"The missing mid-range desktop Mac"

[hestermofet]

Workstation graphics cards are always more expensive. A single AMD Radeon Pro W6800 (the same GPU, except not in MPX format) currently retails for $2200 on Newegg. The MPX Module is $2800 as a standalone purchase.

Of course, nothing's stopping someone from buying a regular 6800XT at half the price and stuffing it in a Mac Pro either.

As far as I can tell, the W6900X and W6800X Duo are Apple-only parts. The W6900X and the Duos are priced against NVidia workstation cards, which are segmented to do things GeForce can't. But a GeForce can do a lot of things, especially the monster that is the 3090. If someone doesn't need the things that the RTX A8000 or A6000 can do (and don't look up the prices on those), then a 3090 is a real bargain even at inflated prices. Its performance is just that good, at the cost of noise and 400 watts.

Yeah you can’t make a direct comparison in terms of price, performance or pretty much anything between workstation graphics and gaming graphics. Still, the upgrade pricing for the Mac Pro is bonkers. When you go from one bracket to another, it’s like the part you upgraded from cost nothing, and you need to pay full price to upgrade.

But this isn’t anything new from Apple, and if you really need a workstation from Apple, you have no other choice, so people pay it.

 

[kefkafloyd]

A W6900X actually costs LESS than A8000, but I don't know where it stands in terms of apples-to-apples performance in workstation workloads.

I tend to compare Mac Pros against things like Puget Systems and Falcon Northwest, who are certainly not bargain basement. An RTX A6000 upgrade tacks on $4800 at Falcon, compared to $5400 for the W6900X (or $4400 for the 6800X Duo).

I'm used to procuring actual workstation boxes though, so the prices aren't that insane to me. Compared to gaming stuff? Yeah, it's bonkers. But I'm used to installing 20-core Xeon RIPs with 128GB of RAM and SSD arrays that cost $13K/pop two years ago. The Mac Pro even two years ago was competitive against those prices (it cost something like $14K). AMD changed the game of course, but our vendors would not spec out Epyc or even Threadripper.

But that's always been the argument, that server-class stuff is too spendy. I think the Mac Studio, at least, gets you that level of performance without having to pay the true workstation-level prices.

I don't think Apple is abandoning the $1800-$2800 27 inch iMac buyer, but they might have to wait six months or a year for the machine that really slots in to that bracket.

 

[ScifiGeek]

I don't think Apple is abandoning the $1800-$2800 27 inch iMac buyer, but they might have to wait six months or a year for the machine that really slots in to that bracket.

If they are using only Apple HW, so the 27" Studio display, then that $1800 buyer is abandoned.

Base 27" iMac was probably the best value in the Mac lineup, and thus the lowest margin, and thus gone.

The only way to get to that price, is with the Mac Mini, and a third party display.

 

[wrylachlan]

I don't think Apple is abandoning the $1800-$2800 27 inch iMac buyer, but they might have to wait six months or a year for the machine that really slots in to that bracket.

If they are using only Apple HW, so the 27" Studio display, then that $1800 buyer is abandoned.

Base 27" iMac was probably the best value in the Mac lineup, and thus the lowest margin, and thus gone.

It begs the question - what value did Apple see in serving that buyer previously, and what changed their mind?

What’s especially interesting, at least to me, is that with the Studio Display selling to a wide range of Mac users including laptop users they’ve likely substantially increased the number of panels they’re sourcing. That would have helped with 27” iMac margins had they chosen to continue that model.

Personally I think this is a tactic trial balloon of the Mac Studio + Studio Display concept. When the M2 generation rolls around we’re going to see the return of the 27” iMac as the primary iMac and the 24” iMac will stay in the lineup on M1 and move down market a bit as the SE model. Apples not going to go too long without a flagship iMac.

 

[kefkafloyd]

I don't think Apple is abandoning the $1800-$2800 27 inch iMac buyer, but they might have to wait six months or a year for the machine that really slots in to that bracket.

If they are using only Apple HW, so the 27" Studio display, then that $1800 buyer is abandoned.

Base 27" iMac was probably the best value in the Mac lineup, and thus the lowest margin, and thus gone.

The only way to get to that price, is with the Mac Mini, and a third party display.

If a machine comes in six months or a year that fills that gap, they haven't abandoned it.

 

[ScifiGeek]

I don't think Apple is abandoning the $1800-$2800 27 inch iMac buyer, but they might have to wait six months or a year for the machine that really slots in to that bracket.

If they are using only Apple HW, so the 27" Studio display, then that $1800 buyer is abandoned.

Base 27" iMac was probably the best value in the Mac lineup, and thus the lowest margin, and thus gone.

The only way to get to that price, is with the Mac Mini, and a third party display.

If a machine comes in six months or a year that fills that gap, they haven't abandoned it.

What machine are you expecting?

 

[Arasirsul]

So, no... Macs right now aren't priced similar to comparable Windows machines. Macs are cheaper.

The comparison between Mac and PC isn't to Windows on ARM because volume PC sales are not on ARM, they are on x64. So compare to similarly priced Intel and AMD machines.

...except those aren't anywhere near comparable. If I want similar performance to an M1-powered Mac, but with an Intel or AMD processor, I have to choose between constantly looking for power taps or scheduling regular chiropractic adjustments. I chose the HP Folio because it's at least trying to play in the same market.

Comparing a modern Mac to a mass-market Windows machine would be making all the same mistakes that folks made when they tried to compare low-end Windows machines to Macs to claim that Macs are more expensive.

Right now, you're absolutely right: Windows on ARM _for real_ (read: not a Chromebook with the wrong OS) is low-volume-- but that's exactly my point. That's why, right now, Macs are cheaper than comparable Windows machines.

As Dell and Lenovo finally get their ARMs out the door (and probably another generation or two of SoCs roll out the door at Qualcomm), we'll absolutely see some big differences, and my guess is we'll get back to the world we've always been in-- you'll have more options in the Windows world, and for a given _task_, Windows may be cheaper than Mac again, because there are a number of spaces Apple just doesn't play in. I expect that for a given level of hardware, they'll once again be in the same ballpark.

 

[ZnU]

The basic issue if you're trying to replicate the value of a 27" iMac is that the Studio Display is too expensive. There's no way for Apple to address this by introducing an additional model of headless Mac. It would have to be, like, an M1 Pro Mac mini for $200, which obviously isn't happening. So there's not going to be something cost-competitive unless they introduce another 27" iMac. (Or I guess do something completely out of left field like offer some crazy bundle deal for an M1 Pro mini + Studio Display.)

Except, I wonder if there isn't a good reason why they got rid of the 27" iMac, and why the Studio Display is so expensive. Surely when Apple settled on that form factor and resolution, they didn't expect — nobody expected — that the wider display market would still be stalled at 4K 7-8 years later. Perhaps the machine was such an unusually good value because it actually didn't have very good margins, because it was designed and priced anticipating cost reductions on 5K panels that never occurred, but Apple just suck with it because unit volume was low enough that it wasn't worth seriously restructuring the desktop lineup until there was another reason to do so (which, with Apple Silicon, there finally was).

