Slight deviation but I'm seeing a telling pattern among my friends which is that after making the jump to a Macbook two or three years ago because of their great experience with the iPod they've now reached the time when it starts needing new parts.
Because the batteries and hard drives are so crazily expensive I see them making the decision that it's cheaper to buy a new PC (possibly even a nice light netbook) then replace the battery / hard drive on their Apple.
Before they'd made the jump I'd encourage them to switch because they hadn't yet "experienced" Apple. Now that they're making an informed decision I can't argue with their reasoning for switching back.
Apple's upfront premium pricing is defensible and sensible but their aftersales costs are doing everyone including them a lot of damage.
My theory is that you are going to need a new laptop every five years, minimum.
If you choose the Apple experience (or a high-class PC laptop for that matter), that will be at least $1000/five years. If you choose a Gateway laptop that will be $400/five years.
From mine and my friend's experiences I would not say that a more expensive laptop will last longer than a cheaper laptop. Most of my friends who are Apple users have had their laptops replaced at least once due to hardware failure. They had AppleCare and usually ended up with a new laptop for free. After seeing their rate of replacement I would never own an Apple laptop without AppleCare because the difference between being stuck with a brick and having Apple replace it with a newer model free of charge is worth the money.
""""After seeing their rate of replacement I would never own an Apple laptop without AppleCare because the difference between being stuck with a brick and having Apple replace it with a newer model free of charge is worth the money.""""
Yeah, but for me the difference between not having to use a PC is worth even more money.
If you're casual about computing, buy whatever, but if you are professional buy what fits your work needs best, be it Mac or PC, not what is cheaper. If $1000 or $2000 / 5 years seem a lot to you as a professional, then you are in the wrong business.
This. For me, the comparison is never between a $1000 Apple laptop and a $400 Gateway one.
The comparison is between a $1000 Apple laptop and an $800-$1000 Lenovo T-series or X-series Thinkpad (or, as I call them, the "real" Thinkpads).
For something that I use for hours every single day, an overly-heavy and shoddily built piece of junk is not an acceptable option. Apple isn't the only manufacturer that makes quality hardware, but the quality non-Apple machines cost much closer to the Apples than the junky Gateway does.
As a linux user I can be fairly hardware agnostic. I used to consider apple laptops when purchasing a laptop. After I purchased my first thinkpad it was a no brainer, the real thinkpads are the perfect linux laptop. The ideapads are not so bad for a cheap tiny netbook thingie. They obviously don't compare to the thinkpad line but they are okay for what they cost...
PS I have the W500 and I'm curious why you do not include it among the real thinkpads.
I've used a Macbook Pro for 3-ish years, and I didn't like its build quality very much.
I just bought a Thinkpad E325, one of the "edge" thinkpads. Its build quality is exceptional for a £350, and I'd say mostly on-par with what I could get from apple nowadays.
It was unclear to me whether you're saying you don't want to use non-Apple hardware, or that you don't want to use Windows, or whether you're referring to a combination of those two.
Though Apple continues to use 'PC' in their marketing, it's an obsolete term. Macs are running on the same hardware these days, and you can run Mac OS on 'PC' hardware. You can run Linux on Apple hardware, and Windows on Apple hardware. So, it's a bit muddled.
I assume by 'PC' you mean 'anything besides OSX on Apple hardware'. Okay. Personally I also run Linux on my MBP... not sure where that fits in.
I'd agree that you'd need a new one every 5 years. I'd also add that there's a difference between a Mac and Windows over those 5 years (I haven't used Linux very long so I can't speak for that OS). Windows becomes so slow that it might as well just be a brick whereas my Macs stay peppy throughout the entire 5 years. The Mac does slow a tad but it's really not much to complain about. My most recent one came with Leopard and I've gone from 10.5 to 10.6 to 10.7 Lion now and she still purrs. All I use is Onyx for occasional maintenance.
I really don't want to start a Mac v. Windows argument as I despise those but it's something I've just noticed as I've replaced my machines over the last 10 or so years. My real point is that in my experience I get my money's worth to the very end with the Macs I've owned.
Having just reinstalled my windows machine, I agree it gets crufty. Windows 7 is lightyears better than previous iterations, though.
However when I had a Mac I remember dealing with fink and ports and ending up with things half-working and just as crufty. I guess that's what I get for going "under the hood", but I needed that software to get the job done and OS X had no better solution for me at the time.
Hard drives? Any laptop hard drive will do. I put a 500GB Seagate hybrid drive in my 2010 Macbook Pro. The installation is much easier on the plastic MacBooks of recent years, where the hard drive is accessible through the battery compartment.
If they're using MacBook Airs the disks are expensive because they're flash, not because of Apple.
Well, to be fair, replacement batteries for Dells are crazy expensive too. When the batteries in my wife's laptop start going bad (which they inevitably do because of her usage pattern) she usually just limps along until we can buy a new machine and hand the old one down.
Batteries are pretty easy to replace in newer (last few years) macs. ifixit.com has really good guides for digging around inside your mac. This (http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Installing-MacBook-Pro-13-Inch-U...) guide is for my mac from 2009, as an example.
Bought such for a MacBook from dealextreme.com, and was REALLY disappointed -- the battery lasts about an hour or hour and a half. The original used to last about 4 hours.
Non-OEM batteries are a mistake 90% of the time. The quality is just not good. For something that can start on fire, I'm willing to spend the extra 30 bucks to know it's a good battery.
