Certainly. Computers are made of parts. Apple charges egregious prices for upgrades, some companies don’t. System76 is the focus of this whole discussion, and they charge extremely reasonable prices for SSD upgrades... not hundreds of percent markups.
Since we’re on the topic of System76, a fully upgraded Oryx Pro (except leaving the GPU at the base option) costs about half of what a fully upgraded 16” MBP costs (also leaving the GPU at the base option), while offering similar specs — $3158 vs $6000. The System76 chooses to go for a 144Hz panel instead of a HiDPI panel, but different people value different things. The System76 obviously has a better port selection (for most people), while obviously not being as sleek — but it’s not huge either, it’s reasonably thin and light. It’s more durable while not as shiny. It’s easy for people to pull out the “no true Scotsman” defense at this point, but it all depends on what the customer is looking for. It’s Apple’s fault if they don’t offer enough variety to meet the needs of their customers.
I’m sure I could dig into comparative analysis of other OEMs vs Apple and come up with other examples, but this one is easy enough.
Spec for spec, Apple charges much more than twice as much for many important upgrades... so a sufficiently upgraded Apple laptop can be more than twice as much, even if it’s often “only” a 70% markup or something. That doesn’t excuse charging egregious prices for storage. Customers want storage, and Apple withholds it unless customers want to pay a large ransom. They solder the SSDs so that customers cannot upgrade their own computers.
I own an M1 MacBook Air. I’m not some “Apple hater”, but their upgrade pricing is truly appalling, and for all their talk of environmental friendliness, their attempts to thwart aftermarket repair and upgrades significantly hinders the total potential lifetime of their products, which increases their environmental impact relative to what could be.
I bought the 256GB/16GB model, and that 256GB SSD is borderline too small for me to deal with, and I’m not even like an average user that would be attempting to store music and pictures on it. I’m almost exclusively using it for software dev and web browsing. I would swap out the SSD, but... that’s obviously not possible.
If I can’t make the 256GB of storage work long term, I think I would rather sell this thing and buy something else than give Apple $0.52/GB. The M1 is good... but it’s not priceless. My opinions are subject to change, of course.
>Since we’re on the topic of System76, a fully upgraded Oryx Pro (except leaving the GPU at the base option) costs about half of what a fully upgraded 16” MBP costs (also leaving the GPU at the base option), while offering similar specs — $3158 vs $6000.
Not sure where you're getting these numbers. Comparing like for like and maxing out the Oryx, and the Mac's processor, they both have 64GB RAM and a 4TB SSD. The price I'm getting for that Mac config is $4800 vs the $3168 that you mention. $6000 doubles the Mac's storage to an 8TB SSD, which the Oryx does not offer. 6K is indeed a lot, but how many PC laptops even offer an 8TB SSD at any price? I haven't seen many.
But I digress. That's roughly a 50% markup, which is indeed a lot. For the extra $1500 you get a much higher resolution display (2880 x 1800) with good color reproduction, much better build quality, macOS and the Mac software ecosystem, Thunderbolt ports, Mac trackpad and keyboard, etc. Maybe these things are not valuable to you! But it's not like you're not getting anything for that money. The products are not equivalent, even if their specs were the same on paper.
I own System76 products and Apple products, and have owned countless PC laptops in the past. I do the math regularly and know what I'm paying for with Apple stuff, and it's almost never a 70% markup. And Apple stuff has specs you just can't find in other products, like the high-res displays and high number of Thunderbolt ports. Which isn't to say it's perfect! I don't like the Touch Bar and would like an SD card reader and HDMI out. But in general, statements about the price inflation are overblown. It exists but it's not as bad as many people think.
I agree that I made a mistake on the storage capacity comparison, I was walking and looking things up on my phone and got briefly confused.
The rest of your points I’ve already addressed. More thunderbolt ports is actually bad for most users if it comes at the expense of ports they can actually use without a dongle. The build quality is not really any better... I’ve owned both as well, and I’ve also had a work MacBook Pro 15 with the butterfly keyboard. Until recently, Mac keyboards were the worst in the industry, including reliability. Now they’re decent, but nothing to write home about. Definitely not an advantage. Trackpads are what you make of them... Apple certainly makes good ones, but it’s not 2010 anymore. Every mid-to-high end laptop I’ve used in the last 5 years has had a good trackpad, but I still reach for a mouse even on my Macs.
I already addressed the display as well. It’s a trade off. Apple doesn’t offer high refresh rate displays on their laptops, which matter to some people. If they didn’t matter, Apple wouldn’t put them on their iPad Pro.
System76 used to offer 4K displays (optionally matte) on the Oryx Pro, and mine was exceptionally good! And that’s higher resolution than Apple uses, in addition to the wonderful matte effect cutting down on glare. I’m just guessing the massive ongoing part shortage has affected which displays they can actually acquire for the moment.
So yes, I agree you get different things with a Mac, but those things are unlikely to be worth 50% more to most people, with the exception of macOS itself... and that’s only valuable to people who like macOS or are literally required to use macOS.
> in general, statements about the price inflation are overblown. It exists but it's not as bad as many people think.
I started this conversation by pointing out the price inflation I care about the most: storage, and it’s on the order of a 400% markup. It’s extremely awful.
If Apple would be environmentally friendly and allow people to repair and upgrade their computers, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion, because I’d have a 1TB SSD in my MacBook Air, and it would have cost me $100. If Apple would charge a healthy 100% profit margin, I would probably have paid them for the SSD... I’m just not willing to go to 400% markup.
Apple has basically always charged egregious upgrade prices, it didn’t start when they started soldering things down, so the small number of people like myself who would actually upgrade components should not be considered a threat to their profit margins... but even if most people did it, Apple should allow it because it’s the right thing to do long term, even if it impacts short term profits. Instead, they seem to be optimizing their products to eek out every last percentage point of profit. Which is understandable... it is a company, but it would be nice if they didn’t. They already have hundreds of billions of dollars of cash.
>If Apple would be environmentally friendly and allow people to repair and upgrade their computers, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion, because I’d have a 1TB SSD in my MacBook Air, and it would have cost me $100.
I mean, yeah. This is the one thing that's basically inarguable. Their computers increasingly do not contain serviceable parts, except for the Mac Pro, which is absurdly expensive. I suspect they just prefer compactness and longer battery life to repairable devices. I have to admit this isn't something I care about very much because I don't upgrade my machines and I use them until they break, which is often around a decade with Macs. Because you have different preferences I can see how you'd find these changes upsetting.