 

[wickerbill]

I said this near the beginning of the the thread: the most compelling reason to own a desktop PC is access to a fast GPU, followed by things like memory, cooling, and CPU core count. The market Apple is targeting know they need these resources, and then accept that they need to get them from a desktop. We here in this thread know we want a desktop, and then decide what resources we'd like. Fast desktops are still a viable consumer market because of gamers and amateur/semi-professional/vanity content creators who are more than willing to spend c. $2000 on a nice rig. The Studio (I think) nicely captures this market as well as people who benefit financially from a faster computer.

The question of whether to get a desktop keeps shifting over time, and may be shifting again. First storage caught up, then processor and memory caught up, now it seems GPU may be catching up, but cooling is still a challenge.

I'm still not sure how I'm going to transition to AS from my two Intel machines, but the answer may be determined by acoustics. I've grown totally spoiled by the iMac Pro's refusal to spin up the fans unless I'm asking something truly outlandish. A M1 Max MBP with 64 GB RAM could do everything the iMac Pro does and do it a good deal faster, but I want to know whether it will be as quiet when driving multiple high-resolution displays. (My Intel 16" JetBook/desk cooker definitely is not.)

I don't push it real hard, but I have had a 16" MBP with the M1 Pro since November. When I'm working at home I have it hooked up to a CalDigit thunderbolt dock with the screen open and 2 27" dell 4K monitors. I have never heard the fans come on other than the one time I manually turned them on using iStat Menus so I could hear what they sounded like. I've been using my computer for about six hours so far today and my CPU temp is at 111 F and GPU cores are around 117 F. It's really pretty amazing compared to the 16" intel MBP I had before.

 

[Arasirsul]

I don't push it real hard, but I have had a 16" MBP with the M1 Pro since November. When I'm working at home I have it hooked up to a CalDigit thunderbolt dock with the screen open and 2 27" dell 4K monitors. I have never heard the fans come on other than the one time I manually turned them on using iStat Menus so I could hear what they sounded like. I've been using my computer for about six hours so far today and my CPU temp is at 111 F and GPU cores are around 117 F. It's really pretty amazing compared to the 16" intel MBP I had before.

Indeed-- just driving the displays is no trouble at all-- where my Thighroaster 16" spun up to leaf-blower mode just by firing up Zoom, I occasionally do that while driving two 4K monitors, the built-in, and AirPlay to a 4K AppleTV-powered display from my 14" MBP and TG Pro still claims "Fans Off".

I can get the fans to spin up, but it takes heavier GPU load than that-- firing up Civilization 6 in a Windows 11 Parallels window will do it, and after a few more minutes the fans get fast enough I can actually hear them... but even at 4500rpm or so, the machine fans have never been as loud as idling my Thighroaster 16" was.

 

[dal20402]

Indeed-- just driving the displays is no trouble at all-- where my Thighroaster 16" spun up to leaf-blower mode just by firing up Zoom, I occasionally do that while driving two 4K monitors, the built-in, and AirPlay to a 4K AppleTV-powered display from my 14" MBP and TG Pro still claims "Fans Off".

I can get the fans to spin up, but it takes heavier GPU load than that-- firing up Civilization 6 in a Windows 11 Parallels window will do it, and after a few more minutes the fans get fast enough I can actually hear them... but even at 4500rpm or so, the machine fans have never been as loud as idling my Thighroaster 16" was.

Thanks. Every report like this pushes me a touch closer to buying a M1 Max MBP to use both at and away from the desk. Apple seems to want me to do that rather than buying both a base M1 Pro MBP with 32 GB and the missing desktop that is the topic of this thread.

 

[hestermofet]

So, no... Macs right now aren't priced similar to comparable Windows machines. Macs are cheaper.

The comparison between Mac and PC isn't to Windows on ARM because volume PC sales are not on ARM, they are on x64. So compare to similarly priced Intel and AMD machines.

...except those aren't anywhere near comparable. If I want similar performance to an M1-powered Mac, but with an Intel or AMD processor, I have to choose between constantly looking for power taps or scheduling regular chiropractic adjustments. I chose the HP Folio because it's at least trying to play in the same market.

You are only looking at one aspect of performance and saying "this is the competing product". Windows on ARM runs programs way slower than x64, so no, it's not playing in the same market. It's playing in the same market as tablets, not laptops. If battery life is the aspect of performance that's important to you, ARM is an appropriate comparison. If computational performance is important, it's a poor comparison.

Comparing a modern Mac to a mass-market Windows machine would be making all the same mistakes that folks made when they tried to compare low-end Windows machines to Macs to claim that Macs are more expensive.

If you compare an M1 Mac to a PC that performs computationally similar, the Mac is not cheaper as you stated. It's comparable, or more expensive.

I don't think people (who are serious) compare Macs to a plastic fantastic machine like a Celeron powered HP Stream, and then declare "Macs are overpriced!". You would compare to something in the same category, like the HP Elitebook. There are Elitebooks in ultrabook form factors, so in a similar weight and size class to a MBP. And they have AMD Ryzen APUs, so can be just as fast, or faster. Battery life will be less. "Constantly looking for power taps" is a huge exaggeration though, these types of ultrabook machines can easily achieve 8 hours comfortably, which is a full work day.

with an Intel or AMD processor, I have to choose between constantly looking for power taps or scheduling regular chiropractic adjustments.

The type of Windows PC that is 7lb or more (I assume that's what you mean by needing to see a chiropractor, which I wouldn't recommend btw because it's not an evidence-based profession. I'd recommend a physiotherapist instead) typically is not designed to run for more than 2 hours on battery. It's not a choice of "battery life or lightweight", because in the PC world, lightweight PCs are optimized to run longer, heavy and bulky PCs are meant to be extremely powerful at the expense of battery. So it sounds like to me either you are very unfamiliar with the PC market, or are exaggerating greatly because you have an axe to grind against PCs.

Apple doesn't make machines that compete with 7lb+ Windows desktop replacement laptops.

The Folio is a poor comparison because it's a low volume niche product that doesn't compete in the same space. You buy one of those knowing there are a lot of compromises. For example, unlike with an M1 Mac, if you are buying a Snapdragon PC, you are under no illusions that you have full official support for legacy applications.

Comparing a modern Mac to a mass-market Windows machine would be making all the same mistakes

Nobody who is serious and not a troll does this. They compare to premium Windows machines, such as ultrabooks, because Macs are premium machines. Comparing to a niche low-volume category of machine to me sounds unserious. Would you compare the Mac Pro to an office productivity desktop tower designed for Word and Excel, and declare the Mac Pro is overpriced? If the only metric of performance I cared about was how much power was drawn from the wall, the Mac Pro sounds like an even worse value. No, the Mac Pro is a niche, low-volume machine so you would compare to a similar class of machine such as an HP Z Workstation.

