Why are macs so expensive?

I just priced a Dell, HP and Apple Mac laptops. All have similar CPU, screen, external connectivity, RAM, hard drive, video graphics... all are about the same price. What are your price comps?

And I can run Windows on the Mac - but can't run MacOSX on the HP or Dell machines.

My price comparisons:
Apple MacBookPro
15 inch retina screen
2.2 GHz i7 quad core
16 gig RAM
256 gig SSD
2 Thunderbolt ports (HP and Dell don't have these - I use external drives for video editing that connect using Thunderbolt)
MagSafe power connector
All kinds of useful included applications.
$1,999. Done.

The rest of the ports, network connectivity, external monitor connections, etc. are pretty much the same across the machines, so listing them is not needed.

The closest I can get with HP is the Spectre series with the i7 CPU. smaller (13.3 inch) screen, only 8 gig RAM, but does have larger (512 gig) SSD. $1,350 seems good - until I need to buy all the necessary software... Then it is up to about $2,200... or $300 more than the Mac.

The closest I can get with the Dell is the Latitude E6540 with the i7 CPU. Only 8 gig RAM. The $1,699 price seems good - until I need to buy all the necessary software... Then it is up to about $2,350... or $450 more than the Mac.

And comparing a 2nd-tier Windows machine is like comparing a Cadillac to a Yugo... so to make a valid comparison, you need to compare similar machines.

According to my analysis, your claim is inaccurate and invalid.

Low performing? Says who?

It's because people don't know what they're buying. When most people (especially older folk) go to buy a new computer, they have ABSOLUTELY no idea what they're doing.So an Apple employee tells them it's a good computer, they buy it, and Apple makes profit. If people would educate themselves a slight bit about computers, it's not very hard to tell Apple makes incredibly trashy systems. They may not be trashy for checking your email or watching a youtube video, but that's damn close to it. A good pc will last you longer, preform better, and be a lot cheaper in the long run. A new mac would be outdated in about 2 years or so.

Because there are people stupid enough to buy them for what they ask
Look for yourself, take the net income apple had in 2015 and divide it by the number of units sold, that will give you a 300$ net income per unit. So on average you're paying 300 extra for each apple item you buy

Yes, on paper they look bad, but you have to look at it in practice & that's where they perform better. Much like the iPhones, Apple makes both the hardware & software so they optimise it the best to perform as good, or better without needing as much.

Because there's no clone market. When you buy a PC, there are many companies to choose from. When you buy a Mac, there's only one.

cuz apple is not gurd

One of the things that's always figured into the price of any device, is the "customer service" provided after the sale has taken place. No matter what brand you're talking about, from the least expensive to the most expensive, problems can and do happen under warranty and out of warranty. How quickly and easily a problem is handled by the manufacturer is where the difference in price ( cost ), may show up. Apple is very well known for taking care of their customers quickly and getting the problem fixed the first time. If you've ever dealt with other manufacturers like Dell or Hewlett Packard, you'd know the difference between quality of manufacture, quality of parts used, and customer service as compared to Apple products. These conditions are worth the price difference to many people who don't wish to be without their communication links for days or weeks at a time.

MACs are partly more expensive because they come from apple as all apple products are but the mac is a pretty powerful computer relative to its size. It is really thin and small and to have that kind of dimensions preform as well as the mac does is a amazing feat. It is definetly worth the buy

Macs are like Ferraries of Computer World. If you buy one you'll get for what you pay. In a long run, MacBook and Macs are cheaper than Windows Laptop. The important thing is that you can update Windows OS only once, but you can update iOS freely and many times like iPhones.

They are EXCELLENT. I used to use one...I've actually had two. I greatly prefer the Mac to the PCs. Just better overall. They are not low performing, it's probably just you don't know how.

Yep. It's colloquially known as the "Apple tax."

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MACs are partly more expensive because they come from apple as all apple products are but the mac is a pretty powerful computer relative to its size. It is really thin and small and to have that kind of dimensions preform as well as the mac does is a amazing feat. It is definetly worth the buy.

