5 ms·

The biggest issue I have with macbooks is that they are ridiculously expensive. They are intended to be portable devices but bringing them anywhere outside my a

The biggest issue I have with macbooks is that they are ridiculously expensive. They are intended to be portable devices but bringing them anywhere outside my apartment or office is just a huge risk.

FearlessNebula 4y ago
They’re not much more expensive than a Windows laptop of similar specs and quality. AppleCare is fairly cheap if you’re concerned about damage.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  Yeah, they’re just not Barry’s Bargain Basement laptops. Comparable models from Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc cost just as much.
  - tnel77 4y ago
    “Apple is so expensive” is essentially a meme at this point.
nomel 4y ago
> are ridiculously expensive What makes you say this? Have you speced two systems lately? Last I did, the MacBook was comparable to cheaper for the price/performance. Of course, a 10lb mobile desktop with a 30 minute battery was closest. What comparable notebook do you have in mind?
- Yujf 4y ago
  It depends on how you spec it. Apple charges an arm and a leg for ram/storage upgrades
  - Lio 4y ago
    I was about to say the same thing but I've just had a look at Dell for a product comparison. It seems crazy to me that in 2023 Apple offer a £2,699.00 laptop with just 512Gb of non-upgradable storage. Looking at Dell's Precision line bundled with Ubuntu, they might be user upgradable but they're still roughly a similar ball park to Apple price wise. Personally I'm going to need to see some full package benchmarks before I can form an opinion and will be weeping either way.
    - bubblethink 4y ago
      >they're still roughly a similar ball park The PC industry uses wildly inflated prices, especially MSRP. A more realistic price for laptops can be found on various deal sites. A comparable Dell, Lenovo, or HP laptop will cost about .5-.6 of the equivalent macbook pro price. The vast majority of laptops, even after accounting for 1-2 TB of storage and 32 GB RAM cost less than $1.5k. MBPs start around $2k.
      - Lio 4y ago
        That’s interesting could post a specific comparison? I’ve actually been considering an M1 MBP from a deal site in the UK. They seem to be about £300 off MSRP at the moment.
        bubblethink 4y ago
        Not too familiar with the UK market, but in the US, various AMD Thinkpad T14(s)/T16/P16 gen 3 configurations as well as some HP elitebook ones were in the 1-1.5k price bracket around Black Friday. I got an elitebook 845 g9 with 6850 HS and added a 2 TB nvme ssd and 64 GB RAM to it as aftermarket purchases for a total of ~$1200 after tax, additional warranty and a thunderbolt dock.
        nomel 4y ago
        > bracket around Black Friday I think the other 364 days of the year are more relevant, since Black Friday sales often have extremely limited quantities, and are anything it predictable. People are claiming 4-6 hours on the hidpi display version. That’s definitely not comparable. I leave my charger at home with my M1.
sudhirj 4y ago
Dunno, I dropped mine pretty hard at airport security, skidded across the floor, left a very small dent. My wife had hers placed on a lectern and someone bumped into to and it fell off stage, bigger dent but the show went on. And our kid has sat on or stepped on both multiple times. They hold up well enough.
- cesarvarela 4y ago
  Interesting that you though his reasoning was about accidental damage and not thieves.
  - sudhirj 4y ago
    Oh, yeah, I don’t live in SF. Theft isn’t common enough to be a big deal in my city in India, but Apple’s anti theft is pretty good either way.
- ricardobayes 4y ago
  I'm a sucker for robustness and build quality so that's why I like thinkpads. Dropped one on the tarmac of a race track as an engineer and the magnesium body held up like it should.
asdff 4y ago
Renters insurance is cheap piece of mind for stuff like laptops, or bikes you lock up publicly. Regular backups of course too.
- tdy_err 4y ago
  Last time I was looking into this (Lemonade) any expensive electronics had to be covered separately by the $, at additional cost.
  - asdff 4y ago
    I do pay separately for things like my roadbike, camera, laptop, etc, and for these things to not have a deductible, but all in I am only paying like $15 a month for my entire renters insurance policy.
joshka 4y ago
I paid $2,869.00 + $269 for a 2015 MBP 2.8GHz/1TB/16GB/Radeon R9 M370X in Nov 2015. It's still going strong and does everything I need it to do, though as of a few months ago Apple finally dropped support for their latest version of macOS Ventura. This comes out to $440/year. I could probably sell it on eBay for $3-400 (actual recent sales data), bringing that cost down to <$400/year. What are you comparing it to cost-wise?

