then why not say screw apple and buy a dell thats 1/4 of the price and twice as fast, I don't think that would make any sense4b5eN+EE said:i see your point, but i still believe apple should stick with the 950 in the macbook...if not for cost, then to separate the base from the pro..if you want the performance you gotta pay
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Rumor: MacBooks in Black and White this Tuesday
- Thread starter EnderW
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Glow said:
Because most people buy Macs for OSX and because they are Apples, not because of tech specs. Aside from the high end dual and Quad-G5 Powermacs (and arguably the G5 iMacs) the pre-intel Macs were horrid performers for the money they cost, at least near the end of the run, but people were still buying them. Hell, people are _still_ buying G4 iBooks, even though something tons better is probably only a week away from announcement.
Even in Windows PC sales the gaming market that demands high end video cards is an extreme minority.
Slartibartfast
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NulloModo said:
I've been looking into macs lately, coming from a PC background, and the price of the hardware just floors me. 512mb of pc2700 for $100!? It's hard to get past that.
lazybum131
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Then it wouldn't have hurt Apple to put in a low-end graphics card like the X1300 since the people looking to buy for OSX would buy them anyways. The graphics card would just open up the market since not many small laptops have dedicated cards.NulloModo said:
I remember Macs being a ton more expensive for the performance back in the G4 days. You could buy much faster Xeon/AthlonMP machines for much lower prices than dual G4s. Lately the trend has been that Apple is somehow always looking for gaps in the mainstream segment to fill and therefore selling better hardware at more competitive prices. I was surprised to see that the G5 Quad was significantly cheaper than building a quad-core Opteron system when it was first launched.
Although nowadays a desktop Mac can cost around 300-400 dollars more compared to a PC of the same spec on average, Apple and Apple fans usually try to justify the extra cost with arguments such as better build quality (which definetaly is a subjective thing as there are no objective standards to judge build quality by), design (also subjective) and better software.
I sense that Apple will ultimately produce lower end products like Macbook to be competitive with other lower end notebooks and aim agressively for mainstream segment. As macs of today are just regular pcs in shiny boxes, the price difference, especially in cost conscious mainstream segment is harder to justify for the average joe (which is who Apple should aim for if they ever want to expand their consumerbase).
Expensive products like Macbook Pros won't be/aren't difficult to sell as 1- They are produced in lesser quantities (I am just assuming this as a general rule of economics) 2- There are enough hardcore Mac users ("creative" professionals) to clear the stocks anyway... whereas Macbooks that will be produced in much higher numbers (which might not be the case in which my whole argument is invalid) and are ultimately the target product for people considering switching to Mac and price becomes an important variable in more than one way. Apple should also realize -if they want masses to switch from Wintel machines- that people who make the switch also have to spend a decent amount of money for buying additional software (which they have already invested in Windows) such as Office, Games etc.... which makes switching more expensive than it might seem at first instance. So if they want our money, we might just ask for more than a pretty os and a slick aluminum box to make the switch.
Although nowadays a desktop Mac can cost around 300-400 dollars more compared to a PC of the same spec on average, Apple and Apple fans usually try to justify the extra cost with arguments such as better build quality (which definetaly is a subjective thing as there are no objective standards to judge build quality by), design (also subjective) and better software.
I sense that Apple will ultimately produce lower end products like Macbook to be competitive with other lower end notebooks and aim agressively for mainstream segment. As macs of today are just regular pcs in shiny boxes, the price difference, especially in cost conscious mainstream segment is harder to justify for the average joe (which is who Apple should aim for if they ever want to expand their consumerbase).
Expensive products like Macbook Pros won't be/aren't difficult to sell as 1- They are produced in lesser quantities (I am just assuming this as a general rule of economics) 2- There are enough hardcore Mac users ("creative" professionals) to clear the stocks anyway... whereas Macbooks that will be produced in much higher numbers (which might not be the case in which my whole argument is invalid) and are ultimately the target product for people considering switching to Mac and price becomes an important variable in more than one way. Apple should also realize -if they want masses to switch from Wintel machines- that people who make the switch also have to spend a decent amount of money for buying additional software (which they have already invested in Windows) such as Office, Games etc.... which makes switching more expensive than it might seem at first instance. So if they want our money, we might just ask for more than a pretty os and a slick aluminum box to make the switch.
swatbat
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Slartibartfast said:
Dell tries the same shit. Many of the big oems try to ass rape you on memory upgrades. Almost always it is better to order the ram from somewhere elce.
Yea the graphics is going to be a deal breaker for me. I've been wanting a ECS g420 but it is not out yet(at least I can't find it in the us). If apple comes out with a wide screen 12-14 inch I would love to pick it up but I hate the shared video idea. To me it would take something that was pretty much a no brainer and make it a hard thought.
lazybum131 said:
The X1300 is still likely a lot more expensive than the GMA 950. In addition, iBooks are apple's budget laptops. I have no clue why people but them rather than saving up enough for a powerbook, but some people are just impulsive and dumb.
yes it would...because the target audience of the MacBook is not gonna be enthusiasts or heavy gamers! I say it will hurt them, because it is targeted to the 30 year old woman sitting at home writing emails to her relatives, or to the granny getting pics of her kids, and they don't need anything more than a GMA950 to do that. Throwing in an x1300 is 1) overkill, and 2) going to raise the price, making said people more reluctant to buy one.lazybum131 said:
ToastMaster
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4b5eN+EE said:
I'm sorry, but an X1300 is *not* at all targetted towards enthusiasts / heavy gamers. That would be mobile GPUs such as the x1600, 7800/GTX, 7900/GTX, etc.
So basically, what you're telling me is, is that you would rather have Apple save roughly $50 on cost, and go with a solution that is only essentially adequate for general usage, vs. increasing the cost slightly in relation to the overall price, and going with a gpu that is atleast dedicated and such. That's just stupid.
Here: find a local store that sells Acer PC laptops. Acer makes laptops that are generally identical in terms of everything but the GPU (atleast within the lower line), and so you can basically actually compare how a 950GMA feels compared to the x1300/1400 (I think it's the 1400 now). Do some fairly decent multitasking, maybe see if you can quickly load a game demo and run it on each, all the while trying to have other programs in the background, and then come back and say that it's not at all important. Anytime you have system RAM being pulled for graphics usage is *bad* for anything but very basic usage.
Cowcaster88
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NulloModo said:
Because, for people like me, spending $2k+ on a laptop I'm going to use once or twice a month is a waste of money. I already have an iMac for my regular work and a MBP would be overkill.
But way to assume you know the needs of every consumer in the market.
Rocketpig said:
And some of us cart them around (airports, etc) constantly. I love the idea of a 3# smaller notebook better than a 9#, 17" wide notebook that takes up the whole damn tray on the plane not to mention hurts my shoulder having to walk a mile with my bags, etc. (see Latitude C840
)