Topic: Thoughts on the new Macbook Pro

The base price of the new Macbook Pro is $2199. It goes up from there. While I am sure it is a wonderful laptop I am also sure I will never buy one. I have nothing against Apple, I used an Apple desktop at work and it was a fine computer. It also was upgradable and was upgraded twice while it was assigned to me. This is the problem with the new MBP. Apple has gone out of their way to make sure the machine cannot be upgraded. Soldered in memory, proprietary SSD, glued in batteries, fused/welded/glued (whatever) monitor. You better get Applecare if you buy one because if anything goes wrong you basically need a new machine. I could forgive the monitor. In order to make it strong and thin I understand making it non-repairable. Just hope the backlight never has a problem. Non-upgradable memory doesn't make much sense to me and the worst is the glued in batteries. Anyone who has ever owned a laptop for at least three years knows batteries need to be replaced. How can a machine costing over $2199 be made "disposable"? Anyone else have any thoughts on this move by Apple?

Tar, feathers, congress. Some assembly required.

Re: Thoughts on the new Macbook Pro

For the most part I have to agree with you; to me though, the most egregious offenses are the RAM and HDD -- these two components have been upgradeable in just about every machine built since the dawn of personal computing (even if you have had to get a special type of RAM for your particular system in some cases), and Apple just took a dump on all its power users with this move.

I can almost forgive the battery; I'm sure that when your battery does go dead, you'll be able to take it into an Apple store and have them replace it for you for a reasonable (relative to Apple) cost.  They can often refurbish or recycle the batteries, so that may help keep the costs down.  Still, a user-replaceable battery would've ensured that users could obtain aftermarket batteries at a lower price (even though Apple insists they're inferior to Apple-branded batteries).

Re: Thoughts on the new Macbook Pro

Remember when the first MacBook Air came out it started near $1800. A lot of people were outraged that a less capable (but indeed, smaller) laptop could cost so much more than a regular MacBook. Now it starts in the $1000 range. 

I'm guessing the new Next Gen MacBook Pro will come down in price in a couple of years, and will be sold at the current MacBook Pro price points.

Re: Thoughts on the new Macbook Pro

FWIW, the $2199 is the base price for the Macbook Pro that has the retina display.  I believe the non-retina Macbook Pros are available starting at $1299 or something like that.

That being said, I'm not defending Apple's price points... I didn't drink the Apple Kool-Aid.  I had the original iPhone, I like what Apple does from a technology advancement standpoint, I just can't get behind the nature of their "closed/proprietary" decisions they constantly make.

I actually hadn't read about the new ones having soldered in memory, proprietary SSD and non-replaceable batteries, but I can't say I'm surprised to hear it.

I'll stick to my refurbished machines I pick up and run linux on.  I just need to figure out how to stop having a portion of my purchase go to M$ for the license that always comes with the PCs I buy.  I don't want to build machines anymore, which limits my ability to do that.

Linux Guy - Occasional Chumby Hacker

Re: Thoughts on the new Macbook Pro

It doesn't matter to me how low Apple cuts the prices on this thing... until I can pick it up for $50 on eBay or Craigslist, I have no intention or desire to touch it, due to its astounding -- and intentional -- lack of upgradeability.  I buy a system with the intent of being able to upgrade certain key components to get a higher return on my investment, and if I can't have that, then I won't be buying.

I know Apple has never been fond of user upgrades in the first place, but for those with the will, there's always been a way -- for example, I upgraded my brother-in-law's iMac to a 500GB hard drive after the stock 250GB drive tanked.  It took a little bit of fiddling and a torx screwdriver, but I was able to do it with off-the-shelf parts.  The new MacBook Pro will never have this upgradeability, especially with the soldered-in RAM.  If the users are lucky, some enterprising manufacturers will find a way to make a SSD that is compatible and can be swapped out, as well as perhaps the battery, if the glue can be peeled/pried off... but that's as good as it's ever going to get.

6 (edited by BoloMKXXVIII 2012-06-15 03:00:08)

Re: Thoughts on the new Macbook Pro

The price wasn't my first concern other than it makes the unit non-disposable. I just hope other manufacturers don't follow Apple's lead once they realise people will still purchase equipment even if it is totally locked down (Sony knows this aleady). One of the issues I didn't mention in the original post is the glue used to mount the battery covers the ribbon cable for the trackpad. Ifixit could not find a way to remove the batteries without ripping out the cable to the trackpad. At some point Apple will realize that someone will always sell a screwdriver that will fit their oddball screw heads. At that point I expect them to go to the same screw head design you see in public restrooms. The ones that can only be tightened.

Enough ranting. I am looking forward to a nice weekend. Taking my Dad to the gun range for Father's day.

Hope all you Fathers out there are absolutely spoiled this weekend.

Tar, feathers, congress. Some assembly required.

Re: Thoughts on the new Macbook Pro

BoloMKXXVIII wrote:

At some point Apple will realize that someone will always sell a screwdriver that will fit their oddball screw heads. At that point I expect them to go to the same screw head design you see in public restrooms. The ones that can only be tightened.

Guess what?  They make screwdrivers for those too!  (A pain in the arse to find though, and somewhat difficult to use)

BoloMKXXVIII wrote:

Enough ranting. I am looking forward to a nice weekend. Taking my Dad to the gun range for Father's day.

Hope all you Fathers out there are absolutely spoiled this weekend.

Enjoy your outing, and Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out here in Chumbyland!