Then why are you comparing a machine that sells in the millions to a class of machine that's probably selling in the low tens of thousands?

 

[hestermofet]

The basic issue if you're trying to replicate the value of a 27" iMac is that the Studio Display is too expensive. There's no way for Apple to address this by introducing an additional model of headless Mac. It would have to be, like, an M1 Pro Mac mini for $200, which obviously isn't happening. So there's not going to be something cost-competitive unless they introduce another 27" iMac. (Or I guess do something completely out of left field like offer some crazy bundle deal for an M1 Pro mini + Studio Display.)

Except, I wonder if there isn't a good reason why they got rid of the 27" iMac, and why the Studio Display is so expensive. Surely when Apple settled on that form factor and resolution, they didn't expect — nobody expected — that the wider display market would still be stalled at 4K 7-8 years later. Perhaps the machine was such an unusually good value because it actually didn't have very good margins, because it was designed and priced anticipating cost reductions on 5K panels that never occurred, but Apple just suck with it because unit volume was low enough that it wasn't worth seriously restructuring the desktop lineup until there was another reason to do so (which, with Apple Silicon, there finally was).

Part of the reason why the Studio Display is so expensive is because it has a smartphone-grade processor inside that doesn't seem to do very much. Seems like a dumb design decision, but if people will still pay that much just to have a display with an Apple logo on it instead of essentially the identical monitor for much cheaper, but with an LG logo, I guess it was a smart choice in the end.

 

[Mhorydyn]

Part of the reason why the Studio Display is so expensive is because it has a smartphone-grade processor inside that doesn't seem to do very much. Seems like a dumb design decision, but if people will still pay that much just to have a display with an Apple logo on it instead of essentially the identical monitor for much cheaper, but with an LG logo, I guess it was a smart choice in the end.

As noted many times, the LG is only 'essentially identical' in terms of the panel specs. That's a big part of a display for sure, but there's plenty more to consider as well. As for whether the A13 is a good decision...well, I would have bought the display for the same price without all that stuff, but I'm not sure how many others are in the same boat (I suspect most of us clamouring for an Apple display cheaper than an XDR really weren't holding out for an A13 included and also probably would have been fine if the extra features required an attached Apple Silicon-based Mac to enable).

 

[wicker_man]

What's somewhat disheartening is that Apple has spent the last 20 years introducing minimalism into everything and the iMac since its inception has been a tremendous value in terms of putting low mid-range to high mid-range components into a quality integrated package.

I get the voices of "what if PSU goes, I have to get rid of the perfect screen with it", but that's only if you don't want to replace the PSU/logic board, and let's face it, most will just sell the machine for parts and buy a new one.

However, the current proposition leaves no upgrade path to the 27" iMac owners who appreciate the integrated element of the product proposition and not needing extra dongles and wires running from the Studio/Mini box to the display.

There's also no good-looking mounting option for the Mini to tuck it away behind the new Studio Display, however since Mac Studio and Studio Display are positioned as an entry-level Pro products (above Mini and below Mac Pro, I still hope that iMac 27"/30" is still on the cards and is waiting for the bulk of Studio sales to finish before being introduced.

As such, the AIO gap doesn't even exist right now, because it's either 4K iMac or bust, and offering a non-integrated solution above that seems very un-Apple.

 

[Arasirsul]

You are only looking at one aspect of performance and saying "this is the competing product". Windows on ARM runs programs way slower than x64, so no, it's not playing in the same market. It's playing in the same market as tablets, not laptops. If battery life is the aspect of performance that's important to you, ARM is an appropriate comparison. If computational performance is important, it's a poor comparison.

No, I'm looking at three. That's why I brought up the power taps and the chiropractic adjustments. The Elite Folio uses a related processor technology and gets the other two axes fairly close.

You make a good argument, though, that technology similarity may not be as important as the fact that Windows for ARM isn't as well supported as it is on x86. Would the result be similar if we ignore "related processor technology"? I don't know, but you're gonna make me find out.

I don't think people (who are serious) compare Macs to a plastic fantastic machine like a Celeron powered HP Stream, and then declare "Macs are overpriced!".

That happens all the time. It's literally why people buy $500 Windows laptops. Some of them even have problems that can be solved on a $500 laptop just fine (more and more as technology marches on!), and they're even happy doing it.

You would compare to something in the same category, like the HP Elitebook. There are Elitebooks in ultrabook form factors, so in a similar weight and size class to a MBP. And they have AMD Ryzen APUs, so can be just as fast, or faster. Battery life will be less. "Constantly looking for power taps" is a huge exaggeration though, these types of ultrabook machines can easily achieve 8 hours comfortably, which is a full work day.

OK, let's pull on that thread. Let's play the x86 version of this game, and use your example: The Elitebooks are actually Mobile Ryzen parts, not AMD's APUs-- the 5700GE APU would be faster and more comparable with an M1 (not Pro, not Max) in performance, but they're 35-watt parts, so they don't go in small, light, battery efficient laptops.

The Ryzen 6000 parts look like they'll beat a base M1 in every category once they're shipping. They're not, though, so let's compare a Ryzen 5850U-powered EliteBook 835 (the most recent one HP's shipped). And you said MacBook Pro, so we'll compare with the 13" version that can have a base M1 under the hood and all the cooling it needs to keep the performance steady.

• Both have 13" screens.
• The MacBook Pro has better CPU performance-- geekbench shows single core scores around 1700 versus 1400, and multicore around 7600 vs 6700. If you're willing to run Linux on the HP, its multicore performance starts to hang with the Mac, and in a couple cases, even beats it.
• The MacBook Pro is slightly heavier, 3.0 lbs versus 2.8 lbs.
• The Elitebook 835 G8 actually starts with 16 GB of memory and 512GB of storage, compared with the MacBook Pro's 16GB and 256GB. That's also a win for the Elitebook! (Sort of. The Elitebook also ends at 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage...)
• I can't find anywhere where the same tests are done on both machines, but the MBP can get up to 20 hours of "video playback" battery life and HP claims up to 24 hours of battery life (no description of what you're doing). So OK, that's also a win for the Elitebook.
• The 13" screen on the Elitebook is 1080p, not Retina. Advantage to Apple here.

(As an aside at this point: you noted that I made a huge exaggeration about constantly looking for power taps. These are marketing numbers, so they need to be taken with a grain of salt, but they suggest I wasn't exaggerating-- I was flat wrong. My apologies.)

Anyhow, we can spend a few bucks and bump the Apple SSD size up to the Elitebook's levels. The Apple is a bit faster, but its main advantage is that it has a significantly better screen. The HP brings better battery life and weight, but its significant advantage is it has no goddamn touchbar. They really are, as you suggest, reasonably closely matched.

So let's look at pricing: The Elitebook costs $2059. The Macbook Pro, even after paying for Apple's ridiculously priced SSD upgrades to match the Elitebook, is $1399.

