality. They did so with the iPod and the iPhone. They did it with the MacBook Air. Right now, they don't need to it with the iPad because it doesn't have any real competition. If Audi and Mercedes had problems matching BMW on price while making more crappy cars, you'd say that a BMW was cheap compared to the competition, even though it's an expensive car.
- usaar333 15y agoAs an aside, it is often possible to buy laptops from competing manufacturers vastly lower than MSRP (40+% off), especially on craigslist. Apple laptops seem to not exhibit this effect. Used ones are extremely cheap. My 2 year old (and extremely usable) Dell E4300 model can be had for ~$320 on ebay, while weaker macbook airs go for double that.