Apple stock at $520

[magnifier661]

Just ordered a new 13" MacBook Pro. Maxed the thing out so it'll be here around Halloween. Last time I maxed out an Apple pro laptop, it lasted eight years before it got too slow to use. I'm hoping I get that much from this one.

I still have a top of the line Mac Pro tower at work that I purchased in 05. Still works today! Waiting for the new mac pro's to come out and I will upgrade to the top of the line again. None of my PC friends can say they have a windows machine that performs well 8 years after they purchased theirs.

 

[Draco]

$1999 is the 15" model and pro. That would be upgrading from your $400 piece.

Then remember that a $100 upgrade every year for the os

How would a 15" be an upgrade from a 17"? Plus I have to pay apple $100 a year for their OS?

Do these Macs give you a handjob I don't know about or something?

 

[Denny Crane]

How would a 15" be an upgrade from a 17"? Plus I have to pay apple $100 a year for their OS?

Do these Macs give you a handjob I don't know about or something?

The last 3 Apple OS upgrades were $29, $19, and $0.

What's better, a 4K 15" screen or a 1080P 17" one?

 

[porkchopexpress]

I still have a top of the line Mac Pro tower at work that I purchased in 05. Still works today! Waiting for the new mac pro's to come out and I will upgrade to the top of the line again. None of my PC friends can say they have a windows machine that performs well 8 years after they purchased theirs.

What do you use your computer for? The Mac Pro is damn nice and all, but the base 6 core model costs 4k....so maxed out will probably break 10k. I could see studios picking them up or reaaaaaaaaly successful photographers, but for everyone else it seems like massive overkill. But, its your money. If you have the money and want it, go get it. If you want to buy one for me (even the lowly quad core one, I won't complain.

 

[magnifier661]

How would a 15" be an upgrade from a 17"? Plus I have to pay apple $100 a year for their OS?

Do these Macs give you a handjob I don't know about or something?

No windows new model is a yearly subscription of $100. Apple is free.

Buy a 65" cheap TV and a 55" Samsung high end LED and tell me which is better.

What's inside the computer is what you pay for. The screen size isn't what makes a computer good. Sorry

 

[magnifier661]

What do you use your computer for? The Mac Pro is damn nice and all, but the base 6 core model costs 4k....so maxed out will probably break 10k. I could see studios picking them up or reaaaaaaaaly successful photographers, but for everyone else it seems like massive overkill. But, its your money. If you have the money and want it, go get it. If you want to buy one for me (even the lowly quad core one, I won't complain.

I use it for music and work. It is absolutely still overkill; but I would rather have too much power; than not enough.

 

[THE HCP]

Denny, I'm going to be on S2 on my 55" Samsung HDTV by lunchtime.......#PureHeaven

 

[Draco]

The last 3 Apple OS upgrades were $29, $19, and $0.
What's better, a 4K 15" screen or a 1080P 17" one?

Wow you love your techy stats. There is no 4K content. The best video’s I have are 1080p. Heck on TV’s there isn’t even a benefit to 1080p until you get to 50”. On smaller TV’s 720p content on a good 720p TV looks indistinguishable to 95% of the population. Do I get a benefit of rendering sportstwo forums in 4K? For me I wanted a 17” screen so its easier on the eyes.

No windows new model is a yearly subscription of $100. Apple is free.

Buy a 65" cheap TV and a 55" Samsung high end LED and tell me which is better.

What's inside the computer is what you pay for. The screen size isn't what makes a computer good. Sorry

What Windows version has a subscription? I've never paid a yearly subscription for Windows.

What exactly is inside that makes an Apple so special? When I looked at them they had identical components to PC’s 1/3 the price. The apple OS is cool and their cases look neat but it’s a hefty premium to pay and that is the only benefit I see; their proprietary OS and their packaging. If you think its worth that premium than obviously go ahead and pay it. But its silly to act as though it’s a good value or that a 15” laptop is “only” $1999. That is a luxury item purchase.