What's this? Even if we play by your rules, the Mac is still cheaper? By over six hundred bucks?!

Might be worth it to get rid of the touchbar.

 

[hestermofet]

I don't think people (who are serious) compare Macs to a plastic fantastic machine like a Celeron powered HP Stream, and then declare "Macs are overpriced!".

That happens all the time. It's literally why people buy $500 Windows laptops. Some of them even have problems that can be solved on a $500 laptop just fine (more and more as technology marches on!), and they're even happy doing it.

For people buying a $500, they are not also seriously considering a $1000+ MacBook. That would be like saying most people who buy Honda Civics also cross shop with Mercedes C Class when deciding what to buy, and the general opinion is that Mercedes' are overpriced. No, people actually shopping in that category (Mercedes, BMW, Audi) would not conclude that a Mercedes is especially overpriced.

Nope, that's not how people shop. They don't cross-shop budget laptops with premium laptops.

So let's look at pricing: The Elitebook costs $2059. The Macbook Pro, even after paying for Apple's ridiculously priced SSD upgrades to match the Elitebook, is $1399.

Anybody buying an Elitebook at retail is doing it wrong. These are usually sold B2B through an HP sales person, since they are business-grade laptops. This means massive discounts, increased support (stuff like 5 year NBD on-site, etc). Apple simply doesn't offer this sales model. I'm sorry I used the HP Elitebook as a comparison, you mentioned the HP Folio, and I'm simply not as familiar with HP as I am with other Windows vendor so I used the only line up I knew, their business line.

There are PC vendors who sell ultrabooks a lot cheaper at retail such as Asus, Acer, and even HP, Lenovo, and Dell. I just don't know what HP offers at retail in their consumer lineup.

 

[ant1pathy]

I don't think people (who are serious) compare Macs to a plastic fantastic machine like a Celeron powered HP Stream, and then declare "Macs are overpriced!". You would compare to something in the same category, like the HP Elitebook. There are Elitebooks in ultrabook form factors, so in a similar weight and size class to a MBP. And they have AMD Ryzen APUs, so can be just as fast, or faster. Battery life will be less. "Constantly looking for power taps" is a huge exaggeration though, these types of ultrabook machines can easily achieve 8 hours comfortably, which is a full work day.

One bit I'd like to gently push back on. I have one of these HP ultrabook class laptops for work. 8 hours is achievable if I do no Teams/Zoom calls and don't open Chrome (which is a reliable way to spin the fans up, as my laptop is doing as I type on it right now). One of the things the new ARM Macs offer is battery life without 8 asterisks below it.

 

[hestermofet]

I don't think people (who are serious) compare Macs to a plastic fantastic machine like a Celeron powered HP Stream, and then declare "Macs are overpriced!". You would compare to something in the same category, like the HP Elitebook. There are Elitebooks in ultrabook form factors, so in a similar weight and size class to a MBP. And they have AMD Ryzen APUs, so can be just as fast, or faster. Battery life will be less. "Constantly looking for power taps" is a huge exaggeration though, these types of ultrabook machines can easily achieve 8 hours comfortably, which is a full work day.

One bit I'd like to gently push back on. I have one of these HP ultrabook class laptops for work. 8 hours is achievable if I do no Teams/Zoom calls and don't open Chrome (which is a reliable way to spin the fans up, as my laptop is doing as I type on it right now). One of the things the new ARM Macs offer is battery life without 8 asterisks below it.

Agreed completely, I don't think anybody would really dispute that Apple's battery life right now is head and shoulders above the industry as a whole.

It just doesn't matter for some people though. I have an HP Elitebook ultrabook from work as well, and it stays plugged in to my HP Thunderbolt dock all day long, so I can get 3 monitors and use a proper desktop keyboard. I take it off the desk once in a while, for example, I was out of town last weekend so worked from the road on Thurs and Fri, but I didn't need 20 hours of battery life. What ended up happening is I sat at another desk other than my usual one, but it still had a power plug right next to it.

But for people who really do need 20 hours of battery, there's really no option other than a Mac unless you seriously want to compromise on computational power.

 

[ant1pathy]

It's not so much the 20 hours of battery that's needed, it's 8 hours of Actual Productivity rather than 8 hours of minimal usage to hit that number. When I was at the office I'd often be at my desk plugged in, but then we'd break off into a session or something where I'd be on a Teams call and screen sharing and Chrome open and an RDP session and and and... you get the idea. Can almost watch the battery meter drop in real-time.

 

[Arasirsul]

There are PC vendors who sell ultrabooks a lot cheaper at retail such as Asus, Acer, and even HP, Lenovo, and Dell. I just don't know what HP offers at retail in their consumer lineup.

Part of the problem with the comparison right now is that those Ryzens appear to be hard to get your hands on-- HP advertises that Elitebook at $2,000, but they also have their Probook 635 for a much more competitive price... if you're willing to wait 'til August for the thing to ship. Lenovo doesn't appear to even offer a Ryzen 7 Mobile powered machine right now (might have missed one), Acer's has no "configure to order" so even though they're cheap, you're stuck with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, assuming the vendors who sell them still have any stock at all.

That Elitebook turned out to be a very similar device in some non-technological ways, too-- you can actually buy the damn thing! Unsurprisingly, when HP has the option, they're putting the processors they can get their hands on in the expensive models....

We're currently in a world where we've got COVID-affected logistics crises and other processor vendors are still catching up now that they've been served notice about performance-per-watt. I think once we get back to the regular world that things will level back out like they usually have, where a given level of technology costs the same-ish from Apple as it does from anyone else, and everyone will claim Apples are expensive because they simply don't play in low-end markets.

Right now, it's really kinda a nuts world, and it's been playing quite nicely in Apple's favor. Wonder if anyone will notice before the world gets back to usual.

 

[iljitsch]

But for people who really do need 20 hours of battery, there's really no option other than a Mac unless you seriously want to compromise on computational power.

20 hours of battery life is ridiculous. We used to get 2.5 hours back in the PowerPC days.

(I once flew to London and then back to Holland the next day with my 2013 MacBook Pro without taking my charger. When I got back home, it was still at 42%. And that's "only" 10 hour battery life.)

Stepping back: it's important to remember that we live in unusual times, where Apple has the advantage in cost, speed and speed/watt. Now of course Apple managed to hire some of the best silicon designers in the business some time ago and that pays off. They also managed to get ahead of the queue at the TSMC foundries, and that pays off much, much more.

This is not going to last. TSMC is happy to take extra money from Apple to let Apple be first at their new node size, but they're not going to give Apple an exclusive. Intel may have had trouble for a long time, but I'd say it's a better than 50/50 bet that they are going to catch up to a large degree.

And who needs extra CPU speed, anyway? Whenever my computer is slow, it's rarely because it doesn't have enough CPU cycles. It's usually because of software limitations. I remember an AI researcher saying "I'd prefer to run the latest algorithms on old hardware rather than old algorithms on the latest hardware".

