Why are Macs so darn expensive?

[SpiderPig]

Yea there customer service is top notch, had a tiny scratch on my iPhone and a bit of light was leaking out.. walked in and they changed it for a new one on the spot.

Apple +1

 

[Krynn72]

Do you know why mac products cost so much? Because they are luxury products.

So are PCs that cost more than 200 dollars.

Walk into any apple store and you'll immediately notice how many employees work there. It's absurd- there are almost as many "geniuses" (insert groan here) as customers. Is this a cost-effective way of doing things? Not if you're selling $500 PC's. When you buy a mac, you're paying for customer service, ease of use, intuitive UI, slick aesthetics, and a host of other things. This business strategy is not shrewd on a large scale- however, it works very well when you only control a small, generally affluent percentage of the market.

I've gone to 3 different Apple stores (multiple times at each), and none of them left me impressed by their customer service. Whenever I asked any of them a mildly complicated question about hardware or software they would stumble into bullshitland. I went to two different stores for two different things and talked to multiple employees about each one, and I got flat out lies each time. One was when my friend wanted a new computer (dead set on a Mac) and I went with him to make sure he only got boned for as little as possible, and the second time was when my sister wanted an ipod.

Their customer service seems no better to me than Best Buy's. At least the Geek Squad knows a little bit about the machines they work with and can answer questions their salesmen can't.


And frankly, the entire internet is the PC's customer support. And its the best customer support ive ever dealt with

 

[giant384]

And frankly, the entire internet is the PC's customer support. And its the best customer support ive ever dealt with

QFT!!

the internet forums have helped me through many pc problems that many pay 100s for just to repair at a pc shop

 

[xcellerate]

Everytime I tried to open safari the osx wanted some password, which wasn't the one I had. After 30min of trying to print I gave up. Wouldn't even open open office, just tried to update and then asked for the password :/

It sounds like safari wanted the keychain password, which is optional. It also probably means the IT department didn't set up the account rights correctly.

Why exactly wouldn't office start? And why couldn't you print? Does your school not put alternate browsers on the machines?

Only admins can update, so it asks non-admins for a password. Crazy huh?

 

[Bakurei]

Yea seems like they f'd up the setting on those macs. The Open Office was trying to update, if I pressed cancel it would just pop-up the same window saying it want's to update. When I finally pressed update it loaded the update, which took long, and after that asked for the password... And no we only got safaris on the macs. Don't really know why, maybe the IT-guys are lazy or something.

 

[xcellerate]

Yea seems like they f'd up the setting on those macs. The Open Office was trying to update, if I pressed cancel it would just pop-up the same window saying it want's to update. When I finally pressed update it loaded the update, which took long, and after that asked for the password... And no we only got safaris on the macs. Don't really know why, maybe the IT-guys are lazy or something.

Lazy and cheap it sounds like. I run at least microsoft office '03 on all our macs (95% are running '08). Open office is just...why?

I put safari and firefox on all our macs, just to be safe. You never know when one browser might not load a page correctly.

Their customer service seems no better to me than Best Buy's. At least the Geek Squad knows a little bit about the machines they work with and can answer questions their salesmen can't.

And frankly, the entire internet is the PC's customer support. And its the best customer support ive ever dealt with

Personally, apple has the best customer support I've ever dealt with, and HP has the worst...so bad in fact I've never bought another HP product. I've gotten help from apple tech support BEFORE and WITHOUT giving them my serial number, meanwhile DELL makes you jump through the serial key hoops, only to find out your computer is 2 years old and out of warranty, so they charged you $30 for tech support...which is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

My cousin manages a local geek squad and believe me, they're no geniuses. He sent one guy across the street to staples to pick up 'memory lube', which is a lubricant you can rub on memory to increase transfer rates. He had another guy convinced this video card problem was due to low levels of LCD-fluid. And that's not to say apple people are any smarter, I had a girl tell me I had to buy ram from apple because it was special apple-ram.

