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Comment by sbenj | Hacker News Reader

Am I the only person on here who is bothered by the specs of the base models? For $2400 you get a 2.2 Ghz machine with a 256 GB ssd and 16 GB of Ram. That was seriously overpriced and it hasn't budged in this new release. Seems like you've got to spend well north of 3K to get a reasonable machine. That is way over the market.

The model in the review is fully loaded. Apple will charge you a cool $3200 to upgrade to that 4TB ssd mentioned in the review. Apple's habit of gouging on peripherals is not... endearing.

Also, aren't many premium laptops 4K at this point?

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In 2014 I bought the top of the line MBP for $2700AUD. To get a top of the line model now it's $4100AUD. As someone who loves macOS, I'm still not gonna buy a new MBP until the price reaches some level of reasonableness. I've been seriously considering of getting a Dell and using Linux instead and I may just do so if there's no budging of the prices in the next 2-3 years.

I dumped MBP after 6 years and bought a Dell XPS 9570 15" with max specs.

Some slight issues on Fedora, and of course the touchpad isn't anywhere near as good as MBP, but overall very happy.

Bonus: Docker _flies_ on Linux compared to MacOS.

Yes, as stupid as it sounds the trackpad is one of the things I love most about the MBP. I wish the XPS had the same reputation as it'd make it an easier sell for me.

>> To get a top of the line model now it's $4100AUD.

Is that right? The Verge article I saw said a maxed out 2018 MBP was $6700 USD, which should be significantly more than $4100 AUD.

Source:

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/7/12/17563840/a...

I'm guessing OP meant the top readily available model and not the customised one with everything maxed out.

This is exactly what I meant.

AUD also fell around 30% vs USD during the same period so that seems about right.

Apple has always commanded a premium for their laptops. Yes there’s competing specs out there for less but there always have been. I paid $3k for my Retina MBP in 2012 and it still works great for me today. It was a good buy for me.

If the MBPs available don’t seem worthwhile to you, no need to get upset about it, just don’t buy one.

I for one welcome Apple's premium on hardware in general. It seems to make for a company that keeps its business model based on just their hardware. This is off topic so I apologise, but I've become rather disillusioned with how many better priced companies seem to be surreptitiously inserting constant tracking into their software and hardware.

Like what? Where does Lenovo, Samsung, HP, Dell, Microsoft or x other companies track way more with software and hardware than apple?

I work in the public sector, we’re not allowed to use Chinese hardware and we get a special version of Windows 10 that has had it’s tracking disabled by Microsoft and verified/reviewed by our version of the NSA.

The only smartphones we’re allowed to use are iPhones that are enrolled into our enterprise program.

I can’t tell you if that means Apple tracks you less than Lenovo or Microsoft, but you can be pretty sure that someone is tracking you if you use unmodified hardware/software.

Apple is not doing you any favors by charging more.

I've always been happy (well, happy isn't the right word -- accepting perhaps) to pay what I know is a 25-40% premium for apple computers over a roughly equivalent PC, because I know what I'm getting in terms of quality, and the software is far superior.

I'm far less accepting of a 100% price premium while I watch the advantages which caused me to love Apple have been diminished. Seemingly every move in the pro line over the last several years have been to take away things that matter to me (replaceable parts, good keyboard, physical keys).

Yep. I have a $1400 laptop and it's 4k with a 7th gen i7, 512gb ssd and the same 16gb ram. It's also 15" but relatively light. The only thing that bothers me is the single USB port meaning I need to get an extender if I want to use a mouse and anything else but then even that is an improvement over 0.

which laptop is this?

HP Spectre x360 (2018, 15-inch model)

It's also a beautiful design if you're into that.

I'm not suggesting that it can directly compete with a macbook in terms of graphics or processor but it's only slightly under for less than half the price.

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