> For many people outside of HN demographic $500 is a lot of money for "a computer"
It would be but it's also kind of overkill based on the specs you can get nowadays for general computer usage.
I recently picked up a $399 15.6" Lenovo laptop new on Amazon for a family member. It has all of the important stats for a regular user. A 1080p display, fairly light, 11th gen Intel CPU (i3), 8gb of memory and most importantly an SSD. It's lightning fast for browsing the web, working with Excel and playing browser games.
If you did care more about development they have a 20gb of memory version with a 512 GB SSD for $540 and a 36gb of memory version with a 1 TB SSD for $630.
With these cheap computers, the manufacturers typically cut corners on things that are not listed on the spec sheet, though, especially the quality of the trackpad.
We have a bunch of $400 Lenovos at work and their trackpads are absolutely atrocious. When someone is using one of those, they almost always use an external mouse with them, because otherwise, mouse cursor handling is just too frustrating.
The webcam and sound are decent enough for casual usage. The keyboard was surprisingly good.
I can't speak for the trackpad. When setting up the laptop I found it to be ok but I only have 2 occasions of using it for 20 minutes (2 different laptops) which isn't enough time to really evaluate it since so many things can be hit or miss with trackpads. The people who use it do use an external mouse, mainly because using a trackpad is too foreign to them.
Both Lenovos are IdeaPads that were purchased a few years apart. The latest one wasn't to replace the first one, it was for someone else. The first one is still going strong. I had forgotten I even picked a Lenovo the first time around and ended up picking the same brand / model when researching "what is a really good budget'ish laptop for general computer use".
Almost yearly she'd buy some $150-$200 Dell clunker, all plastic, atrociously low resolution, loaded with bloatware.
For years I told her if she'd just buy one "overpriced" Macbook she'd save money in the long run, since despite some hiccups over the years, Macbooks are not particularly unreliable.
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Eventually I took it upon myself to give her my old Surface since she didn't want to learn OSX.
A machine I optioned out to nearly 1k, for someone who only checks emails and writes word docs... yet 4 years later and she hasn't needed a new one.
She's easily saved her money's worth if she had bought it new herself simply from not dealing with the hassle of needing a new machine every 12-24 months.
Agreed. I'm very proud of a $1200 Sony Vaio laptop I got back in 2007. My mother still uses and it's going strong, albeit the battery which needs to be replaced.
I don't think that's true. Yes I agree it might be a Mercedes but given that most of Apple's customer base isn't HN and most people seem to be happy spending $1k+ on an iPhone. $500 isn't a lot of money for a computer.
This doesn't really transfer. The same people willing to spend $1k+ on a phone might still say that $500 for a computer is a lot. Just like they would consider $200 for a kitchen knife a lot. Different categories, different scales.
Phone through carriers are heavily discounted with 2 year contracts. Apple also offers zero APR financing to pay for a new phone. Humans have a harder time reasoning about buy now/pay later.
Apple also offer financing on their laptops as well?
Phone's are not heavily discounted with 2 year contracts, definitely not here in Australia anyway. Carriers are going down the route of customers paying the standard device repayment per month (equalling the RRP). The days of device subsidies by taking a plan are fading.
Plans from mobile carriers are becoming suped up pre-paid plans with a device payment tacked on.
A vehicle needing a repair that costs 50% of its new MSRP is extremely rare, outside of a few electric vehicle battery packs.
In addition, when a vehicle reaches the point where any common repair costs more than it's current market value, it's basically considered worthless and only desperate people buy them. How long does it take an apple product to reach that point? A year?
Exactly. Apple has engineered their products and supply chain to make it not economically viable to do any kind of repair.
For traditional cars, as long as it's not a completely blown motor or transmission or a extensive front end collision, it's always economically viable to repair them.
You can take it to an independent repair shop. There's a supply chain of repair parts. Mercedes doesn't try to use trademark laws and DRM to stop you from using a third-party water pump.
Additionally, you can't capriciously tell people that an unrelated repair done by a third party voided their warranty. That's a violation of the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act.
That used to be true, but somehow Apple gets them. Probably still more true of non-mac computers - where high-end sales I imagine are almost exclusively to businesses and gamers.
A macbook would be like buying a top spec Mercedes when all they need is a no frills base model Ford.