Ah, I was wondering where this topic got to. Let’s talk about price. Particularly as it pertains to the Mac, even though some of you have already jumped the gun a little 
Back in early 2014, I picked up my current daily driver. It’s a late-2013 MacBook Pro with Retina display, with 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD. At the time I thought the cost was pretty obscene, but seeing that I’ve gotten over five years of use out of the thing with no major issues beyond a swollen battery, and it shows no signs of stopping any time soon, I’m pretty happy with how things have turned out.
That being said, I know I’ll have to upgrade it eventually. I’ve always been a big fan of the laptop-as-desktop-replacement line of thinking, which gives you the benefits of portability with near-desktop power, even though you pay a little extra for it. That narrows my choices down to the MacBook Pro, but that’s where the problems begin.
The current MacBook Pros with Touch Bars are divisive, to say the least, although I think I sit squarely on the fence. I think the Touch Bar can be genuinely useful, and having Touch ID on a Mac is a fantastic addition. Where I’m a little wary is when it comes to the keyboard. I use a keyboard protector, so it’s not so much dust that I’m worried about. But if there’s some kind of design fault, as the speculation goes, that causes keys to stick due to the constant expansion and compression of the aluminium as the machine heats up and cools down, that’s kind of a problem.
Mac laptop hardware aside, the USB-C transition is upon us, and for now, we all live in Dongletown, CA. Using a Mac laptop as a desktop replacement has meant that I already have a Thunderbolt 2 dock so I can connect all my stuff to my Mac with one cable, so I’ve resigned myself to the fact I’ll (probably) need to buy a new dock to go with my new Mac, just like I did when I picked up my current machine. I’m not too concerned about that, either.
Which brings us to price. If I want to buy a same-spec replacement for my current Mac, I’m up for somewhere north of $4,400. If I want any more upgrades, that’s approaching wallet-cowering territory, even if it’s for a Mac laptop that I’ll comfortably get more than five years usage out of.
Even if it’s not all that much more than what I paid five years ago, it’s a lot of coin.
Which gets me thinking: why am I so drawn to buying a Mac, when I could absolutely get something that does the same job for less?
If we’re talking hardware, then it’s a no-brainer. A 1TB SSD is a 1TB SSD in a regular PC laptop, minor speed differences either way aside. Apple uses the same Intel mobile processors that every other PC manufacturer uses, and long gone are the days when Intel would give Apple chips ahead of everyone else, or go as far as to make custom processors for them. Speakers are speakers, at the end of the day, and many PC manufacturers are offering 4K, touch-compatible displays on their premium laptop models, negating many advantages Apple’s Retina display once had.
There are certainly Apple-specific drawcards to Mac hardware, at least on laptops, but how much value you place on those will depend on how much value you think the Touch Bar, Touch ID, gesture-based trackpads, and other Apple niceties add over their more commoditised PC versions.
And certainly, part of it is that Mac laptops run macOS. Windows 10 isn’t too bad, as some of you have mentioned, but I don’t feel like using it, most of the time. Sure, there’s nothing particularly wrong with Windows these days, and it’s getting better all the time. But when it comes down to it, there aren’t any features in Windows 10 that I wish macOS had, and plenty of features that are in macOS that I wish Windows had, as well as the kind of spit and polish that lets me know I’m using an OS that has had some thought go into it, rather than something that’s still hanging onto decades of legacy UI.
Sure, there are some pretty great guides out there for turning your PC laptop into a Hackintosh, and depending on which model you buy, you can get away with pretty good compatibility. But Hackintoshes still carry the same caveats they always have: risky updates, and features that flat-out refuse to work, from the simple (built-in SD card readers) to the somewhat more complex (AirDrop/Continuity, even AirPods support). If I wanted to tinker with computers all day trying to get simple stuff working, I’d use Linux.
All of this doesn’t take into account the cost of the integration between Apple devices. I love that I can AirDrop a photo from my Mac to my iPhone, or the fact that I can pick up a conversation or webpage from my iPhone on my Mac. I love the fact that I can unlock my Mac by simply wearing my Apple Watch near it, and I love how it all just works, most of the time.
At the end of the day, I feel like the best way to describe PC laptops, and Windows, to some degree, is that it’s all so utterly utilitarian. I get exposure through some pretty nice, if business/enterprise-focused laptops through work, and while they’re all perfectly fine laptops, none of them have really given me the wow factor that Apple laptops have. Sure, the carbon fibre on Dell’s XPSs look nice, but it’s taken them years to fix the awkward webcam placement. None have the kind of attention to detail that Apple are known for, or the little touches that make them a delight to use, day in, day out.
Honestly, if the keyboard wasn’t such a question mark, I might have bought a new MacBook Pro already. I remain hopeful that one day, Apple will fix the issue once and for all, and when they do, that will be my next Mac. No matter the cost.
All I’m saying is, there are other factors to consider besides price, even though that’s a large part of the “new Mac?” question for many. Because when it comes to price, when we’re talking about Macs, there’s lots to think about in terms of the value they represent to you personally, weighed against how much use you’ll get out of it before it needs to be replaced.
But what do you think? Putting aside the argument of those who no longer use computers day-to-day and are all-in on an iOS-only lifestyle, do you think Macs are currently priced fairly for the value they represent, or are you OK with paying less for a computer you use every day, even if that means a slightly different set of compromises? After all, isn’t that why we started buying Apple products in the first place?
