Yes I was mainly referring to desktop and laptops. Phones were mostly in the 2x range for a longtime until other companies began to push their 'flagship' phones at high prices as well. I've never been an Apple person but I used to recommend Apple to my non-technical friends and family and say, 'Your going to pay a bit more but not have to worry about it not working, getting viruses (back when this was an issue), etc...' but I don't feel that way anymore.

Sure, so where is this 3-4x coming from? We would all love to have something comparable to MBP for 1/4 the price, but.. where is it?

You can easily build a comparable one for 1/4 of the price. Especially for what most Mac users do with their PC/laptops. Apple has always extraordinarily overcharged/taken advantage of their customers. Of course this is my opinion, and like I said I even used to recommend them to less than technical folks because it used to 'just work'.

>> You can easily build a comparable one for 1/4 of the price.

Ok please show us the laptop that is 1/4 of the price of the same-specs MBP. Or how one could build one.

Just go spec it out for yourself. Im not doing a homework assignment for you to prove that Apple fleeces it's customers. Especially in regards to a discussion on how Apple quality has dropped so significantly over the past 8 years.

>> Just go spec it out for yourself.

I do it like once a month, and this "3-4x" claim is strictly false. If you spec MBP versus Dell or HP or Lenovo or whatever with the same parts, Apple may be anything between 5%-30% more, nowhere near 300%-400% that you claim.

Ive been following Apple for 10+ years and Im not wrong. Am I exact? No, but close enough. They used to charge you $100 to write software for your own iPhone. But a semantical argument isnt the one Im making.

>> Im not wrong.

Sure thing. Long as you remember to show us the laptop 3-4x cheaper than the equivalent MBP.

Just look at amazon, Laptops with 7700hq and gtx1060 start at about $1k. Equivalent MBP cost almost $3k, while having ddr3 instead of ddr4 and way worse GPU that other vendors pair with this processor.

... ok, I have trouble finding that, from Dell or Lenovo or HP or whoever I can actually buy and get warranty and whatever. BTW --- same parts --- 2GB+/sec SSD, comparable monitor, processor, graphics, battery life, Thunderbolt etc. If it is there I will (well, everyone would) obviously buy right away, but I have trouble finding it.

Have you actually looked at other laptops?

True, most doesn't come with nvme ssd, but you can always upgrade (which you cannot on a macbook), processors and graphics are way better for half the price, and you usually get a matte screen in which you can actually see anything besides reflections.

> Im not doing a homework assignment for you

You made a claim. If you can't back up that claim with some basic evidence, we tend to call that claim "bullshit".

Given that other posts identify a laptop with a 1920x1080 display to a retina MacBook Pro, the concept of "equivalent" is clearly not the same for everyone.

Xiaomi Mi Air 12, 13 and 15.

Hmm that does not seem to be fighting the MBP... more like fighting the $1000-$1300 HPs, Dells, and so on

E.g. http://www.techradar.com/reviews/xiaomi-mi-notebook-pro/2

Well it’s a windows laptop, so yes they say what else you can get that is directly comparable.

It’s the price of the midrange Windows laptops, but the specs and build quality of the MacBooks.

The downside is Windows of course. But it is supposed to work pretty well under Linux.

>> It’s the price of the midrange Windows laptops, but the specs and build quality of the MacBooks.

"specs and build quality of the MacBooks"? Great, can we see that mythical laptop that is 3-4x cheaper than equivalently-specced MBP or not? Url?

Or is it just empty talk?

Why the hostility?

I think it’s more like 2.5 to 3 times cheaper than 3 to 4, but it’s pretty easy to find.

A$1400: https://www.lightinthebox.com/xiaomi-laptop-15-6-inch-intel-....

Vs

A$3500: https://www.apple.com/au/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MP... (with weaker CPU and GPU)

You know those are drastically different displays right?

Yes. It also has a much better selection of ports than a MacBook.

It also doesn’t come with OSX. Pretty sure you can find some other differences too.

I’m sure for some people the screen is a deal breaker. Others won’t care.

"much better selection of ports"

How so? It does not seem to have a single Thunderbolt 3 port. MBP has four of them. Instead, Xiaomi has a bunch of USB-whatever &c. That is not "better", that is strictly "worse" and cheaper.

You replied to a comment that says:

> can we see that mythical laptop that is 3-4x cheaper than equivalently-specced MBP or not?

So, how is it even remotely equivalent?

Are you serious? Every single person has specs they care about and ones they don’t.

I don’t think the resolution is interesting at all, but I agree some will.

For some people the great MPB trackpad is enough to sell it. Some people want the Xiaomi NVidia GPU. Some want retina screen, some want resolutions with better Linux support.

If you don’t like it don’t get it. But don’t nitpick to try to find some way they aren’t exactly the same: no one thinks that they are.

Nevertheless they are both high quality, i7, 16GB aluminium notebooks which suit developers.