And it's exactly keeping software at the state of the art that has been Apple's biggest struggle the past decade or so. They can do amazing things when they invest the resources, but it's obvious they don't have the resources to do amazing things, or sometimes even just plain "things" across the board.

 

[ZnU]

Part of the reason why the Studio Display is so expensive is because it has a smartphone-grade processor inside that doesn't seem to do very much. Seems like a dumb design decision, but if people will still pay that much just to have a display with an Apple logo on it instead of essentially the identical monitor for much cheaper, but with an LG logo, I guess it was a smart choice in the end.

An A13 is probably < $40 on Apple's bill of materials. Given likely unit volume, it's probably cheaper to include that than to use a custom part. That plus the fancy camera and speakers are probably < $150. As a cross-check, we've got the LG 5K display, which hasn't got any of these things and is only $300 cheaper. Meanwhile, the Studio Display would have to be something like $799 — half the price — for a display + a decently spec'd mini to come in at $1799, the price of the last base model 27" iMac.

So, it does seem somewhat plausible that what happened here is that the industry decided 5K displays are a high-end specialty item, and Apple's decision not to offer one at a consumer price point is downstream from that.

 

[hestermofet]

Part of the reason why the Studio Display is so expensive is because it has a smartphone-grade processor inside that doesn't seem to do very much. Seems like a dumb design decision, but if people will still pay that much just to have a display with an Apple logo on it instead of essentially the identical monitor for much cheaper, but with an LG logo, I guess it was a smart choice in the end.

An A13 is probably < $40 on Apple's bill of materials. Given likely unit volume, it's probably cheaper to include that than to use a custom part.

$40 is A LOT for a single chip in what is typically a dumb display. It doesn't seem to do much: it doesn't provide added end-user functionality by running TV OS, it doesn't do FSAA on the image or anything unique like that to increase image quality, it doesn't upscale, it basically seems to... run the webcam and allow the attached Mac to do things like control the brightness over the display connector. All of this could have easily been handled with an off the shelf chip that probably costs under $3, so cheaper by a factor of ~13.

Maybe Apple has future plans for it, but right now it seems like a frivolous added expense for consumers that doesn't provide them much extra utility but increases cost.

Meanwhile, the Studio Display would have to be something like $799 — half the price — for a display + a decently spec'd mini to come in at $1799, the price of the last base model 27" iMac.

Yeah, I think it's been hard to compare the iMac 27" to other devices because of the included screen. It was actually surprisingly good value, if a built-in screen of that size and resolution was something you wanted. Other people in this thread are pointing out that the 27" was probably one of Apple's lowest margin Macs, so you are right, it would take quite a lot to create a similar setup at the same price. I don't really think it can be done.

But that's the nice thing about a headless desktop, you're not forced to create the exact same equivalent configuration as an AIO. You can step down to a smaller, similarly high DPI screen for less, or a bigger screen if that's something you needed. Or the same sized screen at a lower DPI. Which is probably fine for most people.

So, it does seem somewhat plausible that what happened here is that the industry decided 5K displays are a high-end specialty item

Yep, there's no commercial content at that resolution, so its only utility is for desktop productivity. I think the general consumer is probably happy with the DPI of 4K@27". If that wasn't enough, we'd see more 5K screens at that size.

 

[Chris FOM]

Since the transition to AS Apple has been absolutely consistent in their BTO pricing. the same upgrade is the same price no matter what machine it’s in. That goes for processor, RAM, and SSDs. For storage it even extends to the iPhones and iPads; going from one storage tier to another is the exact same price whether you’re dealing with an iPhone or a Mac Studio. So the problem is if you use the current prices to walk a Mac Studio down to a base M1 Pro with 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD, you get the same $1100 price that an M1 mini with 16 GB RAM and 512 storage costs. So while an M1 Pro is the obvious choice and basically free for Apple to make (although it would obviously cannibitalize some Studio sales) you can’t stick one in the current mini and have the math work out. But it’s such an obvious hole in the lineup that I have to imagine that they’ll look to fill it. They’ve just got to get the price of the mini down first.

With only the first generation available, the way they differentiate is a very limited number of SoC parts, RAM and storage. Once the M2 generation becomes available they have the option of maintaining prior generation products in the line up to hold down entry price points and that will mean a greater number of total SoCs in the lineup to create differentiation. So it’s not clear to me that the existing totally consistent upgrade pricing will continue indefinitely. I could see a bit of compression.

I'm not following you here at all. Apple's already got a pretty good spread of specs and prices covered. On top of that keeping old chips around has in the past only been used with older models to lower the entry-level price. The problem here though isn't missing lower prices but the $900 hole between a topped-out mini and a base model Studio, compounded by the fact that scaling the Studio down shows the mini to actually be too expensive. If you use old chips to cover low price points while holding the line on the M2 then that doesn't go away. It's also not resolved by a more variable upgrade pricing. The only options are to either leave things as they stand (which may well be what Apple chooses to do) or find some way to cut the price of the mini so that it can scale up to fill that hole while not looking like a terrible deal in the process. But there's no way to use old M1 designs while the new hotness moves to the M2 to get that particular job done.

 

[OSB]

$40 is A LOT for a single chip in what is typically a dumb display. It doesn't seem to do much: it doesn't provide added end-user functionality by running TV OS, it doesn't do FSAA on the image or anything unique like that to increase image quality, it doesn't upscale, it basically seems to... run the webcam and allow the attached Mac to do things like control the brightness over the display connector. All of this could have easily been handled with an off the shelf chip that probably costs under $3, so cheaper by a factor of ~13.

Maybe Apple has future plans for it, but right now it seems like a frivolous added expense for consumers that doesn't provide them much extra utility but increases cost.

It runs Centre Stage, Spatial Audio and Hey Siri, does it not? Isn't that why these features works on Intel Macs attached to the Display? Considering that these are already written for iOS, doing it any other way would mean either backporting them to Intel macOS or bifurcating the experience. If Apple happen to have a bunch of A13s lying about, or a sufficiently smooth production process to make more, then the "full stack" cost may be cheaper, or at least "less uncheap."

 

[hestermofet]

$40 is A LOT for a single chip in what is typically a dumb display. It doesn't seem to do much: it doesn't provide added end-user functionality by running TV OS, it doesn't do FSAA on the image or anything unique like that to increase image quality, it doesn't upscale, it basically seems to... run the webcam and allow the attached Mac to do things like control the brightness over the display connector. All of this could have easily been handled with an off the shelf chip that probably costs under $3, so cheaper by a factor of ~13.

Maybe Apple has future plans for it, but right now it seems like a frivolous added expense for consumers that doesn't provide them much extra utility but increases cost.

It runs Centre Stage, Spatial Audio and Hey Siri, does it not? Isn't that why these features works on Intel Macs attached to the Display? Considering that these are already written for iOS, doing it any other way would mean either backporting them to Intel macOS or bifurcating the experience. If Apple happen to have a bunch of A13s lying about, or a sufficiently smooth production process to make more, then the "full stack" cost may be cheaper, or at least "less uncheap."

