It is wiser to buy a $ 1,000 Apple iPhone than a $ 1,000 Apple MacBook



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It is quite common for Apple's new iPhones to have an unconventional impact on the rest of the smartphone market. The standard multitouch screens of the original iPhone; the iPhone 7 has accelerated the premature disappearance of the headphone jack.

With last year's iPhone X, Apple made two big jumps, both with dubious results: first, it popularized the fearsome "screen" of the camera at the top of a screen elsewhere for their own devices.

Second, and much more disturbing to many, the success of the iPhone X has standardized a price of $ 1,000 for a smartphone – a price that Apple seems to have committed to, given that the iPhone XS that has just been unveiled will start at exactly the same price. the larger iPhone XS Max will be even more expensive, at $ 1,099.

I agree this is not awesome that smartphones are getting so expensive. Honestly, though, right now, I'd rather pay $ 1,000 for an upscale Apple iPhone than for the $ 1,000 Apple MacBook – or, frankly, any other laptop. (But especially at Apple.)

As my former colleague Steve Kovach pointed out at the announcement of the iPhone X, it is almost always wise to buy the most powerful phone you can afford. Given the time that most of us spend with our smartphones every day, every day, you may regret your choice.

And, honestly, the iPhone X (and its future successor, the iPhone XS) are well worth the value of this money. The camera is great, the life of the battery is very good and its OLED screen is more powerful than that of its predecessors.

The PC becomes less relevant each year

Meanwhile, I can not say that I feel so good with Apple's MacBooks.

This is not necessarily a referendum on Apple's industrial design, its software or the power of its hardware. It's just that, unless you're a gamer, a creative professional or a powerful user, the excuses to buy an expensive laptop disappear.

As smartphones become more and more efficient, with screens increasingly large, there is less and less to do with them. A sufficiently dedicated student could (and probably) hit a 10-page paper on an iPhone keyboard, and games like "Fortnite" show that the smartphone is becoming almost comparable to gaming consoles and dedicated PCs.

And if you really need a bigger screen, tablets, which are often cheaper and almost always offer superior portability and autonomy, also improve. The iPad Pro can not replace a laptop for the very powerful users, but each new version is getting closer to that dream. The $ 400 Microsoft Surface Go Tablet / Laptop Hybrid is not as powerful as a more expensive device, but it runs the full range of Windows 10 software.

Feng Li / Getty Images

Finally, for those cases where you really need a laptop, for whatever reason, it's harder to justify paying the "Apple tax"; the premium you pay to get a laptop or Apple desktop, no matter the specifications.

The more time we spend on our phones, the less we pay attention to our computers – which is at least one of the main reasons why computer sales are in a slow and steady decline. In the same way, this trend can only accelerate: as smartphones become more and more efficient, there is less and less reason to open them.

At the same time, Windows PCs have generally worked very well. even the cheapest. If you are not absolutely attached to the Apple brand or ecosystem, it is more reasonable than ever to get a less expensive Windows 10 machine. Even if the specifications are lower, hey, you probably only use it a few times a week.

All this to say that Apple has made a very compelling argument for why we should remove $ 1,000 for a phone. It is the only thing without which we can not live, and for many, it is both important and necessary to have one that is powerful and super capable. The problem is that it does not have, and can not, put enough emphasis on why most people need their most powerful laptops.

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