A MyBroadband analysis revealed that an all-Apple setup costs more than comparable alternatives from other manufacturers in South Africa. The study compared mid-range and ultra-high-end setups, finding a price difference of approximately R2,300 and R4,400 respectively.
Buying a mid-range all-Apple setup is roughly R2,300 more expensive than opting for alternatives from other manufacturers, a MyBroadband analysis has shown. Those with the budget for an ultra-high-end all-Apple setup will spend nearly R140,000 for the best Apple products available in South Africa, roughly R4,400 more than opting for ultra-high-end alternatives.
MyBroadband compared the cost of going all-Apple to the most comparable alternatives in terms of specifications across two tiers: mid-range and ultra-high-end. Apple’s mid-range gear totalled just under R46,000, while the ultra-high-end setup came in at R139,896. The alternative setups each feature a Windows-Intel (Wintel) laptop, Samsung smartphone, Garmin smartwatch, and headphones or earbuds comparable to the audio device chosen for the Apple setup. The alternative mid-range setup costs R43,496, including a 15-inch Lenovo LOQ laptop, Samsung’s Galaxy S24 FE, Garmin’s Forerunner 55 watch, and Sennheiser Momentum 3 TWS earbuds. The laptop costs R20,999 and features an Intel Core 17-13650HX CPU, 16GB of DDR5 memory, a 1TB NVMe SSD, and an RTX 4060 graphics card with 8GB of video memory. In comparison, the Apple laptop we chose is the 13-inch MacBook Air, which has the company’s in-house M3 processor, a 256GB SSD, and 8GB of unified memory. Regarding smartphone choice, Apple’s only mid-ranger is the iPhone SE 2022, which costs R13,499 for the 128GB storage configuration. We chose Samsung’s R14,999 Galaxy S24 FE 128GB as the alternative. While the Samsung device is more expensive, it is far newer. Samsung released it in September 2024. For reference, Apple released the latest iPhone SE available in South Africa in March 2022. Apple also sells an SE version of the Apple Watch. We opted for the 40mm variant with GPS and cellular connectivity, which iStore sells for R7,399. Regarding the earbud choices, we chose Sennheiser’s Momentum 3 TWS earbuds as the alternative to the AirPods 4 we chose for the all-Apple setup. The Sennheiser earbuds are R100 more expensive at R2,999. The difference in price between all Apple high-end products and comparable alternatives is slightly more noticeable at R4,400. The Apple setup costs R139,896, while the alternative totals R135,496. The laptop contributes the most to the respective totals for both setups. On the Apple side, we chose Apple’s 14-inch MacBook Pro, and the configuration we selected cost R70,499 at iStore. We selected MSI’s 17-inch CreatorPro Z17 laptop as the alternative. For R64,999, it packs an Intel Core i7-13700HX processor, a 2TB SSD, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and an RTX 2000 graphics card with 8GB of video memory. The choice of smartphone was pretty straightforward. We opted for the iPhone 16 Pro Max on the Apple side and Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra as the alternative. For a fair comparison, we selected the 512GB configuration for the iPhone — the maximum internal storage offered with the Galaxy S24 Ultra in South Africa. The alternative smartwatch was also more expensive than the high-end Apple option. We compared pricing for Apple’s Watch Ultra 2 and Garmin’s 47mm 2nd-generation Epix Pro Edition. The highest-end Apple wearable audio device is the AirPods Max, which iStore sells for R12,499. For an alternative, South Africans can get the Bose QuietComfort Ultra wireless headphones for R11,499
APPLE PRODUCTS SOUTH AFRICA PRICE COMPARISON ALTERNATIVES ELECTRONICS
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