Spatial Audio is already supported on Intel MBPs from 2018.
https://www.whathifi.com/us/advice/what ... tial-audio

Maybe it runs on the A-series chip that's running the Touch Bar, I dunno, but earlier Touch Bar Macs don't support Spatial Audio.

A $50 Amazon Fire tablet supports Alexa, I don't think you need a (purely hypothetical pricing) $40 SoC for that. And again, that's a feature that Intel Macs have supported for a very long time. I think right now, Apple is probably not building in special hardware features just to support a dead-end platform. Investment in keeping Intel Macs at feature parity with M1 Macs is probably minimal.

Centre Stage sounds pretty complex, but again, why are you running that on your display, and not on your laptop/desktop? If the webcam in the display is just a standard UVC camera, any software can get the raw stream and do whatever processing it wants to it, including puppy filters and the like a la Snapchat. Any Intel CPU can handily process video to achieve a similar effect. It's just face detection, really, which my Sony point and shoot camera supports, probably via a cheap off-the-shelf ASIC. My Pentax p&s from 10 years ago had face detection too, but it's not that great. By Sony's face detection is very competitive with a smartphone.

The novel thing about Center Stage is the automatic cropping and zooming to keep the detected face in frame, but that's way less computationally intense than detecting the face in the first place.

 

[OSB]

$40 is A LOT for a single chip in what is typically a dumb display. It doesn't seem to do much: it doesn't provide added end-user functionality by running TV OS, it doesn't do FSAA on the image or anything unique like that to increase image quality, it doesn't upscale, it basically seems to... run the webcam and allow the attached Mac to do things like control the brightness over the display connector. All of this could have easily been handled with an off the shelf chip that probably costs under $3, so cheaper by a factor of ~13.

Maybe Apple has future plans for it, but right now it seems like a frivolous added expense for consumers that doesn't provide them much extra utility but increases cost.

It runs Centre Stage, Spatial Audio and Hey Siri, does it not? Isn't that why these features works on Intel Macs attached to the Display? Considering that these are already written for iOS, doing it any other way would mean either backporting them to Intel macOS or bifurcating the experience. If Apple happen to have a bunch of A13s lying about, or a sufficiently smooth production process to make more, then the "full stack" cost may be cheaper, or at least "less uncheap."

Spatial Audio is already supported on Intel MBPs from 2018.
https://www.whathifi.com/us/advice/what ... tial-audio

Maybe it runs on the A-series chip that's running the Touch Bar, I dunno, but earlier Touch Bar Macs don't support Spatial Audio.

A $50 Amazon Fire tablet supports Alexa, I don't think you need a (purely hypothetical pricing) $40 SoC for that. And again, that's a feature that Intel Macs have supported for a very long time. I think right now, Apple is probably not building in special hardware features just to support a dead-end platform. Investment in keeping Intel Macs at feature parity with M1 Macs is probably minimal.

Centre Stage sounds pretty complex, but again, why are you running that on your display, and not on your laptop/desktop? If the webcam in the display is just a standard UVC camera, any software can get the raw stream and do whatever processing it wants to it, including puppy filters and the like a la Snapchat. Any Intel CPU can handily process video to achieve a similar effect. It's just face detection, really, which my Sony point and shoot camera supports, probably via a cheap off-the-shelf ASIC. My Pentax p&s from 10 years ago had face detection too, but it's not that great. By Sony's face detection is very competitive with a smartphone.

The novel thing about Center Stage is the automatic cropping and zooming to keep the detected face in frame, but that's way less computationally intense than detecting the face in the first place.

No argument with any of that.

I think the point is, with the A13, you get all that "for free": no real additional work to build the features out for Intel Macs; an embedded system that's supportable through your existing software pipeline; no need to source anyone else's chip; and when have Apple *ever* had an issue passing the cost of a proprietary solution on to the consumer?

Hell, I bet if you visit (some_other_mac_forum) you'll see some Mac uses *bragging* about the fact there's an iPhone 11 inside their new monitor.

Edit: also, regardless of how Apple *could* have implemented Centre Stage, I was under the impression that they way they *had* implemented it, was through the Neural Engine ML cores.

 

[ZnU]

I think perhaps the only way to make mini pricing fully consistent would be to make M1 Pro (14-core GPU) the base processor in the mini — no more M1 in any mini at any current price point.

To illustrate, start with a mini configured as closely as you can get it to the $1999 Mac Studio. That's 16/512 + 10 GbE at $1199. The gap between the 14-core and 16-core variant of the M1 Pro (pricing here from the BTO options offered on the 14" MBP) is +$200. With M1 Pro they could offer a 32 GB RAM option, +$400. So a 32/512 M1 Pro (16-core GPU) machine w/ 10 GbE — that is, identical to the $1999 Mac Studio except for M1 Pro (16-core GPU) vs. M1 Max (24-core GPU) — would be $1799, $200 cheaper, exactly the expected price delta between those processors.

One could argue Apple should cut mini prices by $100 on top of this spec bump, even, as the Studio has more ports and a more serious cooling system and power supply, not just a better processor.

Maybe we're just running into Apple's fixed costs here. If all the non-hardware costs associated with making and selling a Mac are about the same for every unit sold, regardless of model, those things will make up a larger fraction of the purchase price on cheaper models, hence you'll get less actual hardware per dollar.

 

[iljitsch]

I think the general consumer is probably happy with the DPI of 4K@27". If that wasn't enough, we'd see more 5K screens at that size.

Looks like 4K vs 5K is no longer an issue for DisplayPort, so that is not the explanation.

However, sitting behind a 27" 4K monitor right now, I know that in theory 27" at 16x9 = 23.5" wide and 3840 / 23.5 = 163 PPI is still below the human eye's visual acuity, but in practice I never notice the pixels. So why go up to 5120 / 23.5 = 218 PPI, only to see the very many non-resizable parts of the MacOS UI shrink to sizes that I find too small?

Although I guess Apple has been addressing that issue by pumping up the size of their UI chrome to compensate. Now that would all be fine except of course that we don't automatically get higher res displays when the new MacOS drops, and that dreadful scaled default resolution on the laptops. Did they stop doing that now?

I did use a 4K 24" display for many years but the bump to 27" was nice because everything is the right size sitting just a bit further back. Hopefully I won't need to start wearing reading glasses behind my computer anytime soon...

 

[hestermofet]

However, sitting behind a 27" 4K monitor right now, I know that in theory 27" at 16x9 = 23.5" wide and 3840 / 23.5 = 163 PPI is still below the human eye's visual acuity, but in practice I never notice the pixels. So why go up to 5120 / 23.5 = 218 PPI, only to see the very many non-resizable parts of the MacOS UI shrink to sizes that I find too small?

