Apple announced it’s new line of MacBooks on Tuesday and with the announcement came the discussion of the “Apple Tax.”
For those who don’t know, the Apple Tax is what people in the tech industry call the premium that one pays in order to own an “Apple” product. Today I wanted to examine the “Apple Tax” a little bit and see how much it really is.
For this comparison I looked at 3 of the top Laptop brands; Dell, HP, and Toshiba. Each laptop has wireless N built in, and I comparable components in each. To see an the components chosen in the comparison, click the image below for a larger picture.
Some items are only available on the Apple system such as OS X Leopard and the new NVIDIA graphics processor. As well, Apple was the only manufacturer to offer DDR3 Ram which is faster than the DDR2 offered by the other manufacturers. A quick search finds that the premium for 2 GB of DDR 3 memory is $47.00 more than DDR2 memory, so in the final comparison $47.00 will be added to the Windows based machines. Cost information is unavailable for the new Graphics processor, so it will be left as an intangible, along with Apple’s proprietary aluminum body, glass trackpad, and glass screen.
Now, I’m an engineer, so… on to the math:
Apple’s MacBook Pro starts at $1,999 for the base 15.4 in model. This model was chosen for comparison because 15.4 in is a common size for laptops.
The nearest equivalent Dell priced out at $1,329; Toshiba at $1,429, and HP at $1,275.
Averaging the three out comes to approximately $1,344 and when you add in the $47.00 for the memory the total comes to $1,391.
Which means that consumers pay an average of 44% more for an Apple system than they do for a comparable Windows based machine.
Does this mean that Apple machines are worth 44% more than their Windows based counterparts? Well,that will depends on who you ask. Some would argue that they are worth much more than that while others would argue much less. Apple has industry leading graphics cards in their MacBook line, as well as the very popular and stable OS X. MacBooks are the only laptops that offer a multi-touch glass trackpad, and the only laptops on the market that have a base that is machined from a single piece of aluminum making them considerably stronger. Apple ups the anty with a glass screen for better picture. For those worried about durabilty of glass in a laptop, just look to the iPhone. Reports abound of people dropping their glass iPhones with little to no problems. Sure, some have broken, but that depends on how hard you are on them.
Overall, I would say that an Apple Tax does exist, but the 44% figure may be a bit misleading. In my interpretation, the “intangibles” place the value of the Apple machine so much higher that I would say the tax is more like 10% with the other 34% going to a higher quality product.
Standard Disclaimer: In my house is a Dell Inspiron E1505 that is approximately 2.5 years old and a MacBook that is slightly over 1 year old. The Dell is my primary laptop, my wife owns the Mac. Sometimes the ladies get to have all the fun!
Filed under: Hardware
