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The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

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Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#91

Post by elblanco »

davidmathers wrote: post #76
elblanco wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when is $200 for design figured into the cost equation? And who pays $100 for a wireless keyboard mouse combo? $20 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823164... you are at least $280 off on price.

Looks and form factor matter to me and are something I'm happy to pay for. I'm not saying they should matter you. If you'd rather save $300 and buy a computer in a standard plastic box, with trash peripherals that are only rated 1 egg, then you're welcome to it. The number of people who spend $300 on just a case + power supply from newegg when doing a custom pc build is not small.

Fair enough.

But even when I threw together my last monster home machine from newegg I don't think I spent more than $150 on case and power, and I even went hog wild with lights and all kinds of fans and other sexy things.

Just because Apple felt that they needed to spent who knows how much R&D on a new plastic unibody mold that nobody is impressed with much, in order to house perfectly stock budget hardware doesn't mean that I think I should pay for that.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#92

Post by elblanco »

jsz0 wrote: post #89
elblanco wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when is $200 for design figured into the cost equation? And who pays $100 for a wireless keyboard mouse combo? $20 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823164... you are at least $280 off on price.

Why would you not factor in the design? Goto NewEgg.com and price out some nice Lian-Li cases. They're expensive. Yes, you can get a junky finger slicer case with loud fans and tacky lights for ~$50 but that's not what I want

Why does th design matter beyond "look at me, I'm using an overpriced collection of stock hardware". It's the old saying "you can't polish a turd". Commodity hardware is always going to be commodity hardware no matter how shiny the case is.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#94

Post by mbreese »

zandorg wrote: post #93

This 15" HP Omnibook 6100 (made in 2001) has a huge (1400x1050) screen - I can't find anything like it.

That's a common resolution. I have a Thinkpad T42 with that same 15" screen, although, that resolution equally common at 14" (my wife has a T43 with that resolution).

The iMac 27" is really a unique resolution, largely due to I believe, the change in aspect ratio.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#95

Post by potatolicious »

elblanco wrote: post #90
potatolicious wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you really just link, as an alternative to Apple's keyboard/mouse, a product whose first review is "Garbage"? You figure design into the cost equation all the time in your life - why would one wear anything except Wal-Mart t-shirts otherwise? Ease of use, quality of construction, and yes, even styling, is incredibly important in all aspects of life.

Just showing that $100 is outrageous for a wireless mouse and keyboard. Here's one for just a hair more with solid reviews. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823126... It's not hard to find reasonable quality at a good price point.

I've actually used that keyboard - it's nowhere near the quality of the Apple keyboard. Keys are mushy and soft, and even the chiclet keys have a more solid feel than that.

Not to mention the whole thing reeked of plasticy cheapness.

Let me put it this way. If I drive once a week, I'd save money and get a little econobox Toyota. If, however, I spent 8 hours a day behind the wheel, I'd invest in a BMW or something else nice.

In the same way, I spend at least 8 hours in front of a computer every single day - why in the world wouldn't I spend $100 on a keyboard/mouse combo? That's dirt cheap considering the mileage I get out of them. It just doesn't make sense to skimp on hardware when you spend so much time with it (and also, if it's your primary moneymaking machine).

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#96

Post by kajecounterhack »

zandorg wrote: post #93

This 15" HP Omnibook 6100 (made in 2001) has a huge (1400x1050) screen - I can't find anything like it.

I have a 15" Dell Precision M70 (4 years old now, overheats regularly) with 1920x1200 res, haha. Yeah, things show up pretty small but really clear.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#97

Post by elblanco »

barrkel wrote: post #81
elblanco wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dell is usually a good benchmark to compare against. But yeah, you can usually find anything Dell is selling a bit cheaper elsewhere.

A little bit? If you spec out a decent system, I mean not bare-bones, and it's not a corporate purchase, you can easily find yourself paying over 100% extra. As I mentioned in my other comment, I bought my Dell monitor at a 40% discount. I wouldn't be surprised to see a $1200 Dell monitor on sale at random intervals for $799.