Brand name Apple.

who is saying it is under productive, by your standards or that of someone else ie the opposition?
actually you will probably not have two techs give you the same response to how successful any laptop will be
in fact you might even not find two users of a particular one who will give you the same positive response
do your homework, do independent research and chose or yourself
in the end, you generally get what you pay for

Dont you understand the term "market forces"?

you can charge whatever the customer is willing to pay for an item

If the customer thinks the price is too high for what they are getting then they dont buy

If that causes you financial problems then you lower your price until they do

Its as simple as that

Its performance has nothing to do with it

Macs are expensive because of the materials used to build it. Mac casing is made out of 6000 series aluminium which is way more expensive than plastic used in other laptops. In the sector of laptops , I reckon apple laptops are reasonabaly priced for what you are. Macs weren't designed for gaming but for productivity. You get customer service unlike other companies. Only iMacs are overpriced because you can build a much more powerful system at the sam pricepoint with better components. Macs are also less vulnerable to viruses are less are written. With macs , you are paying for ease of use and quality.

its because its a famous brand and they want to make money

i found its great for multimedia editings.. it works well with video editor software applications. i am video editor and i have experienced it. i bought a new one when i undertook a series of video production :)

Because of their quality

Due to the cult following. I got suckered in. Never again will I buy a mac. It was a big time bad investment! OS-X is, at best, pathetic. I run Linux on my macbook. I painted over the stupid built in webcam, and blocked the microphone holes.

Many people like to show off the Apple logo. For the most part, a mac represents a "designer" computer. People are very much willing to pay a lot of money for so called "designer" sunglasses even though all "designer" sunglasses are designed and manufactured by the same company in Italy. The same "want" logic applies to mac.

Don't know.

You couldn't pay me to use an Apple product, let alone buy one. I was one of those UK customers screwed by iTunes just because I was British. Never touched an Apple product since.

Among all the Windows rhetoric I see one actual answer. Mmm J has it right. I've always told people to compare same quality products, not some cheap thing that if you're lucky will not die within a year. Look at a top of the line BRAND NAME, not some lashed together little piece of crud that''s only selling point is its low price. Ask ANY professional in the computer world and you will get the same answer. You get what you pay for!

A Mac being outdated in 2 years is another of the Windows fables and wishful thinking from the company who skipped Windows 9, because Mac had called OS 9 obsolete years ago and MS couldn't allow the competition to be at a higher (and thus newer in the public's eye) level. If that were the actual case, would you Windows"Experts" please explain to me why Apple gains a larger computer market share every year?

BTW: I'll match my now 4 years old Mac against any current Windows machine you might have. I have 12 cores, dual 3.46 GHz CPUs (Westmere Zeons) 64 GB RAM, (w/space for another 64 GB if I ever need it) 500 GB SSD start up drive (and 12 TB of HHDs, 9 internal and 3 via USB.)

I drive twin 24" BenQ gaming monitors with my Nvidia Geforce GTX 680, w/2 GB VRAM, that I can replace when I finally decide I need more video support. (I only went with the twin 24" models because the larger ones wouldn't fit on my desk!)

I run OS 10.9 Yosemite and OS 10.10 El Capitan and run Windows 8.1.1 via Parallels, because I refuse to do the free update Windows 10. I run ANY windows program, game, etc. at the same native speeds as a comparable speed Windows machine, plus can run all the really important professional apps in their Mac versions. BTW: My entire unit including monitors cost less than the top of the line HP that I speced at the same time, that didn't have any where near the performance I get from my Mac.

I also have more than 2 dozen fully operational Macs in my LAN doing projects that their age and software allow. Some are more than 20 years old and they are still viable work machines!

They have to make up for the insane amount of money spent on advertisement and higher end material used on non essential parts. PCs tend to have more flexibility and more of the money actually goes into the quality of its electrical components. Lower end PCs are good for basic tasks and as it gets more expensive, you get better hardware, better quality material, and best of all, more functionality. Don't get me wrong, Apple makes great products, I use them also, but it's mostly for looks. When all you are doing is browsing and typing essays, Macs are a great, albeit expensive, choice.

It's because Apple is a name brand.

People buy Mac for 5 reasons:

1: To impress their friends with a new Apple product
2: Because they can't use a real computer
3: Because they are rich
4: They are socially insecure and feel that having an Apple product makes them better
5: Afraid of viruses. Actually, Macs are just a susceptible to viruses as Windows machines.

5 reasons people buy Windows computers:

1: They want to get stuff done, as many desktop programs are unsupported by Mac
2: Better bang for buck
3: More device choice, or custom build yourself (like I did)
4: NOT part of Apple's ecosystem
5: Windows has many more features than Mac, such as Cortana