What are the new parts this Macbook is requiring? Batteries will need to be replaced and Apple's prices are around market for these. What specific aftersales costs are you referring to?
Generally it's batteries and hard drives with occasional RAM upgrades too. None of these people have the knowledge or confidence to change these themselves so they see the Apple store as the only option. This of course only multiplies parts and labour costs.
Which is a real shame because the unibody systems are one of the easiest laptops to open up and get to the HD and RAM. It's even documented in the Getting Started guide that comes with the system. Now if they'd just let us change that big ol' battery that's sitting right there it would be a dream.
Well, you can take the battery out. I've taken mine out multiple times: once to dry out my computer, and again to replace the top case after drying out my computer failed to make the keyboard work again.
There's actually very little about a MBP that is difficult to take apart. The part where you have to remove the screen isn't even that hard.
The last MacBook Pro that was hard to take apart and put together again was sold in 2008. I have one from 2007 and it was pretty easy to replace the (non-defective but slow) HDD with an SSD. That’s, as I said, a MacBook Pro that still had the hard to replace HDD. The newer ones make the process much easier.
I’m very annoyed that the battery in newer MacBook Pros isn’t user replaceable. It’s not that the battery is hard to access and replace – certainly no harder than the HDD. I’m guessing there is some sort of legal requirement – probably? Maybe batteries have to be sold with a hard shell, the MacBook Pro battery doesn’t have that in order to save space. Since they can’t sell it on its own (only as part of the device) they can’t make it user-replaceable.
At least it’s priced appropriately (relatively): The replacement will cost you €180 (parts and work), that’s not all that much more compared to the old user-replaceable batteries which cost €140.
But yeah, except for the battery the MacBook Pros are very accessible.
Yeah, the last troublesome Apple laptops I had to deal with were 2001-era iBooks. Those were kinda tricky.
" Maybe batteries have to be sold with a hard shell, the MacBook Pro battery doesn’t have that in order to save space"
And the saved space can either be used for more battery, or to reduce the size of the computer. They save the thickness of the battery case, and the thickness of any internal walls in the battery compartment with which a removable battery would mate. I'd think those walls might need to be somewhat substantial, to keep the battery in and prevent flexing and loose connections.
I suppose in theory they could also use irregularly-shaped batteries, that would let them fill every bit of space with battery.
Presumably the same would be true if they were using a PC laptop or netbook, and they'd pay someone to do the install, thus raising the price?
Pretty much any technically capable person with the requisite torx drivers can install RAM or disk in a Macbook. They are user-installable, so any PC repair type person ought to be able to do it, not just the Apple store.
Hell, you don't even need Torx (although they help). I upped my MBP to 8 GB RAM last week, using an ordinary (albeit miniscule) flathead screwdriver. It did take me about 4 tries to get the DIMMs seated correctly, though.
Do you mean torx bits with the security pin? Torx bits are everywhere, its hard to buy driver/bit kits that do not include most torx sizes. Torx+security pin is a different story. Microsoft switched to using them on all of the 360 controllers recently.
I hope I don't get downvoted too much for this comment that adds little: look up "Elder Sign" on Wikipedia if you don't know what it is. I haven't read Lovecraft and simply thought that Elder Sign was a curious brand name.
This (12 page!!) link shows that first generation MBPs are actually pretty tricky to change the hard drive; but that all 3 generations need a torx driver for the HD.
fans are what i have had to replace on each macbook my partner has owned. that and power cables fraying (they do not replace those for free in chile, so we've been through one expensive power brick after another...).
by the way, for power cables, i have, finally, found a solution: use silicone sealant (the stuff you use around the bath) to make a cable strain relief. it doesn't look that great, but it works. splodge sealant on the cable where it leaves the plug and smooth it out along the cable. the sealant should join the end of the plug and taper out over a few inches of cable.
When you coil up the power cord, make a little loop then wrap it around the poles rather than pulling tight and around the poles.
This helps with strain relief and helps the power adapter stay perfectly in shape longer. I've had my MacBook Pro for 5 years now, same power adapter, haven't had to replace it yet.
I'm going to pick Apple's cheapest laptop with a non-Intel graphics card here for comparison, as I do like to play games and modern Intel cards still seem to suck.
Not entirely comparable, the mbp has a potientially better graphics card (its definitely faster, but having a quarter of the graphics RAM does limit its future proofing), the asus has a higher resolution screen, more RAM, more storage space etc.
On balance, they probably balance out technically. This is pretty clear premium pricing. Whether you consider it worth the premium or not is another matter.
As to the usual claim that this is because Apple products are better built and more durable, Apple are big on planned obselence, so let's say that mbp has a 5 year lifespan. It'll work for five years, probably, but you will want to replace it then.
The Asus is more likely to fail before its obselete, but by the wonders of consumer protection law (n/a for US people, unfortunately), the minimum time before hardware failure forces you to buy a new one is two years. Put your €900 you saved in the bank and buy another one in when it fails (which more realistically is in 3-4 years). It'll be much better than either of these laptops are now.
Because the batteries and hard drives are so crazily expensive I see them making the decision that it's cheaper to buy a new PC (possibly even a nice light netbook) then replace the battery / hard drive on their Apple.
Before they'd made the jump I'd encourage them to switch because they hadn't yet "experienced" Apple. Now that they're making an informed decision I can't argue with their reasoning for switching back.
Apple's upfront premium pricing is defensible and sensible but their aftersales costs are doing everyone including them a lot of damage.