# Solved: Why are iMacs so expensive?



## Speedbird1 (Oct 22, 2009)

I was wondering why Apple products are so expensive. The products are very good but are very overpriced. At the Apple Store, they have consumer iMacs over $3000 and that doesn't include Apple Care which is extra. Why so expensive? The products are not made in the USA but in Asia. Oner reason for the high cost is the expense they go to at the Apple Stores. One store actually pays over $1 million/year in rent not including staff or overhead. Some stores have over 50 employees at a time just walking around. If they coulkd cut-back their products would be more affordable. In these days, most people cannot afford 2 months salary on an iMac. Also, few repair shops would even touch an iMac so repairs must be done by an Apple factory servicenter and that is expensive.


----------



## etaf (Oct 2, 2003)

whatever the market will stand - same in UK - and you dont often see the products discounted - other products are discounted as soon as they come out, when i purchased my touch, I could not find anywhere where it ws not full RRP

wait to see how much the tablet (if released on 26th Jan) ends up costing ....


----------



## Yankee Rose (Jul 14, 1999)

Apple Computer has the top rated support in the computer industry, not to mention a huge Research and Development budget. Both of these take moola; hence their products are pricier. 

My belief is that you get what you pay for. I'd rather pay for a product from a company that stands behind their product (I have had to use their support in the past when the MB on one of my iMacs bit the dust and it was unparalleled.)

And as far as the Research and Development goes .... in a word: iPod.


----------



## etaf (Oct 2, 2003)

a friends mac just went down yesterday, and they called support , had an appointment made for sat in a local town UK at apple store - where apparently they will fix it while they wait, give them an estimate on price etc

I hope to find out next week how that went ........


----------



## Squashman (Apr 4, 2003)

I assume you pay for the service as well. For the most part the hardware inside a Mac is the same as a pc. I can see paying $3000 for a Dual Quad Core machine which I believe is what you are referring to. Those are the Mac Pro's. You would probably pay that price on the PC side as well.


----------



## linskyjack (Aug 28, 2004)

Its an Apple and there is what we call the "cult" premium. If you open up a Mac, they pretty much use the same components as a PC. I didn't pay the premium for the Apple product, I paid it for the operating system. If OsX didn't exist, I would build my own PC.


----------



## Headrush (Feb 9, 2005)

I've always contended that "PCs" are underpriced.

Obviously there is a middle ground but the market has been conditioned that computers are disposable toys and not lasting tools and as such cheap is everything.

It's no coincidence that once mightly companies are slashing costs in order just to remain profitable trying to sell at these ridiculous levels and they NEED to sell you a new machine quite routinely. That's why when you call Dell for support you'll get a call center in India with agents that don't speak english as a native tongue but you would if you called Apple.

The price gap is greatly exaggerated too. When matching the same systems the price isn't that much more. Sick of comparisons of a 24" TN based LCD to a IPS based 27" LCD isn't the same either and neither is comparing a build it your self box to a pre-built. Additionally, no value is placed on the others features like power usage, desk space, etc. May not be important to some people but totally ignoring their value makes comparisons uneven.

$2000 for an iMac is too much but spending $1000 for a game console and several games is ok these days, or spending $1000 a year for a cel phone and plan. I thought it was bad in my teenage days when we made half as much and paid $795 for a 10mb external HD! 

P.S. Traded a quad core Dell XPS 420 for a dual core 24" iMac. Even though its specs are lower, it was move up.


----------



## junna (Jan 24, 2010)

Take Specs from Mac Pro (including software, if you can)
Go to Dell site and configure a machine with same specs.
You may find Mac price higher, but maybe not _that_ much.
Apple doesn't make crappy "Supermarket" models. They have a gaping hole in their lineup at that end of the market.


----------



## namenotfound (Apr 30, 2005)

The overprice-ness is actually false, according to This Video


----------



## weedave (Jan 31, 2010)

Macs are VERY VERY over priced but as someone said you get what you pay for. I have had no bother with apple stores they are always helpful an get your equipment repaired ASAP, on the other hand a company like dell, I bought a £200 laptop, they sent me the wrong one, it only had a 8GB SSD instead of a 160GB HDD(school boy errors really) so after 3 days of phoning them 4 till 6 I actaully got to talk to someone who done me a refund and then charged me £20 collection and then sold me another, ridiculous!! 
basically if you can afford it go with a mac if not, hope you can do repairs your self.

And dell are horribly bad don't use them, ever.


----------



## namenotfound (Apr 30, 2005)

weedave said:


> And dell are horribly bad don't use them, ever.


I HATE Dell! I had one, the graphics card died in less than a year! Then after I ordered a new one, they charged my credit card TWICE. I took 3 phone calls before they corrected that and removed one of the charges.


----------



## etaf (Oct 2, 2003)

Tobe fair , I think everyone would have a story like this for all the major PC providers 
HP/Compaq
Dell
Toshiba
Fuji
acer
etc etc

which would then be contrast with some excellent customer Service stories

*So not a great deal of value in continuing this line of post*


----------



## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

I think "overpriced" is a subjective term. Yes, Macs tend to be more expensive than other kinds of PCs (I'm in the "Mac is a PC" camp ) but you're also getting a lot of "stuff" bundled in when you buy a Mac. Sure, you might not want or care about some of the bundled features but you're getting them when you buy a Mac regardless of your lack of interest.

