4 ms·

>> Sub the plastic for aluminum and it shouldn't add more than $100 to the ticket price. You'll be surprised! I'd suggest closer to $200. >> Make the keyboard

by sbuk 12y ago

>> Sub the plastic for aluminum and it shouldn't add more than $100 to the ticket price. You'll be surprised! I'd suggest closer to $200. >> Make the keyboard good for another $50 Agreed. >> ...throw in a 512GB SSD and call it a day at $700 with a Haswell dual core. Can't argue with the storage, but the CPU is still not an i5/7 and the graphics card isn't Intel Iris/nVidia class. Add those in and we're beginning to hit Macbook price territory. Throw in a decent trackpad and a hi-res screen, and were there. Actually, it'd give us one of these; https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromebook_pixel_wifi https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=chromebook_... which cost £200 more than a MacBook Air and £50 more than the base model MacBook Pro Retina. Alright, the Pixel has a better screen with touch, but the Air has better graphics and more storage and the Pro blows the both out of the water in performance terms, so on balance I'd argue that the MacBook Pro is better value than both the Air and the Pixel.

pbz 12y ago
$200 just for an aluminum case? The price of aluminum is under $1 per pound. Where do you get that amount?
- sbuk 12y ago
  Raw Aluminium needs to be processed. Even as ingots, there is a considerable amount of manufacturing required to form and make it into a sturdy enough case. As illustrated by the pricer point of the Pixel, my guesstimate seems closer than the original $100 - if anything I'm also a bit too low...
  - pbz 12y ago
    $200 is ridiculously high, even $100 is too much. $200 is the estimated bill of materials for the entire iPhone6 (which uses aluminum). I wasn't able to find an estimate for the MBP case, but Ford's cost of changing F-150 to aluminum (for an entire truck!!) is $500: http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2014/11/fords-switch-to-aluminum-f-150-increases-costs-500-a-truck.html http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2014/11/fords-switch-to-aluminu...
    - sbuk 12y ago
      You are comparing pressed sheet aluminium to CNC milled aluminium. It really is a very, very different process. For one, the tooling is much cheaper. There is less waste. The quality of the raw materials if different. The finish is different. The volume is different. Most importantly, the manufacturing process is very different. A product (a car, a boat, a phone, a computer, even a building) is considerably more than the sum of it's BOM. It's an incredibly facile way to evaluate the cost of something.
      - pbz 12y ago
        The cost of the material is negligible, we're talking less than $5. You can buy a pretty decent CPU for $200. Are you telling me that the overhead of cutting a piece of aluminum (the waste can easily be reused) is about the same as building a CPU?!!
        sbuk 12y ago
        Yes. I'm sorry, what is you manufacturing background? It's relevant as you seem to be under the misapprehension that material cost is the only consideration here.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- Immortalin 12y ago
  You are forgetting the first lesson of economics: supply and demand. There are enough people willing to pay to cost so they will charge as much as they can get away with. The actual cost of the case is no more than $50 at most. Manufacturing in China is really really cheap.

by sbuk 12y ago

pbz 12y ago

$200 just for an aluminum case? The price of aluminum is under $1 per pound. Where do you get that amount?

sbuk 12y ago
Raw Aluminium needs to be processed. Even as ingots, there is a considerable amount of manufacturing required to form and make it into a sturdy enough case. As illustrated by the pricer point of the Pixel, my guesstimate seems closer than the original $100 - if anything I'm also a bit too low...
- pbz 12y ago
  $200 is ridiculously high, even $100 is too much. $200 is the estimated bill of materials for the entire iPhone6 (which uses aluminum). I wasn't able to find an estimate for the MBP case, but Ford's cost of changing F-150 to aluminum (for an entire truck!!) is $500: http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2014/11/fords-switch-to-aluminum-f-150-increases-costs-500-a-truck.html http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2014/11/fords-switch-to-aluminu...
  - sbuk 12y ago
    You are comparing pressed sheet aluminium to CNC milled aluminium. It really is a very, very different process. For one, the tooling is much cheaper. There is less waste. The quality of the raw materials if different. The finish is different. The volume is different. Most importantly, the manufacturing process is very different. A product (a car, a boat, a phone, a computer, even a building) is considerably more than the sum of it's BOM. It's an incredibly facile way to evaluate the cost of something.
    - pbz 12y ago
      The cost of the material is negligible, we're talking less than $5. You can buy a pretty decent CPU for $200. Are you telling me that the overhead of cutting a piece of aluminum (the waste can easily be reused) is about the same as building a CPU?!!
      - sbuk 12y ago
        Yes. I'm sorry, what is you manufacturing background? It's relevant as you seem to be under the misapprehension that material cost is the only consideration here.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
Immortalin 12y ago
You are forgetting the first lesson of economics: supply and demand. There are enough people willing to pay to cost so they will charge as much as they can get away with. The actual cost of the case is no more than $50 at most. Manufacturing in China is really really cheap.