I think the bottom line is that 99% of people can't even tell the difference between IPS and MVA/PVA, or 90% sRGB coverage vs DCI-P3, so why bother making a 5K panel when 4K is a resolution that is good enough for 99% of people? Unlike the other components that go into Macs (such as M1 chips), Apple is heavily reliant on what the rest of the industry is doing for the 27" panel that went in the iMac for economies of scale, so if nobody else is using 5K 27", Apple is stuck with a custom bespoke panel for just themselves, therefore, costs are way higher per panel than they would be for a 4K panel with the same dimensions.

I have a 27" Asus monitor at 4K. The whole thing cost less than $200. This is a very common size and resolution, so you can get monitors, forget about panels, for very cheap. 5K panels at 27" can't be as competitively priced, so no doubt Apple was taking a bit of a bath on margins, which may explain why the Studio Display is so expensive. It probably reflects real costs for such a screen, whereas the 27" panel in the iMac might have been subsidized a bit to give middle range buyers an entryway into the Mac ecosystem.

 

[iljitsch]

90% sRGB coverage vs DCI-P3

(of people can't tell the difference) Well, obviously. The difference are quite subtle, and as the human eye adapts its sensitivity to the environment, perceived color saturation is quite variable. So you're only going to see the difference side-by-side, and only when the P3 colors are well outside the sRGB gamut. So no surprises there.

so why bother making a 5K panel when 4K is a resolution that is good enough for 99% of people?

As with everything in business: to make more money. (Well, there is looking good and saving face, but they don't seem to apply here.) So apparently not enough people are willing to pay enough more to make it worth the trouble to produce these displays.

Unlike the other components that go into Macs (such as M1 chips), Apple is heavily reliant on what the rest of the industry is doing for the 27" panel that went in the iMac for economies of scale, so if nobody else is using 5K 27", Apple is stuck with a custom bespoke panel for just themselves, therefore, costs are way higher per panel than they would be for a 4K panel with the same dimensions.

I find it hard to believe that the panel would be so much more expensive at 5K. Remember, Apple has been selling 5K iMacs for 8 years so if they could make the numbers work back in 2014, then for sure that shouldn't be a problem in 2022. Not entirely sure how LCD screens are made, but I assume it's some kind of lithographic process not exactly at cutting edge scales, so 5K vs 4K for the same size doesn't seem like something that would make a huge difference. Sure, slightly beefier electronics, but like I said, DisplayPort has long since caught up. A 5K display at 60 Hz requires a little under the bandwidth needed for 4K at 120 Hz.

I have a 27" Asus monitor at 4K. The whole thing cost less than $200. This is a very common size and resolution, so you can get monitors, forget about panels, for very cheap. 5K panels at 27" can't be as competitively priced, so no doubt Apple was taking a bit of a bath on margins, which may explain why the Studio Display is so expensive. It probably reflects real costs for such a screen, whereas the 27" panel in the iMac might have been subsidized a bit to give middle range buyers an entryway into the Mac ecosystem.

Sure, the 5K iMacs may have had reduced margins, but only relative to Apple's usual standards; they are definitely not in the business of selling loss leaders, and that 8 years does a lot to reduce component costs. Of course relative to that Asus the Studio Display was always going to be way more expensive. And actually the HP 27" 4K monitor I got two years ago was more than three times as much. Add to that the extra cost for a webcam, microphone and speakers and you're starting to reach half the price of a Studio Display... (Be it with much, much better camera quality and a bunch of extra inputs.)

Also, note how Apple uses 4.5K displays for their new 24" iMacs. If 5K is unusual, 4480 x 2520 is unheard of. But apparently Apple had no issues going to that strange resolution to hit 218 PPI. Interestingly, that's exactly the PPI of the 27" 5K displays, which suggests that LCDs are produced at a fixed PPI and then cut to various sizes.

 

[wrylachlan]

Surely when Apple settled on that form factor and resolution, they didn't expect — nobody expected — that the wider display market would still be stalled at 4K 7-8 years later. Perhaps the machine was such an unusually good value because it actually didn't have very good margins, because it was designed and priced anticipating cost reductions on 5K panels that never occurred, but Apple just suck with it because unit volume was low enough that it wasn't worth seriously restructuring the desktop lineup until there was another reason to do so (which, with Apple Silicon, there finally was).

Apple doesn’t price for expected future costs - they price based on current costs and when costs drop in the future they add features. I very much doubt that the 27” iMac was low margin. But you likely are right that the cost of those panels didn’t drop as much as Apple anticipated.

Margins on the PC side of the monitor market are largely driven by gamers whose values don’t line up with 5K great color fidelity. Gamers want high frame rates, low latency and only when those are in place they want the highest resolution their GPU can drive those high frame rates at. There’s also been a trend towards extremely widescreen and slightly curved as a high end office monitor - but like gaming values this doesn’t line up at all with the values of Apple’s customers and who can’t use curved screens for video and other creative uses.

It’s a divergence between Apple’s target market values and the wider market that has make 5K niche. And being niche means low volume which in turn means you never see the price drops that come with higher volume manufacturing.

I keep thinking that displays is really the next area that Apple needs to think about bringing in house to some degree. And we’ve seen them invest in microLED so we now they’re at least dabbling.

 

[karolus]

Surely when Apple settled on that form factor and resolution, they didn't expect — nobody expected — that the wider display market would still be stalled at 4K 7-8 years later. Perhaps the machine was such an unusually good value because it actually didn't have very good margins, because it was designed and priced anticipating cost reductions on 5K panels that never occurred, but Apple just suck with it because unit volume was low enough that it wasn't worth seriously restructuring the desktop lineup until there was another reason to do so (which, with Apple Silicon, there finally was).

Apple doesn’t price for expected future costs - they price based on current costs and when costs drop in the future they add features. I very much doubt that the 27” iMac was low margin. But you likely are right that the cost of those panels didn’t drop as much as Apple anticipated.

Margins on the PC side of the monitor market are largely driven by gamers whose values don’t line up with 5K great color fidelity. Gamers want high frame rates, low latency and only when those are in place they want the highest resolution their GPU can drive those high frame rates at. There’s also been a trend towards extremely widescreen and slightly curved as a high end office monitor - but like gaming values this doesn’t line up at all with the values of Apple’s customers and who can’t use curved screens for video and other creative uses.

It’s a divergence between Apple’s target market values and the wider market that has make 5K niche. And being niche means low volume which in turn means you never see the price drops that come with higher volume manufacturing.

I keep thinking that displays is really the next area that Apple needs to think about bringing in house to some degree. And we’ve seen them invest in microLED so we now they’re at least dabbling.

Due to this, can't help but get the sense the Studio Display is a sort of stopgap filler. With miniLEDs in iPads and MacBook Pros (not to mention ProMotion), it would only seem natural that this technology would migrate to standalone monitors. Perhaps this situation is a reflection of the reality of current supply chain constraints.

 

[dal20402]

Looks like 4K vs 5K is no longer an issue for DisplayPort, so that is not the explanation.

