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Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

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31–40 of 269 posts

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#31

Are there any models from Lenovo/Dell/HP that have a good keyboard (obviously there is some subjectivity here)? If Lenovo made a model with the thinkpad keyboard from 10 years ago, I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

I switched from the MBP to the HP ZBook Studio G3. Good machine, generally good keyboard, but I think some QA qualities there because only certain keys (2 or 3) have a tendency to not click right, while the rest are perfect.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#32

The biggest problem that Apple is creating for itself is not one that is being discussed directly in most of these threads: it's not about the loss in Mac sales, which they clearly don't give a damn about. It's the exodus of producers from their platform. Think about it. For those of you that were Mac fans before the iPhone and before it was cool to be so, who else do you know that used a Mac? Forget why, just who? T…

Pretty sure this idea of "Apple now ignoring trendsetting content creators is the cause of their demise" has been discussed to death here; it has been discussed pretty directly.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#33

Has anyone here used the MBP touchbar on a daily basis? Does it improve productivity or is it just a gimmick?

A friend of mine has a maxed out MBP and while he claims it's not a gimmick, he does not use it often.

It's useful at times (especially as they have bigger buttons for stuff like debugging etc.)

But all in all....if he had a choice, he'd get a regular one.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#35

Back when I worked at Apple the dirty secret was that the cheapest models, despite all the marketing of the MacBook Pro, made up the majority of sales. Back then it was the white plastic MacBook but now it's the 11" MacBook Air that occupies that slot. That model and its crappy TN screen is vastly inferior and more expensive than similarly-sized ultrabooks. The only redeeming feature it has is MacOS. Instead of repla…

Just a reminder: the original Macbook Air was introduced 9 years ago for US$1799, a very premium price point for a, at the time, really weak machine. Give it time!

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#36
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly you're straight on, but the latest iMacs are among the best desktop PCs ever built. And they're still a good deal.

As far as AIO's go they are great, especially with the 5k display, but the main issue is that Apple doesn't spec bump them. It has been 472 days since the last iMac update and it will likely be at least until spring before we hear about an update. The main issue for me is that my laptop can now use Thunderbolt 3 accessories, but if I bought an iMac today I'd be stuck with thunderbolt 2 and no usb-c ports for the next…

Plus, I'm starting to be concerned with quality. Of the last 12 we've ordered 3 were DOA. They got replaced (one after over 2 months), but it wasn't a good experience.

They aren't the dumpster fire that HP turned into on the low end for a while, but it is concerning as we have had to send machines back for recalls and fixes. It made for an interesting discussion when we decided a new lab was going to be Intel NUCs with LG 21x9 monitors over buying the outdated Macs. I am hoping for some sign Apple gets it together in 2017.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#37
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, discontinuing the Air is crazy. The "entry level" laptop from Apple now (excluding their late-year models they kept around) is now $1299 and features a Core M3 processor. For people with a 2014+ Air that is a downgrade in performance for more money than they paid initially.

Huh? No, Apple's entry-level laptop is the $999 MacBook Air 13″, which has an i5. The 11″ MacBook Air was discontinued, but the 13″ is still around.

It is, but should we really count a laptop with a horrible looking TN panel, 1440x900 resolution, and a processor two generations behind that costs $1k to be a viable option for people? That laptop should cost $700 max in 2017.

The only reason they have it is likely for education sales, since they have no other reasonable laptop right now.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#39

Are there any models from Lenovo/Dell/HP that have a good keyboard (obviously there is some subjectivity here)? If Lenovo made a model with the thinkpad keyboard from 10 years ago, I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

I just bought an ASUS ZenBook with m3 and super high res screen for my wife. The keyboard feels similar to my MBP13R. Much better than my 3k Dell. Really nice little machine, blows the Air away and is a steal at 650 EUR (~400 USD using Apple's exchange rates).

I'm also really happy with my Asus Zenbook ux305fa. The keyboard does feel familiar (replacing my 2011 MBP). And Ubuntu runs fine on it - no problems with wifi or anything else so far.

Re: Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground

#40
I was a Macintosh user since 1985, one of the die-hard faithful who stuck around all the way through Apple's late-'90s doldrums, but I haven't bought a Mac in years and at this point it's hard to imagine why I'd ever feel like paying that premium again. Not that there's anything wrong with them - Apple still makes very nice computers. The simple fact is that computers in general crossed my "good enough" threshold en masse, roughly six or eight years ago, and I just don't care much about the differences anymore. Any machine will meet my needs, as long as it has an SSD and at least 4G of RAM. In this world, why would I pay $1800 for a Macbook Pro when any random $300 Thinkpad will do the job?

We're riding out the top end of the S-curve here. That's okay; the market is mature. I expect that Apple can continue to do their high-margin BMW/Mercedes thing for years to come. I just don't happen to need (or even particularly desire) a luxury computer.

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