DEV Community

Discussion on: The new MacBook Pros are overpriced

Collapse
 
rhymes profile image
rhymes

Wow Kenneth, this helps a lot. Let me answer inline:

I went through the exact same exercise over the last few weeks. Comparing the Dell XPS 15 to the new MacBook Pro (with an i9 processor) ad nauseam.

I'm starting to think that each MBP power user goes through this exercise at some point. We all have have read somewhere that "PCs cost less" but similar to what you say afterwards in your answer: I've had to deal with issues for a total of a couple of days in two years. My first MacBook lasted 4 years before I sold it, the last one is at six years and the one in between was stolen :D

It is true though that newer MBPs seem to be made with a lower quality bar and they can't be upgraded, which means that I have to get the highest builtin configuration I can afford and that's it, which is a little of a bummer.

I would steer clear from the i9 though, a lot of hardware makers (not just Apple) are having issues dissipating the heat in laptops

We can babble on forever on the nuances of this or that, but for me it came down to "it just works, and keeps on working", and I can then target way more platforms by using Apple hardware than most other general purpose platforms.

Yeah, macOS/MBP for me is truly the right combination, I'm just a little unenthusiastic about the lack of innovation and needless price hikes

Speaking for myself I just don't know where I'm gonna be in 6 years again, it could still be full-stack as it has always been, or it could be iOS, or watches, or maybe I would be booting into Windows to build out something there (heavens forbid). Having the leverage to tackle any of these situations is both empowering and comforting.

True that, I don't know either. I think we're going in the direction of people being able to target whatever they want by using cross platform environments. The only big lockin I still see is the need for MacOS to develop (or at least build) iOS native apps but there's obviously no incentive for Apple to change that.

I bit the bullet, paid the Apple Tax and got the new MacBook Pro with an i9. Time will tell if my assumptions hold as well as they've done in the past.

Let me know about i9 and the heat :D Talking about taxes, I found out the other day that I can rent Apple hardware as a business and change it every two or three years, with warranty for theft and damages. I basically pay a monthly fee and at the end of the lease I can switch to a newer model. Hardware as a service I guess :D This would definitely lessen the burden (and the guilt) of shelling out thousands of dollars

I'm still getting used to the new keyboard, and this Touch Bar is peculiar. At the office I plug into a monitor and use a normal Apple keyboard with an escape key. I guess as with all things Apple I'll get use to the quirks and move on. As with all things Apple I also still need to acquire a bag full of new dongles...

I use a Microsoft keyboard and a Logitech mouse at home so I'll just need to get used to that when I'm around. The dongles though are unforgivable. I wonder how much money Apple makes only on adapters (see the fact they haven't adopted USB-C for the phones yet, but oddly they did for the iPad Pro: The iPad Pro's USB-C port is great. It should be on my iPhone, too)

I hope this helps, it feels a bit like a rant. Maybe I'm writing this out to justify my spending to myself, and not to you. If it is Stockholm syndrome, well, then I'd rather be held captive by Apple than the others 🤷‍♂️

Ah ah it's not like the others aren't for profit companies anyway :-)

We could call it the "get out of my way and let me be productive syndrome".