Stupid people sell things. I went to a chevy dealership and had a salesmen telling me how the cobalt SS was so fast because of the turbocharger, and he kept talking about it...how awesome a turbo was, the sound it makes, blah blah blah. Which is all great, except on the door is stamped a badge that says, "Supercharged". Another time I was in line at the VW parts department and the guy in front of me asked for windshield wipers for his R32, to which the salesman replied, "....what is that like a golf or something?"

 

[CyberPitz]

Stupid people sell things. I went to a chevy dealership and had a salesmen telling me how the cobalt SS was so fast because of the turbocharger, and he kept talking about it...how awesome a turbo was, the sound it makes, blah blah blah. Which is all great, except on the door is stamped a badge that says, "Supercharged". Another time I was in line at the VW parts department and the guy in front of me asked for windshield wipers for his R32, to which the salesman replied, "....what is that like a golf or something?"

Oh dear god, do I know this.

Going to look for an RX-8 to buy, it had a "4 Cylinder" sticker *As everybody should know, they have Rotary Engines*. Asking the guy about it, he said "Oh, I know it's not a 4 Cylinder. I am out of 6 Cylinder stickers."

*facepalm*

 

[giant384]

Oh dear god, do I know this.

Going to look for an RX-8 to buy, it had a "4 Cylinder" sticker *As everybody should know, they have Rotary Engines*. Asking the guy about it, he said "Oh, I know it's not a 4 Cylinder. I am out of 6 Cylinder stickers."

*facepalm*

LOL

i want to try this salesman and enjoy him

 

[xcellerate]

Why exactly do you need 64 bit Vista on a work laptop?

because OSX is only available in 64bit, so for a fair price comparison the computers must be as identical as possible.

Macs come bloated with crap most office workers never use.

I think hp/toshiba/dell/etc absolutely puts more crap on their laptops. Three media players, support centers, auto-update programs, wireless utilities, tons of games, etc. Plus you have to uninstall all those things, and you're almost guaranteed you have to restart after each one.

If you don't want garage band on your apple, all you do is drag the folder to the trash can, and you're done.

It will always be a mystery to me why people blow so much cash on office computers that they only use to check their email/use MS word/ surf the web.

Hardware for hardware yes, I'll admit apples charge more. When I started working this job a year ago, my computer world consisted almost entirely of windows. It was the first real-life contact I'd had with apple's products, and I have been nothing but impressed with their hardware and software.

If you actually care and want some examples I'll be happy to list some, but for the sake of space I'll keep it to one:
At the end of each year we auction off our old machines, last year about 35 machines went out the door. It wasn't until I removed 70 sticks of ram in one sitting that I started to appreciate how pretty apples were.

pic I snapped at work, G5 vs optiplex 755:

 

[Krynn72]

Damn thats clean. Is it a bitch to remove anything else though? Looks like its all locked away.

 

[Stigmata]

Isn't the visual simplicity of the inside of a Mac just the result of not being able to upgrade the motherboard yourself?

Look at that thing. It's beautiful, but everything except the RAM is locked down (or looks it).

[edit] I could make my PC look like that, but then I'd have to send it away to an industrial engineer every time I needed to reset my CMOS

 

[xcellerate]

Nothing's locked away, the female connectors are secured to the logicboard or case and the male connectors are secured to the parts. So the part slides in and out on guide rails, and the connectors connect magically in the back. Those 2 rectangles above the PCI slots (there's actually 4 rectangles) are where the hard drives are, they just slide in and out.

edit: maybe I'll take some better pictures later, the cmos/pram button is actually very easy to get to, however you can also reset it by holding cmd+option+p+r at startup. Pulling the logic board/powersupply out would actually be a pain in the ass, but anything else couldn't be more straight forward.

 

[xcellerate]

here's a better shot,

 

[Rico]

The deal is, try upgrading anything else but RAM and OSX isn't going to like it one bit. I did some ram upgrades on some Mac Minis... that was the most painful ram replacement I ever had to to. Honestly, cost-wise, a Mac is a much more expensive investment than a PC. If a PC went out of warranty, I could just go and install some new parts on it, no biggie. Mac dies? Good luck getting OSX to accept the new hardware, it's "ease" when it comes to not having to install drivers only applies when you're talking about stock Apple-approved hardware.