 

[magnifier661]

What exactly is inside that makes an Apple so special? When I looked at them they had identical components to PC’s 1/3 the price. The apple OS is cool and their cases look neat but it’s a hefty premium to pay and that is the only benefit I see; their proprietary OS and their packaging. If you think its worth that premium than obviously go ahead and pay it. But its silly to act as though it’s a good value or that a 15” laptop is “only” $1999. That is a luxury item purchase.

I'm curious what model do you own? I would like to compare apples to apples. Putting a V8 6.4 liter engine on a shopping cart won't give you the performance than an engineered Dodge Charger.

 

[Denny Crane]

Wow you love your techy stats. There is no 4K content. The best video’s I have are 1080p. Heck on TV’s there isn’t even a benefit to 1080p until you get to 50”. On smaller TV’s 720p content on a good 720p TV looks indistinguishable to 95% of the population. Do I get a benefit of rendering sportstwo forums in 4K? For me I wanted a 17” screen so its easier on the eyes.

On a 4K screen, you'd be able to have full size (not full screen, but plenty big) browser windows open next to each other.

If you copy/paste from one window to another, that's a pretty big benefit.

And you absolutely do notice higher resolution on computer displays. At 300 pixels/inch, you are literally displaying printer quality on your screen.

You can judge for yourself by comparing the displays of a retina macbook vs. a non-retina one (same 15" or 13" screen size on both) at an Apple Store. The difference is HUGE.

 

[BlazerCaravan]

I use it for music and work. It is absolutely still overkill; but I would rather have too much power; than not enough.

You pay for it on the front end, but amortized over 8 years it's cheaper than buying a dell every year.

 

[magnifier661]

You pay for it on the front end, but amortized over 8 years it's cheaper than buying a dell every year.

That's what I'm saying. I bought a top of the line tower 8 years ago for 5k. That's roughly $625 per year!

 

[Draco]

On a 4K screen, you'd be able to have full size (not full screen, but plenty big) browser windows open next to each other.

If you copy/paste from one window to another, that's a pretty big benefit.

And you absolutely do notice higher resolution on computer displays. At 300 pixels/inch, you are literally displaying printer quality on your screen.

You can judge for yourself by comparing the displays of a retina macbook vs. a non-retina one (same 15" or 13" screen size on both) at an Apple Store. The difference is HUGE.

See I'd be interested in this if it was on a larger display. If I could get a 30" computer monitor or a 70" TV. I've had dual 20" monitors before and it was pretty slick. But on a little 15" screen? I have zero desire to display 4 windows of 1080p resolution. That just sounds like a pain to look at.

Yeah I'll need to take a look at these in person but it just sounds like a very niche product to me.

 

[Draco]

You pay for it on the front end, but amortized over 8 years it's cheaper than buying a dell every year.

Who the hell upgrades a PC every year? Components have hardly increase in speed at all over the last 5 years. This isn't 1997.

 

[magnifier661]

Who the hell upgrades a PC every year? Components have hardly increase in speed at all over the last 5 years. This isn't 1997.

Okay well it's still cheaper than buying a dell every 3 years.

 

[Draco]

I'm curious what model do you own? I would like to compare apples to apples. Putting a V8 6.4 liter engine on a shopping cart won't give you the performance than an engineered Dodge Charger.

That laptop I bought in June was a HP Envy DV7-7230US for $435. I wanted something with a big screen for internet and could interface with car diagnostics.

I've looked at building a Hackintosh a few years ago and when I did look at all the components in Apples products they were ordinary PC components. They were quality components but the same you can buy on Newegg for value PC's. Its just everything apple has an insane markup, if you add 4gig of RAM when buying its from Apple it'll cost you $300 but the exact same brand and model of RAM sticks were $60.

 

[Draco]

Okay well it's still cheaper than buying a dell every 3 years.

I don't buy that argument, PC's doesn't go obsolete any faster or slower than an Apple. Sure Apple has higher resale value but they cost so much damn more originally. Its way cheaper to own a Hyundai than a Mercedes. Hey if you think the added benefit is worth the cost that is great. And I really like Mercedes. But to anyone looking for value transportation or value computers those are the wrong options.