Couldn't agree more. Which makes the price delta between Dell products and comparable Apple products all the more egregious.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#98

Post by jrockway »

asdfoud wrote: post #63
jfager wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cocoa Emacs works great for me, I've never had a problem with it.

Cocoa Emacs has a number of issues with code quality. Feeling lucky? (set-foreground-color "rgb:aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa")

FWIW, this is true of all of Emacs outside of the "core" that has the most users. It's written in C and the parts that only have a few maintainers don't get read very often. The result is flakiness.

(I spent a lot of time reading the font/face handling code to make eslide auto-resize text. I couldn't figure out how to do it cleanly, as the API did not work as documented or coded (!). Eventually I hacked around it, and my hack works fine. Welcome to Emacs Lisp programming...)

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#99

Post by jrockway »

jawngee wrote: post #21
jrockway wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but OS X does not work for me. It powers a computer under my TV that I use for watching movies, but it doesn't even do well for that task. (OSX's VLC often crashes, NicePlayer can't play partial AVI files, the built-in DVD player doesn't let you skip the ads at the beginning, etc.) For development, I could never use OS X. I rarely use the mouse, and I need a package manager for installing random libraries. I trie…

Why would your eyebrow raise a bit when you hear a developer say they use any particular OS? What do you gain by having such rigors? Why do you assume your opinion is absolute? (Which is must be for you to cock an eyebrow in what I'm assuming is disgust or mistrust). What do you do when someone tells you they develop on Windows? I'm imagining a groin pull, or something of that magnitude.

I am just surprised. I remember how much stress I went through to get basic things working, and I am surprised that other people were willing to waste so much time. (Example: installing libxml2 for XML::LibXML and the system perl.)

So it's not disgust at all, it's just shock. I keep hearing how nice of a development platform it is, but I couldn't get even the simplest things to work. (I used OS X for 2 or 3 years about 4 years ago. I still use it for my under-TV computer, as I am too lazy to configure Ubuntu there. But I am close to not being too lazy...)

Anyway, Linux is broken for many users, but not those that use conkeror, emacs, urxvt, xmonad and has Intel wireless and video. I am the user that Linux is best for.

Re: The curious pricing of the 27" iMac

#100

Post by elblanco »

elblanco wrote: post #90
potatolicious wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you really just link, as an alternative to Apple's keyboard/mouse, a product whose first review is "Garbage"? You figure design into the cost equation all the time in your life - why would one wear anything except Wal-Mart t-shirts otherwise? Ease of use, quality of construction, and yes, even styling, is incredibly important in all aspects of life.

Just showing that $100 is outrageous for a wireless mouse and keyboard. Here's one for just a hair more with solid reviews. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823126... It's not hard to find reasonable quality at a good price point.

HN won't let me reply direct...so I'm replying to myself.

If I spend $30 on a keyboard mouse/combo. And it breaks in 6 months, I can just throw it away and get a replacement and still have coffee money. And in 6 months, the keyboard/mouse combo I buy for $30 will be better than the one that I could have bought 6 months prior for $70. No matter what I bought, I'd likely be in the market for a replacement (or would just end up with one anyways) a year later.

You've used the word "investing" in a way that makes no sense. A BMW is not an investment anymore than is a computer. Unless they are really something special (like a Veyron), both cars and computers loose value over time.

The comparison to cars is apropos, similar to the subject at hand, I could buy two or three Toyota Corollas for one BMW 3xx, get to where I want on time, more reliably, with better gas mileage (read: lower TCO), and the only thing I'll suffer for it is not looking like a pretentious prick will doing it. And I'd still have one or two backup cars for demolition derby or loaning out to friends.

The real difference is that computing technology looses value so fast (even faster than cars) that to think of them as anything other than nearly disposable is a fallacy. AND at any rate, an Apple is not a BMW as a PC is to a Corolla. They are both Corollas, just one has a bit more chrome on it, for which you'll happily pay a 40% markup for.

Apple wants you to think that what they are making is so fantastically special that you'll buy their overpriced commodity hardware thinking you will keep it forever. Only until next year when they come out with the same thing but case colors and an extra USB port.

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