When Apple first revealed their own processors for the Mac, I knew the countdown started. Soon, they’d release one for the MacBook Pro, and I wouldn’t be able to buy an Intel Mac again. So, I bought a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro in 2019, made to last me for many years. Intel i9 processor, 64GB of memory, 2TB of storage, and three years of AppleCare+ coverage. It was the best MacBook you could buy in 2019, and it cost me $4,299. If you wanted to buy the top of the line MacBook Pro today, it would run you $7,199. But, perhaps that’s not fair. After all, that comes with 8TB of storage and 128GB of memory. So let’s just make a modern MacBook Pro with the same specs as my 2019 MacBook Pro, but Apple’s processor instead of that Intel processor. It should be less, right? After all, lower costs was a reason Apple switched to their own processors. It’s totally going to be less, right?
An M3 Max with 64GB of memory, 2TB of storage, and the same three years of AppleCare+ coverage would run you $4,998 today.
That’s an extra $700 for the same 64GB of ram and 2TB of storage… four years later. Now, sure, inflation and whatnot, but it hasn’t gone up that much. Furthermore, memory and storage prices have gone down. 64GB of memory in 2019 should cost more than 64GB of memory in 2023. Exacerbating the issue, the M3 MacBook Pro starts with a pathetic amount of memory for 2023: 8GB. You can buy budget Android phones with 12GB of memory today. 8GB for a “Pro” MacBook is criminal on its own. The fact that they then overcharge for upgrades is just another assault on your wallet.
This is more than the Apple Tax, this is Apple assuming their customers are too ignorant to call them out.
We’re not.
Criminal Memory Pricing
Let’s say you want to buy the cheapest MacBook Pro right now. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M3 chip is $1,599. It comes with 8GB of memory. A Samsung Galaxy A54 will cost you just $450, and comes with that same 8GB of memory. Obviously there are significant performance and usability differences, but a “Pro” laptop should not have the same amount of memory as a mid-range budget Android phone.
Okay, so let’s make this MacBook Pro actually usable. I mean, if the memes are even remotely true, that’s about five Google Chrome tabs. To add just 8GB of memory to bring the laptop up to 16GB, you’ll have to drop a whopping $200. That memory likely costs Apple less than $20. I could buy 16GB of memory for less than that a decade ago. 16GB is an okay amount of memory for basic tasks, but the truth is, if you’re a “pro,” such as a software engineer, you should be working with 32GB of memory, minimum. I’ve noticed some thrashing at 32GB of memory as an Android developer, but let’s say it’s a safe enough bare minimum. Well, you can’t get that on the 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M3. The most you can get is 24GB, and that’ll run you another $200. $400 for an additional 16GB of memory that must cost Apple around $30.
But let’s build that dev machine. Let’s build that real pro rig with at least 64GB of memory. We upgrade to the M3 Pro. This starts with an odd amount of memory, 18GB. That’s reasonable, but not for $1,999. That’s an insane price tag for just 18GB of RAM. To get up to something that’s more usable, you’d have to drop $400, for 36GB of memory. Want to try to match my i9 MacBook Pro? Well, you’ll need a processor upgrade first, to the M3 Max. That will add $600. Then, you can get either 36GB of memory or, oddly enough, 96GB of memory… for $800 more. There’s no in-between! Apple blocks off more affordable choices. You either chose just barely enough but often a frustratingly small amount, or a ton (for a ton of money).
To match the performance you’d expect out of a “Pro” machine, you have to add a thousand dollars to Apple’s already expensive computers.
I really miss the days I could just buy a MacBook with minimal RAM and throw in my own that I bought from a company that didn’t want to rip me off. You can’t do that anymore. Apple locks you into their memory.
Mediocre Performance Upgrades
Now, the processors. When Apple first revealed the M1 processor, it seemed a huge leap over the Intel processors. However, Apple was using old Intel processors. They never fully upgraded the Intel chips in their laptops, likely for diminishing performance returns on their costs. The M1 Ultra doubled the chip to improve performance. The M2 also increased chip size for mediocre improvement. Now, the M3 has improved so little, you’d be better off buying an older M2 Max than a new M3 Pro in some situations. Apple actually reduced the number of performance cores in the M3 Pro, and it underperforms on benchmarks, barely beating the old processors and even losing out to the old M2 Pro in some benchmarks. Apple has started to see diminishing returns in their own performance, but the prices certainly don’t reflect that.
If you look online, you can find a number of reviewers to decided to skip the M3 Pro, buy an M3 Max, or even return their M3 Pro laptops when they saw it would offer little performance over the last generation. To this day, my old MacBook Pro with an old and mid-range GPU outperformed all but the best M2 Ultra chips in benchmarks. All because the Intel chip supported eGPUs, while the new ones do not. Apple tried to lock down performance in these devices so you could only upgrade them by going through Apple. Instead, they’ve just limited the performance potential of these machines.
And they have the nerve to charge you more for them.
It’s never cost more to get the maximum performance out of a Mac, and Apple’s fine with that.
Sources/References:
- Jason Cross, MacWorld
- Andrew Cunningham, Ars Technica
- Luke Larsen, Digital Trends
- Joe Rossignol, MacRumors
- Umar Shakir, The Verge