Take this iMac as an example:

http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html

For whatever "exhorbitant" price you'll pay for whichever model you choose, you'll get:

Built-in Firewire support
Built-in 802.11n support
Built-in Bluetooth support
Built-in IR receiver
iLife and a ton of other software
Things like processor, RAM, hard drives, and video adapters tend to be the common factors between Macs and other PC hardware. It's true that you can add the above items to just about any machine that doesn't come with that support bundled but you still have to incur the cost getting that support implemented in your machine.

For comparison, here is a Dell "All-In-One" system I found:

http://www.dell.com/us/en/home/desk...9&~oid=us~en~29~studio_one_new_anav_02~~ck_mn

and a much more expensive HP "All-In-One" system I found:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/s...hoslp/psg/desktops/All-in-One_PCs/600t_series

The HP has the TV Tuner card option the iMacs don't have and the HP doesn't have the Firewire port the iMacs have.

It comes down to what you perceive the value to be when considering this kind of purchase. If you feel Macs provide a better value, you'll be ok with the money you spend on one. 

Peace...


----------



## kayote (Nov 3, 2006)

The problem with "Apple stores" is they are about the only place to get warranty work done and they aren't that common.

It's multiple hours from here to an Apple store. My parents live near a city and still had to drive over an hour one way to get their Mac repaired under warranty. The support went really smoothly--other than the 2+ hour round trip to get it done. It's more than that one way for me, which is one BIG reason I am very hesitant to buy myself a Mac. 

It's not "great support" if I have to take a day off and spend a bunch of gas to get that support.


----------



## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

kayote said:


> The problem with "Apple stores" is they are about the only place to get warranty work done and they aren't that common.
> 
> It's multiple hours from here to an Apple store. My parents live near a city and still had to drive over an hour one way to get their Mac repaired under warranty. The support went really smoothly--other than the 2+ hour round trip to get it done. It's more than that one way for me, which is one BIG reason I am very hesitant to buy myself a Mac.


Yeah, this can be a huge problem if you're not in an area Apple has chosen to open a store.



> It's not "great support" if I have to take a day off and spend a bunch of gas to get that support.


I guess that would ultimately depend on the support you got. Sort of like someone who owns a Dell or HP that must "send it back" for service. Sure, they might not have to pay for the service or pay much for it but there's the hassle of shipping it and getting it back in the same condition (although working now) in which it was sent. I know people who have done this and received someone else's machine in return and in one case, their laptop was actually LOST!

Maybe if you drove 2+ hrs to the closest Apple store and they offered to repair your Mac for free, give you a massage, and give you two tickets to a live show of your choosing you might be ok with the drive. 

Peace...


----------



## namenotfound (Apr 30, 2005)

kayote said:


> The problem with "Apple stores" is they are about the only place to get warranty work done and they aren't that common.
> 
> It's multiple hours from here to an Apple store. My parents live near a city and still had to drive over an hour one way to get their Mac repaired under warranty. The support went really smoothly--other than the 2+ hour round trip to get it done. It's more than that one way for me, which is one BIG reason I am very hesitant to buy myself a Mac.
> 
> It's not "great support" if I have to take a day off and spend a bunch of gas to get that support.


Move to a better city?

Where I live, there are FIVE Apple stores all within easy access that I can choose from. The closest to where I live is only 20 minutes away.


----------



## namenotfound (Apr 30, 2005)

tomdkat said:


> I know people who have done this and received someone else's machine in return and in one case, their laptop was actually LOST!


I had a computer "accidentally" marked for trash, rather than return, when I sent in a Sony once (via BestBuy, which is one reason I will NEVER shop in a BestBuy again. GeekSquad sucks!)

I don't trust shipping a computer back to the warehouse to get fixed.


----------



## halcy0n (Mar 2, 2010)

your question comes back to the famous "apple tax". There is a great amount of possible speculation to the underlying reasons, "you get what you pay for", "they are diversifying", "they stand behind there product". In economically terms the reason is that Apple is a bit of a niche market, taking up a small percentage of all computers. They have managed to use an oligopoly technique known as loyalty to become a bit of an iconic player. There products are mainly over priced because the consumers want them to be over prices, it is in many ways firstly a statement. (this is common to niche markets, and as we see apple becoming an ever larger player their prices have become more realistic). The last reason for there high price is comparative advantage. Most corporations specialize into certain sub sections of the market, because they can produce something with a lower opportunity cost then other producers and so by are more competitive. However, apple does most of the stuff by itself, leaving very little to third parties, as they state they are a software and hardware corporation. This is why they often lack behind in graphics cards (my mac pro runs windows because my graphics card is yet to be supported by Mac OS X) and why their machines will cost more.

Sincerely,




-Halcy0n


----------



## tomdkat (May 6, 2006)

namenotfound said:


> Move to a better city?


I guess that's another option.  LOL



namenotfound said:


> I had a computer "accidentally" marked for trash, rather than return, when I sent in a Sony once (via BestBuy, which is one reason I will NEVER shop in a BestBuy again. GeekSquad sucks!)


Wow, that's nuts!

Peace...


----------