I put a lot of stock in the freedom of owning a PC. That in itself is the main reason I will never own an Apple computer. I upgrade my own computers (and save a ton of cash doing it) and I enjoy knowing exactly what is going on with my PC. Apple takes that away from me, and I don't enjoy the training wheels.

 

[CptStern]

The deal is, try upgrading anything else but RAM and OSX isn't going to like it one bit. I did some ram upgrades on some Mac Minis... that was the most painful ram replacement I ever had to to. Honestly, cost-wise, a Mac is a much more expensive investment than a PC. If a PC went out of warranty, I could just go and install some new parts on it, no biggie. Mac dies? Good luck getting OSX to accept the new hardware, it's "ease" when it comes to not having to install drivers only applies when you're talking about stock Apple-approved hardware.

you're comparing apples to oranges. A more accurate comparison would be Dell vs apple. try upgrading a dell and it'll cost you just as much as the mac. my it department recently purchased a PSU for one of our dells ..price: $250 for a shitty 450w PSU. comparing a mac to a pc you build yourself isnt comparing them on the same playing field

 

[Rico]

What I'm saying is: I can replace a dell PSU with any other PSU I want, but I can only replace the Mac PSU with an Apple approved PSU (although a PSU is not really a good example, as a PSU is a PSU and it doesn't need drivers so it works on both). More like replacing a motherboard or an add-on card.

Buying my own hardware from wherever I want is cheaper than buying it from the manufacturer (see: Dell 250 dollar PSU). I have that option with PCs, not so with Macs

 

[CptStern]

What I'm saying is: I can replace a dell PSU with any other PSU I want,

if you can find one that fits. the one we replaced was "L" shaped ..no conventional psu would fit ..in fact one of our Dells, Compaq or HP machines will take conventional psu ..every one of them has a custom job. Hell I wont even get into the crazy ass challenge it would be to change the cpu nevermind more critical things like the mobo with an off the store shelf part .. which is impossible because of space restrictions

 

[Raziaar]

you're comparing apples to oranges. A more accurate comparison would be Dell vs apple. try upgrading a dell and it'll cost you just as much as the mac. my it department recently purchased a PSU for one of our dells ..price: $250 for a shitty 450w PSU. comparing a mac to a pc you build yourself isnt comparing them on the same playing field

Whoa whoa whoa... your department spent $250 on a power supply that you consider shitty?

Why didn't you guys buy a good ****ing one? Shit, with that kind of money you could have gotten a ****ing awesome power supply!

 

[Stigmata]

Whoa whoa whoa... your department spent $250 on a power supply that you consider shitty?

Why didn't you guys buy a good ****ing one? Shit, with that kind of money you could have gotten a ****ing awesome power supply!

Srsly. For $100 you can get a bitchin' name-brand 600W power supply with dual +12V rails, almost 40A of current, and modular cables.

Anywho, Stern raises a good point. We should be comparing Macs to OEM windows machines, not self-built ones. But then the price-performance comparison still stands...

 

[Rico]

I have replaced multiple PSUs, motherboards, hard drives, GPUs, RAM, and anything else on a stock Dell computer. Their cases are indeed a pain in the ass to work with, but there is no question that you can replace the parts yourself.

 

[CptStern]

Whoa whoa whoa... your department spent $250 on a power supply that you consider shitty?

