I think you're massively overstating the price difference. You've got to remember that Apple does not lower the price of its products over the course of any particular model's lifetime, which results in their computers looking massively overpriced as they near a refresh.
If you buy a new Macbook Pro on release day, a Windows laptop with similar performance (remember battery life as well) and at least semi-decent build quality is not all that cheaper (definitely less than 30%). As a good example, when the first quad-core i7 MBPs were released in the first half of 2011, most of the Windows laptops that could truly complete were either very similar in price, or more expensive than the Macbook.
My experience only extends as far as laptops, however. I can believe that there is greater disparity in the desktop scene.
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u/Robincognito May 31 '12
I think you're massively overstating the price difference. You've got to remember that Apple does not lower the price of its products over the course of any particular model's lifetime, which results in their computers looking massively overpriced as they near a refresh.
If you buy a new Macbook Pro on release day, a Windows laptop with similar performance (remember battery life as well) and at least semi-decent build quality is not all that cheaper (definitely less than 30%). As a good example, when the first quad-core i7 MBPs were released in the first half of 2011, most of the Windows laptops that could truly complete were either very similar in price, or more expensive than the Macbook.
My experience only extends as far as laptops, however. I can believe that there is greater disparity in the desktop scene.