 

[Denny Crane]

See I'd be interested in this if it was on a larger display. If I could get a 30" computer monitor or a 70" TV. I've had dual 20" monitors before and it was pretty slick. But on a little 15" screen? I have zero desire to display 4 windows of 1080p resolution. That just sounds like a pain to look at.

You have to see it to get it.

http://www.cnet.com/laptops/apple-macbook-pro-with/4505-3121_7-35331572.html

Of course, the real highlight is that new Retina Display. Its resolution is 2,880x1,800 pixels, providing a level of detail never seen on a laptop before. The highest standard Windows laptop screen resolution is 1,920x1,080 pixels, the same as an HDTV. That previous high-water mark has been fine in my experience, but even that can make text and images look small on a 15-inch laptop. Apple solves this via a different dot pitch for the screen, much as it did on the third-gen iPad.

In person, the Retina Display looks great, although you're more likely to notice it when comparing to a non-Retina laptop. It'll likely be more useful for heavy readers or Photoshop/Final Cut users at first, and we'll have to see how long it takes for other popular programs to update themselves to take advantage of the new screen.

In the end, the MacBook Pro with Retina Display, while expensive, is the best all-around MacBook Apple now makes -- unless you absolutely, positively need a built-in optical drive or Ethernet jack (both are available via external dongles or peripherals). It provides desktop-replacement-level performance, but is nearly as slim as an imagined 15-inch MacBook Air would be, even if it's a little heavier than it looks. Because it eclipses the previous MacBook Pro in many ways, it earns a CNET Editors' Choice nod.

 

[magnifier661]

Okay Draco, since you haven't given me the 17" laptop you bought; I'm just gonna go by the "Dell Inspiron 17 intel Dual Core 2.2 GHz laptop" and let's compare it to the "$1,999 Mac Pro 15" system"

This computer comes with as follows:
Dell: 17.3 inch LED Backlit Display with Truelife and HD+ resolution (1600 x 900) - Mac: 15.4" (diagonal) LED Backlit display with IPS technology, 2880 x 1800 resolution at 220 pixel per inch.

Dell: 3rd Generation Intel® Dual Core™ i3-3227U processor (3M Cache, 1.9 GHz) Apple: 2.0 GHz quad-core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 3.2 GHz) with 6 MB shared L3 cache.

Dell: 4GB2 DDR3L at 1600MHz - Apple: 8GB of 1600 MHz DDR3L onboard memory.

Dell: 500GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive - Apple: 256GB PCIe-based flash storage

Dell: Intel® HD Graphics 4000 - Apple: Intel Iris Pro Graphics, supporting 2560 x 1600 on up to 2 external displays.

What dell doesn't have: HDMI out, Thunderbolt 2 out, 802.11 ac WiFi and bluetooth 4.0

Please explain how this is a downgrade?

 

[magnifier661]

I don't buy that argument, PC's doesn't go obsolete any faster or slower than an Apple. Sure Apple has higher resale value but they cost so much damn more originally. Its way cheaper to own a Hyundai than a Mercedes. Hey if you think the added benefit is worth the cost that is great. And I really like Mercedes. But to anyone looking for value transportation or value computers those are the wrong options.

Show me an 8 year old Dell that can support the current windows OS?

 

[THE HCP]

#NerdFight

 

[magnifier661]

Now if we are going to compare apples to apples… This is the DELL that you would use.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...del_id=precision-m4700&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&

 

[Draco]

Please explain how this is a downgrade?

The 17" screen size is pretty important to me, I've had 15" before and this is way better. The 15" Mac is a sweet for sure I'm not saying its a worse computer just that I wanted the upgrade to 17" and missing that while paying almost 5x as much money is terrible value.

 

[magnifier661]

The 17" screen size is pretty important to me, I've had 15" before and this is way better. The 15" Mac is a sweet for sure I'm not saying its a worse computer just that I wanted the upgrade to 17" and missing that while paying almost 5x as much money is terrible value.

I can relate to that completely. And that's a viable argument. But I see "downgrade" as the computer being slower or things of that sort. The monitor size doesn't mean "downgrade" to me or most in the industry.

