alt Hacker NewsThis is such a better deal than I had growing up, Apple has to be taking a bath on these.
My high school required students to bring their own laptops to school when I started in 2010. Their shopping list suggested a MacBook Pro 13" with a case - I looked up "MacBook Pro price" for the first time in my life and just about walked into traffic. I didn't have a laptop to bring, I didn't want to bring the wrong kind of laptop and get double-screwed, so I bit the bullet and brought my car savings to the Apple store at the mall. A tremendously thoughtful sales rep told me "that's crazy, what school requires a MacBook Pro for 9th graders?", led me to the white unibody MacBooks on the side, and showed me that if I was buying it for school, I would get a discount on the laptop, a free inkjet printer (with ink!), and a free iPod Touch. This blew my mind. I thought it was a scam.
If I recall, that model of MacBook compared admirably against the same year's base model MacBook Pro 13 on a stat sheet but felt worse in hand. The MacBook Neo might actually bring up the rear on fit and finish at the expense of I/O and like, the questionable idea of running an A-series chip in a laptop running Tahoe and Chrome. I'm thrilled with this release.
Replies
> This is such a better deal than I had growing up, Apple has to be taking a bath on these.
Apple doesn't sell anything where they're taking a bath; their margins have been high 30's to low 40's for many years. All of the technology in the Neo already existed; they didn't have to create anything new.
> Apple has to be taking a bath on these.
Why? Lots of companies sell Windows Laptops for under $200 (a 1/3rd the price of this). Personally I'd expect Apple's costs to be lower. Plus, Apple gets services money (iCloud, AppleTV+, ...)
> My high school required students to bring their own laptops to school when I started in 2010. Their shopping list suggested
How could they make you buy your own laptops? What if you didn't have one? ... Was that a private school maybe?
Wow props to that sales rep. Not many would pass on the opportunity to sell something more expensive. I'm assuming they make some sort of (paltry) commission