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Comment by millzlane | Hacker News Reader

This isn't surprising. Look at the product wikis and see the comparison of all the hardware. From the mac pro all the way down to the phone. They have been selling overpriced hardware for a very long time.

To be fair.. before the intel switch the hardware was theirs. Now, after the intel switch they're still selling over priced hardware except now it's cheaper for them because they're not using powerpc's anymore, and are now able to reap the benefits of using PC hardware.

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Uh, except they aren't overpriced, as evidenced by the fact that nobody can undercut the Air or the iPhone or the iPad on price yet.

And they aren't reaping the benefits of using PC hardware, either; other than Intel CPUs, Apple is custom-building all its motherboards and parts.

So basically, you have no valid points at all and are just posting an anti-Apple rant.

I haven't checked since this mornings refresh, but at least here in AU, there are some arguably cheaper options to the Air. Where the Air excels is giving you a nice machine that is also really well made + all the little niceties of Mac hardware like Magsafe, backlit keyboard, ambient light sensors.

Also Apple is actually making a nice profit on their machines.

You only named 3 devices. All of which have only been on the market less than 5 years. It won't take the industry long to surpass those. Intel chips are the brain of the computer. Therefore the rest of the device benefits from it. And you can't argue that Apple didn't benefit greatly from the switch. Or else they wouldn't have rewritten their entire OS for them.

So maybe 1/3 of my points are invalid.and I'm not anti apple I happen to own the latest macbook. And used to work there.

I don't need to name more than 3 devices. You said the ENTIRE LINE was overpriced. You were wrong about that.

You're also wrong about "the industry" not taking long to surpass the devices in question; they have had 4-5 years to surpass all the devices I named. Ultrabooks still haven't surpassed the Air or beaten its price point, and Android phone hardware hasn't surpassed the iPhone or beaten its price point, etc.

You're just wrong. Own it. I own the latest MacBook Pro and used to work there, too, btw. :) I didn't accuse you of being anti-Apple. I said you posted an inaccurate, anti-Apple rant. Which you did. Peace.

I don't think the "overpriced" myth would ever be dispelled. Apple produces premium products, and premium products are typically associated with higher costs. Until Apple decides to become the walmart of laptops, people will always think they're selling overpriced goods.

It would be interesting to run an experiment where someone is shown 2 completely identical products, but one is marked as premium. Would that someone think the premium product is made with inferior materials to justify the identical pricing?

I don't think they had to rewrite the entire OS when they switched to intel. It only took 1 person over a span of 6 months to do the "conversion", and that 1 person was just doing it for fun. It wasn't until he finished that Apple decided to use his secret project as part of something bigger. I believe the wife briefly talked about this story on Quora. You can probably find the story if you google "marklar"

Not overpriced. Nobody could come close to the price of the Macbook Air with fully equivalent hardware, for example, and today's MBP release is the same. When competitors try to meet the specs across the board, without any major compromises, they cost 20% more.

The overpriced thing is a decade old, and used to be justified as a brand positioning (pay more for quality build).

Now, Apple's supply chain lets them offer even higher build quality but at a discount to inferior products.

Nonsense. Comparing a Lenovo X220 with equivalent specs, it comes out slightly cheaper on the Lenovo side. There are minor differences on both sides (eg thunderbolt versus replaceable battery) but going for SSD, same RAM, same CPU, similar screen size, the Lenovo comes out at $1216 and the Mac Air at $1349 (in Australia).

I don't think they're really equivalent specs, though. Notably, the 11" Levovo X220 weighs 2.9 lbs vs 2.38 lbs for the MacBook Air.

That's more than a 20% difference on the defining characteristic of the MBAir line.

Edit: Is this data wrong? Is it an inappropriate comment? I've been on HN for nearly 5 years and it seems like there's more downvoting by the month.

You're exactly right, bu those downvoting you don't want to admit it. It's why I was careful to specify all specs, no compromises. The other corners typically cut are screen quality, battery life (without hauling around still more weight as extras), and backlit keyboard.

I agree with you the 20% weight difference without the other compromises is remarkable.

You're probably being downmodded because half a pound of weight is not a major feature, but you're trying to shoehorn it into a trump card. For me, the trackpoint mouse is a major feature which leaves the Air dead in the water, but it's really a minor feature between the two.

Same as all the extras that the X220 has over the Air, like card slots, swappable batteries, and a perimeter that doesn't cut into your hand. And vice versa. These things are all minor differences. The Thinkpad laptops are also as tough as the Apple laptops, if not tougher - despite looking like a normal laptop, they survive more military tests than 'hardened' brand laptops.

The short version is simply that the Lenovo X-series and the Apple Airs are equivalent laptops at the same price point - the Air is not 'better' for 'less' than the 'inferior' product.

It may sound odd, but last year I had a 13" MBP (4.5 lbs), and its weight really bothered me. I actually swapped it for a mac mini that I carried to and from work each day, hooking it up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse at each place just because it was a bit lighter.

The only I'd want an air over a pro is the weight. As far as the X220 is concerned, weight would be my number #2 complaint after the OS. The lack of an Apple-level quality trackpad might be #3. The hundred bucks does matter, but honestly when you consider how many hours you, or at least I, spend on a computer, the price is almost negligible compared to improvements in user-experience or efficiency.

The trick to your claim is "fully equivalent hardware". I just bought a System76 laptop after a lifetime of using macs exclusively, and there was just no contest on price. To get a roughly equivalent machine from Apple would have cost nearly twice as much. Yes, that would have included a few nifty little things here and there that simply weren't available for the machine I got, just as my machine has some things I couldn't have gotten on a mac.

But to claim that Apple is competitive on price is just absurd. They're very competitive on hardware/software integration, on usability, an aesthetics, on stability. But not on price.

I'm confused: what hardware specifications are you referring to? A simple NewEgg browse disproves this comment unless I'm misunderstanding you.

You're right in terms of the Air; it's a great deal for how well it's built. Almost every single other computer they offer is demonstrably overpriced based on specs.

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