 

[Draco]

The $435 laptop I got has a 2.8ghz quad core processor, Radeon 7640G, 6 gig Ram. 17" 1080p display, and HDMI. That was an amazing value deal IMO and less than one share of apple stock! At least for now

 

[magnifier661]

The $435 laptop I got has a 2.8ghz quad core processor, Radeon 7640G, 6 gig Ram. 17" 1080p display, and HDMI. That was an amazing value deal IMO and less than one share of apple stock! At least for now

That is a great deal!

Look, I am just trying to explain that apple is a company that just doesn't make cheap computers. They pride themselves on creating a system that has the least amount of bottlenecks. The processor speed doesn't mean shit unless your motherboard and other essentials like BUS, RAMM, ETC are compatible enough to utilize all the speed. Sometimes computer companies know the key words to entice someone to buy their product. It's processor, RAM and storage. That is a very small part of the actual performance of the computer.

As I gave you at the "DELL" site. They have the 499 computers, but a smaller monitor laptop can reach prices of $3,364.88 for a 15". Just remember that most all manufacturers are paying close to the same price for components. It's how you build them that can add or subtract the overall price of the computer or laptop.

 

[blazerboy30]

LOL at mags trying to argue that Macs are similarly priced to PCs for the same specs.

Mags, remember that time you tried to argue with El Prez about Apple's 'streaming' content?

 

[magnifier661]

LOL at mags trying to argue that Macs are similarly priced to PCs for the same specs.

Mags, remember that time you tried to argue with El Prez about Apple's 'streaming' content?

If that's the case then the price of stock should go way up! I mean if they are gouging people; then their profits would be astronomical. But the truth is it's not. For an investor you would know this already. Lol

In fact their profit for computer sales have a lower profit than that of Dell. But yeah the $499 laptop uses the same hardware as the Mac Pro! Hahaha

 

[Denny Crane]

I used to think the cheaper/faster hardware was superior to Apple product.

In technology, there's a saying: "Fast, Cheap, Good. Pick two."

Fast and good are superior to fast and cheap.

Apple's hardware is excellent. That they don't have to make their software work with a gazillion permutations of CPU, graphics card, disk, BIOS, sound card, etc., makes their software less flakey. If flakey at all.

The software distinguishes Apple from the rest.

Microsoft Windows just blows. It's prone to viruses, and it just dogs as you use your computer more and more. NTFS is a terrible file system that dogs as the disk fills up. It's not Unix.

I would buy fast cheap hardware and run Ubuntu on it. Heaps better than windows, but lacking the variety of outright quality software.

Apple software is elegant, rich in features and function, robust, and 3rd party stuff is excellent. It is Unix.

And the way the Apple hardware is packaged is slick. Extraordinary battery life, highly portable, and every part chosen to work well vs. being cheap.

The only benefit to fast cheap hardware us to play games. Best off getting a PS4, which has standardized hardware and doesn't need perpetual virus scans.

 

[magnifier661]

I used to think the cheaper/faster hardware was superior to Apple product.

In technology, there's a saying: "Fast, Cheap, Good. Pick two."

Fast and good are superior to fast and cheap.

Apple's hardware is excellent. That they don't have to make their software work with a gazillion permutations of CPU, graphics card, disk, BIOS, sound card, etc., makes their software less flakey. If flakey at all.

The software distinguishes Apple from the rest.

Microsoft Windows just blows. It's prone to viruses, and it just dogs as you use your computer more and more. NTFS is a terrible file system that dogs as the disk fills up. It's not Unix.

I would buy fast cheap hardware and run Ubuntu on it. Heaps better than windows, but lacking the variety of outright quality software.

Apple software is elegant, rich in features and function, robust, and 3rd party stuff is excellent. It is Unix.

And the way the Apple hardware is packaged is slick. Extraordinary battery life, highly portable, and every part chosen to work well vs. being cheap.

The only benefit to fast cheap hardware us to play games. Best off getting a PS4, which has standardized hardware and doesn't need perpetual virus scans.

Great points! I agree