However, sitting behind a 27" 4K monitor right now, I know that in theory 27" at 16x9 = 23.5" wide and 3840 / 23.5 = 163 PPI is still below the human eye's visual acuity, but in practice I never notice the pixels. So why go up to 5120 / 23.5 = 218 PPI, only to see the very many non-resizable parts of the MacOS UI shrink to sizes that I find too small?

I have 2x 27" 4K at work and 3x 27" 5K at home. I find the difference extremely noticeable, and I can use the 5K monitors effectively at higher scaled resolutions than the 4K ones. 4K scaled is fine but it doesn't have that clean sharp look about it and I wouldn't want to use it for picky design work as much.

Although I guess Apple has been addressing that issue by pumping up the size of their UI chrome to compensate. Now that would all be fine except of course that we don't automatically get higher res displays when the new MacOS drops, and that dreadful scaled default resolution on the laptops. Did they stop doing that now?

The new 14" and 16" MBP have migrated to ~250 dpi panels and run them at native 2x HiDPI resolution by default. After having taken some macro pictures, though, I want to emphasize just how good Apple's scaling algorithm is at 200+ dpi - even blown up to "very big" size, it's hard to tell a difference in sharpness between shape edges at native resolution and shape edges in higher scaled resolutions.

 

[iljitsch]

I have 2x 27" 4K at work and 3x 27" 5K at home. I find the difference extremely noticeable, and I can use the 5K monitors effectively at higher scaled resolutions than the 4K ones. 4K scaled is fine but it doesn't have that clean sharp look about it and I wouldn't want to use it for picky design work as much.

Using a monitor in a non-native resolution is an abomination. I would like to say that would never have happened if Steve were still alive, but then again...

The thing is that the content you're working with scales just fine. The letters on my native 4K screen are very nice and sharp. Would I be able to tell the difference if I ran that display at a fake 5K resolution, scaled back to 4K, with a 33% larger point size? Probably not most of the time.

But it's a crime against something important (not quite humanity, but getting there) to do more work to make the content more blurry just because Apple hasn't bothered to figure out how to scale the UI chrome a decade and a half in.

A more reasonable, but still quite lazy, solution would be to display the content at a native resolution and scale just the UI chrome as needed.

 

[Chris FOM]

I think perhaps the only way to make mini pricing fully consistent would be to make M1 Pro (14-core GPU) the base processor in the mini — no more M1 in any mini at any current price point.

To illustrate, start with a mini configured as closely as you can get it to the $1999 Mac Studio. That's 16/512 + 10 GbE at $1199. The gap between the 14-core and 16-core variant of the M1 Pro (pricing here from the BTO options offered on the 14" MBP) is +$200. With M1 Pro they could offer a 32 GB RAM option, +$400. So a 32/512 M1 Pro (16-core GPU) machine w/ 10 GbE — that is, identical to the $1999 Mac Studio except for M1 Pro (16-core GPU) vs. M1 Max (24-core GPU) — would be $1799, $200 cheaper, exactly the expected price delta between those processors.

One could argue Apple should cut mini prices by $100 on top of this spec bump, even, as the Studio has more ports and a more serious cooling system and power supply, not just a better processor.

Maybe we're just running into Apple's fixed costs here. If all the non-hardware costs associated with making and selling a Mac are about the same for every unit sold, regardless of model, those things will make up a larger fraction of the purchase price on cheaper models, hence you'll get less actual hardware per dollar.

Basically the exact same math I came up with, right up to factoring in the lowering margins you get with a less expensive model. Another observation that might or might not be relevant to anything is that no M1 Mac has an available alternative. The 14/16" MBP has the M1 Pro and Max while the studio has the Max and Ultra, but every M1 design only has the M1. That's true even though there are two models where an M1 Pro would be an obvious choice and fill holes in the current lineup (the mini and the 24" iMac). We know the M1 Pro/Max/Ultra are closely related (the Pro is a Max with the bottom 40% chopped off and the Ultra is 2 Maxes taped together) while the M1 is a much more distinct chip, so I wonder if there's something in the current design that makes it more difficult to include both chips in one model.

 

[dal20402]

Using a monitor in a non-native resolution is an abomination. I would like to say that would never have happened if Steve were still alive, but then again...

The thing is that the content you're working with scales just fine. The letters on my native 4K screen are very nice and sharp. Would I be able to tell the difference if I ran that display at a fake 5K resolution, scaled back to 4K, with a 33% larger point size? Probably not most of the time.

But it's a crime against something important (not quite humanity, but getting there) to do more work to make the content more blurry just because Apple hasn't bothered to figure out how to scale the UI chrome a decade and a half in.

Shrug. Show me the measurable effects. When I can literally take macro pictures of a tiny area of the screen running at native 2560x1440 HiDPI and scaled "looks like 3008x1692 HiDPI," and I can't tell which is native unless I already know, I just don't really care if the solution is theoretically less elegant. I *can* tell the difference if I'm running a scaled resolution lower than the native resolution, but not higher.

I love the fact that I can scale the entire interface completely seamlessly. Windows largely uses the approach you would prefer (scaling each interface element), and it doesn't work nearly as well.

A more reasonable, but still quite lazy, solution would be to display the content at a native resolution and scale just the UI chrome as needed.

I'd be very curious to see A/B testing with this approach and see how many users could tell the difference, even at the desktops' 218 ppi, but especially at the notebooks' 254 ppi.

 

[japtor]

I have 2x 27" 4K at work and 3x 27" 5K at home. I find the difference extremely noticeable, and I can use the 5K monitors effectively at higher scaled resolutions than the 4K ones. 4K scaled is fine but it doesn't have that clean sharp look about it and I wouldn't want to use it for picky design work as much.

Using a monitor in a non-native resolution is an abomination. I would like to say that would never have happened if Steve were still alive, but then again...

The thing is that the content you're working with scales just fine. The letters on my native 4K screen are very nice and sharp. Would I be able to tell the difference if I ran that display at a fake 5K resolution, scaled back to 4K, with a 33% larger point size? Probably not most of the time.

But it's a crime against something important (not quite humanity, but getting there) to do more work to make the content more blurry just because Apple hasn't bothered to figure out how to scale the UI chrome a decade and a half in.

Pretty sure this discussion has come up a few times now, your disdain for scaled resolutions is memorable...I think particularly cause your opposition is more about principle than anything else, right? I mean I know there's real costs to it and all, but in practice if it's high enough density that you can't even tell if something is scaled, does it really matter? At a certain point it feels like old man yells at cloud territory.

A more reasonable, but still quite lazy, solution would be to display the content at a native resolution and scale just the UI chrome as needed.

I vaguely remember this being possible (from the app dev side of things)

 

[Deleted member 397475]

..maybe i'm not reading / understanding this correctly but it seems some people have never actually sat behind a 5K retina screen & seen non-scaled content in pro applications.. offering free valuable screen real estate?

Retina literally makes me money.