The biggest issue I have with macbooks is that they are ridiculously expensive. They are intended to be portable devices but bringing them anywhere outside my apartment or office is just a huge risk.

FearlessNebula 4y ago

They’re not much more expensive than a Windows laptop of similar specs and quality. AppleCare is fairly cheap if you’re concerned about damage.

kitsunesoba 4y ago
Yeah, they’re just not Barry’s Bargain Basement laptops. Comparable models from Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc cost just as much.
- tnel77 4y ago
  “Apple is so expensive” is essentially a meme at this point.

nomel 4y ago

> are ridiculously expensive What makes you say this? Have you speced two systems lately? Last I did, the MacBook was comparable to cheaper for the price/performance. Of course, a 10lb mobile desktop with a 30 minute battery was closest. What comparable notebook do you have in mind?

Yujf 4y ago
It depends on how you spec it. Apple charges an arm and a leg for ram/storage upgrades
- Lio 4y ago
  I was about to say the same thing but I've just had a look at Dell for a product comparison. It seems crazy to me that in 2023 Apple offer a £2,699.00 laptop with just 512Gb of non-upgradable storage. Looking at Dell's Precision line bundled with Ubuntu, they might be user upgradable but they're still roughly a similar ball park to Apple price wise. Personally I'm going to need to see some full package benchmarks before I can form an opinion and will be weeping either way.
  - bubblethink 4y ago
    >they're still roughly a similar ball park The PC industry uses wildly inflated prices, especially MSRP. A more realistic price for laptops can be found on various deal sites. A comparable Dell, Lenovo, or HP laptop will cost about .5-.6 of the equivalent macbook pro price. The vast majority of laptops, even after accounting for 1-2 TB of storage and 32 GB RAM cost less than $1.5k. MBPs start around $2k.
    - Lio 4y ago
      That’s interesting could post a specific comparison? I’ve actually been considering an M1 MBP from a deal site in the UK. They seem to be about £300 off MSRP at the moment.
      - bubblethink 4y ago
        Not too familiar with the UK market, but in the US, various AMD Thinkpad T14(s)/T16/P16 gen 3 configurations as well as some HP elitebook ones were in the 1-1.5k price bracket around Black Friday. I got an elitebook 845 g9 with 6850 HS and added a 2 TB nvme ssd and 64 GB RAM to it as aftermarket purchases for a total of ~$1200 after tax, additional warranty and a thunderbolt dock.
        nomel 4y ago
        > bracket around Black Friday I think the other 364 days of the year are more relevant, since Black Friday sales often have extremely limited quantities, and are anything it predictable. People are claiming 4-6 hours on the hidpi display version. That’s definitely not comparable. I leave my charger at home with my M1.

sudhirj 4y ago

Dunno, I dropped mine pretty hard at airport security, skidded across the floor, left a very small dent. My wife had hers placed on a lectern and someone bumped into to and it fell off stage, bigger dent but the show went on. And our kid has sat on or stepped on both multiple times. They hold up well enough.

cesarvarela 4y ago
Interesting that you though his reasoning was about accidental damage and not thieves.
- sudhirj 4y ago
  Oh, yeah, I don’t live in SF. Theft isn’t common enough to be a big deal in my city in India, but Apple’s anti theft is pretty good either way.
ricardobayes 4y ago
I'm a sucker for robustness and build quality so that's why I like thinkpads. Dropped one on the tarmac of a race track as an engineer and the magnesium body held up like it should.

asdff 4y ago

Renters insurance is cheap piece of mind for stuff like laptops, or bikes you lock up publicly. Regular backups of course too.

tdy_err 4y ago
Last time I was looking into this (Lemonade) any expensive electronics had to be covered separately by the $, at additional cost.
- asdff 4y ago
  I do pay separately for things like my roadbike, camera, laptop, etc, and for these things to not have a deductible, but all in I am only paying like $15 a month for my entire renters insurance policy.

joshka 4y ago

I paid $2,869.00 + $269 for a 2015 MBP 2.8GHz/1TB/16GB/Radeon R9 M370X in Nov 2015. It's still going strong and does everything I need it to do, though as of a few months ago Apple finally dropped support for their latest version of macOS Ventura. This comes out to $440/year. I could probably sell it on eBay for $3-400 (actual recent sales data), bringing that cost down to <$400/year. What are you comparing it to cost-wise?