Why didn't you guys buy a good ****ing one? Shit, with that kind of money you could have gotten a ****ing awesome power supply!

yes but it would have done us no good considering it wouldnt fit


one of our dells has a really neat forward thinking feature ...the PSU is housed outside of the case ...cuz we got sick of paying $250 for part on a macine that was essentially worthless as it was so outdated so we bought a generic $20 psu with really long cables

Rico, we have a storage area in the back chock full of dells, HPs, compaq machines in various stages of cannibalisation ..Sure you can sometimes find stock parts that fit in current dells however more often than not, it's a trip to the storage area for part hunting or calling out dell dealer company and begging them to find us a part. this is the exact same bullshit we through whenver we need to fix our macs which doesnrt happen anywhere near as much as does all other name brands

 

[Raziaar]

yes but it would have done us no good considering it wouldnt fit


one of our dells has a really neat forward thinking feature ...the PSU is housed outside of the case ...cuz we got sick of paying $250 for part on a macine that was essentially worthless as it was so outdated so we bought a generic $20 psu with really long cables

Rico, we have a storage area in the back chock full of dells, HPs, compaq machines in various stages of cannibalisation ..Sure you can sometimes find stock parts that fit in current dells however more often than not, it's a trip to the storage area for part hunting or calling out dell dealer company and begging them to find us a part. this is the exact same bullshit we through whenver we need to fix our macs which doesnrt happen anywhere near as much as does all other name brands

Do dells not have ATX cases?

 

[xcellerate]

The deal is, try upgrading anything else but RAM and OSX isn't going to like it one bit. I did some ram upgrades on some Mac Minis... that was the most painful ram replacement I ever had to to.

yea, we run mini's behind all our TV's and they're a pain to work on, but they're also so damn tiny I can wall-mount them in-between an LCD and a wall...sooooo we kinda have to accept their difficulties. Unless of course you know of another computer than can be mounted in the same place, will dual-boot, and is easier to work on.

But then the price-performance comparison still stands...

What performance are we talking about? I just got a new machine: 2.66GHz Quad-core Xeon, 6GB 1066MHz DDR3, 600GB 3gb/sec sata...I've got OS 10.5.6 and Vista enterprise 64bit installed on it. Firefox and Safari both run much faster in 10.5.6 according to sunspider, and peacemaker benchmarks. And the geekbench cross-platform benchmarking program gave OSX a better score than Vista. Hell OSX even starts up and shut down faster than Vista.

Exact. Same. Hardware. Different operating systems, yet one of them does something better. Of course maybe you're talking about gaming performance, I don't know.

 

[CptStern]

Do dells not have ATX cases?

not typical atx cases .. for example my pc has one fan ..it's this stupid shroud thing that funnels air from this gaping area in the front:

to the rest of the machine ..well the shroud means you cant have a off the shelf atx mobo and there's no room for a video card or added hardrives ..not without modifying it. which is what my it guy had to do just to add one additional hardrive

 

[Raziaar]

not typical atx cases .. for example my pc has one fan ..it's this stupid shroud thing that funnels air from this gaping area in the front:

to the rest of the machine ..well the shroud means you cant have a off the shelf atx mobo and there's no room for a video card or added hardrives ..not without modifying it. which is what my it guy had to do just to add one additional hardrive

Dell Dude: Dude, you're getting a dell!

Guy: God Dammit!

 

[CptStern]

this is actually what happened when my IT guy said I was getting a new pc


"goddamit"



I wanted to build my own but no one would let me ..stupid fools I would have saved them monies

 

[Rico]

Yeah, workplaces usually get name brand computers for the "support" and the warranties, they wouldn't let me touch a computer even if it was a simple fix if the warranty was still valid. Makes sense, but it's way cheaper to custom build each system.

Cpt. Stern:

I used my friend's old dell PC to build my GF a gaming PC (lower end one, but better than her laptop) and I agree that the case is a pain (same as yours) but I managed to fit it all in there. It's pretty tight, and you have to work on cable management (or just shove them out of the way!) but I did ok. I agree with you that some of these Dell cases are unworkable, but my point is that you have the possibility of doing it with a PC, but not with a Mac.

xcellerate:

Yeah those minis are tiny, we used them for Kiosks in our university, and the RAM upgrade on those things is the only time I physically hurt myself upgrading a PC :-P Just getting the cover off those damn things is a pain. I think the choice between Mac and PC is down to the individual. I just hate how it's become "chic" to own a Mac, and then we'd get calls to install windows on them, essentially negating anything remotely "Mac" about them.