this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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It definitely feels like there was a price jump this series with the base model starting at 8GB, so you have to pay a lot more just to get 16
Not really, discounting the 13 inch MacBook Pro that also has 8GB of ram, the cheapest MacBook Pro with Pro chips was and is still $2000. Now the M3 base chip is $1600 for the Pro, and even accounting for the jump to 16GB of ram (nobody should be buying that 8gb of ram model) it's still only $1800.
Then again the 15 inch MacBook Air is only going to be $100 cheaper than the same specs Pro models. (And why they're redundant but that's another story.
I got the baseline M1 14" and it was £1,800. The equivalent now is £2,100
The UK definitely saw a price jump because everything got more expensive & Apple saw opportunity in that.
I don’t think it was a global price hike, though.
Opportunity?
I think it’s just called an exchange rate. They (and all other companies) adjust pricing periodically to adjust for devaluing currencies.
That can be explained by some of it. However, firms also strategise with their pricing adjustments to best benefit them. It’s a missed opportunity if they do not.
Sure because the pound has gotten a lot worse. That's not on Apple
so basically you are saying the 15” MBA at 16GB RAM is not worth it vs the 13” MBP at 8GB RAM?
The issue is that the 15" M2 Air and the 14" M3 Pro are too close together. The only really save here is that Apple jumped up the M3 to appear in the 14" Pro before the 13" Air this time. Maybe that will be the plan going forward? That Pros get new gen chips first.
The M3 MBP and 15" M2 Air are too close together with 8GB and the M3 in the new 14" chassis without 16GB ram just isn't good value proposition for an MBP model. Now if the M3 MBP only cane with 16GB or 24gb it would be a slam dunk... but telling people an MBP with 8GB is a bad joke and the upgrade to 16GB is way too expensive in a $1600 laptop.
I dunno, I think there is a bit of overlap for the 13" MBA and base 14" MBP. Once you spec them for similar internals, it's a $200 difference which nets you the XDR/ProMotion panel, extra cooling, and built-in HDMI 2.1 and SD card slots, while also reducing (albeit not eliminating) the arbitrary external monitor limit.
The problem is that the base MBA is such a good computer in its own right that it's debatable whether it's worth speccing the internals higher rather than just committing to a slightly more expensive MBP to start.
Form factor was a huge deciding factor in me getting the MBA over MBP
M2 air - consumer / light creativity laptop & THE Mac laptop to buy in this price range.
M3 base 8GB RAM MBP - corporate purchase computer for managers who are running MS office and keynote.
Expensive for what it is but they’ll claim back some of the sales tax.
No consumers and genuine pros should ever buy this machine - it’s not meant for you.
I haven't played with pricing across the laptops as its not my area of interest but I do know comparing the mini to the studio usually results in a beefed up mini costing as much as the studio with a lower tier processor; the memory and storage costs are such that you need to pay attention to where other models start.
By the time you pay $1800 for 16gb of ram on the M3 why not add $200 (10% more) and get 18gb on the M3 Pro?
This is exactly why Apple carefully designs their pricing strucutre. They want you to think that.
Yes, they spend tens of millions of dollars designing and building machines they don’t want people to buy, just so they can make a couple hundred more dollars on a different machine. And if the M3 outsells the Pro because most people don’t want to spend $200 for benefits they don’t need, well, that’s, hey, look over there!
I never said they don't want you to buy it, I said they design their pricing structure so you spend more. The prices for upgrades don't often reflect their true value, but a carefully chosen price point by Apple that leaves you in a position to justify spending a little more.
They design their pricing structure to have a compelling offering at a series of price points??? Have you called the police?
Are you being deliberately facetious?
Exactly, Apple is always enticing you to upgrade, that $1800 model is decent, but at $2000 you have even more ram (since the M3 Pro is now 18GB) and a slightly faster chip.
Apple is lagging behind the competition on purpose, to prize gouge consumers. Every other laptop in its class comes with 16 GB standard.
Yeah they've been building a bad spot in terms of their ram. They use the excuse of it being an SOC, but the reality is that means the GPU is actually using the same ram, and it's even more important to have a base configuration that's decent.
Also even worse since they bumped the M3 Pro base ram to 18GB.